Tonight we're in Proverbs chapter
three, if you'd like to turn there. Proverbs chapter three. We're gonna read two verses. Proverbs chapter three, verse
nine and 10. Honor the Lord with thy substance. and with the first fruits of
all thine increase. So shall thy barns be filled
with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. I've titled this message Grace
to Give. Grace to Give. Did you know it
takes grace to give? It takes grace to give. Now,
I believe that this was gloriously purposed that we were gonna be
talking about giving tonight because of all the giving that
was done over the weekend and how much effort and work and
how good everything was, how all the love shown forth and
the fellowship with the brethren, all that was as glorious. The topic tonight is giving.
So I'm thankful that that was the case. I'm glad we didn't
do this last Wednesday. Everybody would have been thinking,
oh boy, our pastor's thinking we better get it in gear. We
better do this and do that. No, tonight I want, the topic's
of great importance. But there's so many that misconstrue
this, and in religion especially, false religion, it misconstrues
this, and they pervert the truth. So I desperately sought the Lord
about this. My intention tonight, as every
time I stand, is to give us the instruction of the Lord and the
simplicity of it, but to tell us the simplicity that's found
only in Christ and his gospel. That's our hope tonight, that
we would see Christ in his giving and what he has given to his
people. We wanna have a message that
glorifies the Lord's son, don't we? Every time we come into this
building, every time gospel preacher stands, that should be the motivation
that the Lord would get all the glory to declare his finished
work. And at the same time, at the same time, the Lord's teaching
us something. And the question I would ask
us, does the Lord's people need to be taught how to give? Does
the Lord's people need to be taught how to give? The answer
to that is yes, yes, we need to be taught. Does the Lord's
people give without being taught? Yes, yes, certainly, certainly. So as we come across this, As
we come across this text, I knew in studying this, Lord, what
are you declaring unto us? What's the physical and what's
the spiritual? What's the spiritual? Because
we wanna know the truth, don't we? Lord's people, we want to
know the truth. We want to know what thus saith the Lord. Oftentimes,
we must just declare the truths that others have lied about.
Others have made giving a law, a practice of Condemn others they put them
under the they use it as a whip if you don't I remember one time
You you you'll probably laugh at this. This is this really
happened from a pulpit man said And I hope to be as clear as
I can tonight. We don't just give money, we give time, we
give prayers unto the Lord for each other. There's so much to
being a believer in love towards each other. But this man was
up there talking about giving and he said, boy, you better
be giving your tithe. You better be giving your tithe.
He said, I told a man last week, you better give his tithe. And
that Friday he got sent to the emergency room and had his appendix
taken out. The Lord got his tithe. That's so silly. So that's, that's
just, oh, that's, that's, uh, that's ugly, isn't it? That's
not what God does. God does. If he, if he punishes
me for something that I do, if he, if I can, if he casts judgment
upon us and we're in Christ, then that's double punishment,
isn't it? No, he don't punish us. He chastens us. He teaches
us. But the Lord's people give out
of love, not out of obligation, not out of responsibility unto,
because of fear or because of, well, if I don't do that, what,
he's gonna get angry at me. He's gonna do this or he, no.
No, we give unto him because the scripture tells us clearly,
God so loved the world. What did he do? He gave, he gave. They're in his love. That's what,
that's the expression of love is giving, is giving. The preacher's
begging and men take these verses brethren, like they do of all
scripture and they manipulate it and they try to scare people.
And if a preacher is begging for money, God's not in what
he's doing. If a preacher is up here begging
for money, telling, Oh, you, you, you need to give more money.
You need to give more money. He's God's not in what he's doing.
God's not broke. God's not broke. He matter of
fact, he owns everything. He owns everything. I had a man in Africa that was
messaging me over Facebook, and I got excited over this because
they asked me to preach for them. I got on the phone with this
guy, and I was preaching, tried to preach the gospel to him,
about a 15-minute message or so, and they, oh, yeah, that's
the truth. That's the gospel. We believe
that. I thought, hmm, interesting. And I tried not to get too excited
over this, and he kept talking to me for weeks and weeks and
weeks and months and months. And then one day, he said, I
need you to support me. And I said, what do you mean?
He said, I need you to support my ministry. And I said, what ministry do
you do? He said, well, he said, I try to go from house to house.
And I try to tell people about the gospel. And we try to have
a food drive. And we have this thing that we
do. And he sent me a video of it.
And they're walking around the city dancing and singing and
all kinds of stuff. I said, I can't support you. And whenever I said that, as
soon as I said no, and I was kind, I wasn't ugly, oh, he turned
on me. And he said, well, you are, he
didn't say false prophet, but he said, you're not a brother
then. That's what he said. You should not treat your brother
this way. And Bible says that you should give unto your brother
if you haven't. He tried to shame me. He tried to guilt me. He
tried to make me feel, obligate, like I needed to do something
to fix, I was in the wrong. Did you know that's what the
law does? That's what the law, preaching the law, all it does
is just reveal guilt. It doesn't relieve us of the
burden of sin. It doesn't give us a place to
rest. That's what the law does is it creates the burden of the
responsibility of sin. And I told this man, I said,
I'm not gonna help you. I'm not gonna help you. He blocked
us on Facebook and whatever. And then that's the end of the
story. Men want to shame people into giving. They want to guilt
people into giving. They want to motivate people
by fear. If a man does that, he's not
representing the Lord. What was the Lord's motivation
unto the Father? Love. What was the father's motivation
unto his people? Love. If we give, and I say if,
because if you don't want to give, don't give. Furthermore,
if you're giving only out of obligation that you have to,
don't give. But certainly if you're giving
because it's something to do with your salvation, whether
you're, has anything to do with your salvation, definitely don't
give. But if the Lord's given you love in your heart to give,
the scripture says the Lord loves a cheerful giver. Why? Because
the Lord gladly laid down his life for his people. Now this
is, we have plenty of money in the bank account right now. The
Lord's been faithful to bless us here. We don't, we're not,
we're not doing without. Did you know that? We're, the
Lord's taking good care of us. And so this is a timely message
because if the bank account was at zero, it'd be a, A little
different situation. Everybody would view it a little
bit different, wouldn't they? But no, this is about what the Lord is
saying here. Look what he's saying. Honor
the Lord with thy substance and with the firstfruits of all that
increase, so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy
presses shall burst out with new wine. Did you know that if we get up
here, we just preach the law and make people feel guilty?
We'll never see the beauty of the law. We love the Lord's law
because it made, it drove us to Christ. We can't fulfill the
law. That's what the Lord showed us.
He revealed himself as holy and as just. He said, I will not
acquit the guilty. So preaching any form of the
law, whether it's in giving, whether it's in living, it's
not gonna bring a man to repentance. It's not. We preach Christ. And the Lord, the goodness, what
brings men to repentance? The goodness of the Lord, the
love of the Lord, that's what leads men to repentance. Well,
if we never see the beauty of the law, we'll try to work the
law and thereby commit iniquity, won't we? If we give because,
you know, that's something interesting to say. If we give 10% because
you say, well, that's what's written down in the Old Testament,
that's what we should give 10%. That's under the law, did you
know that? That's keeping the law. It doesn't matter to me
what you give. It's between you and the Lord.
It's between you and the Lord. But don't do it and try to keep
the law either. No, we don't do that either.
We give as the Lord has prospered us unto him for his glory. That's why we give. We don't
give for recognition. We don't give out of obligation.
We give out of love what we can unto him. I had three questions I was going
to ask us, and we're going to look at the spiritual aspect
of this too. It's important we hear the physical. You know,
a lot of these times we, some preachers skirt around this,
but the Lord's given us a clear, not only a commandment, but a
promise here, a glorious promise. You can't out give God. He tells
us the ones that give are the ones that's gonna receive. That's
just what the scripture tells us. The more you give, the more
the Lord is gonna give unto you. He takes care of his people,
don't he? I'm reminded that the scripture says, a sparrow is
sold for a farthing. Not one sparrow falls to the
ground unnoticed. How much more your heavenly Father,
how much more do you think he takes note of you? And he tells
us in another place that you being evil know how to give good
gifts unto your children. How much more you heavenly Father
given to you, them which ask. You just ask, ask and you shall
receive. If you're in need of the Lord, you're in need of something
in life, ask him, pray unto him. And this message is not intended. to make us feel guilty. Actually,
I hope the message makes us feel liberated, to be honest with
you. Lord, bless my efforts here. By the time we're done, I hope
we walk away feeling encouraged in the gospel and liberated. Liberated from feeling bondage. I don't want to feel bondage.
This isn't a bondage message. So three questions. Why do we
give? What do we give? And when do
we give? This message is intended to declare
the simplicity of Christ, as I've already said, the liberating
truth of his simple instruction and of his gospel that we're
gonna talk about all throughout this. I've already said if you
don't wanna give, don't, and I wanna iterate that a couple
times probably because my intention is not to, somebody told me one
time, he's not a believer, first of all, not a believer, but he
said, are you up there lighting a fire underneath them to tithe
more? And I was like, No, that's not
my job. My job is to preach Christ. My
job is to teach us what the Lord gives me to teach us in his word
instruction. That's what a pastor does. I
wouldn't go down to a conference and preach on giving. That would
be, I guess you could, as long as it's Christ-centered. That'd
be kind of odd, you know what I mean? Your pastor told me to
come here and preach on giving. No, we don't do that. No, we
preach Christ. We love him because he first
loved us. We give because he gave first.
It takes nothing short, brethren, nothing short of the grace of
God to give out of love. I wanna say that again. It takes
nothing short but the grace of God to give out of love. We give
unto our families because we love them. We sacrifice for our
children because we love them. And we do the same in our church.
We sacrifice our time, that's giving. When you pray and you're
asking, you're not gonna change God's mind. So why do you pray?
Well, number one, we're commanded to, but we're commanded to pray
for each other. That's a selfless act of giving. That's a selfless act. And we
do that with joy. I get to pray for you. You get
to pray for me. And if you have nobody else to
pray for, pray for me. I need all the prayers you can
pray for me. I need to be prayed for. I believe
in prayer. It draws our heart. The Lord
uses it to draw our heart into him and he uses it to knit our
hearts together. He does. He does. But that's
part of giving also. Praying. Begging him. He said
in everything give thanks. Everything give thanks. Pray
without ceasing. What does that mean? It means
at any point be ready to pray. If you're driving down the road,
and the Lord brings it. Lord, bring it to our memory,
our mind, to pray more often. I need that. When I'm working
on something, you know, if I'm about to use a saw or something,
Lord, don't let me cut my finger off here. Keep me safe. You know,
I'm serious. Bring your petitions before the
Lord. He hears His people. He hears His people because of
what Christ accomplished on the cross of Calvary. He hears us
when we pray. Our prayers go up before His
throne. He hears his people because of Christ. Now in giving, somebody said
give 10%. Abraham's our example in that,
but you won't find in the New Testament how much we're supposed
to give. I can't find it. Maybe another pastor knows it,
but you won't hear me say give 10%. Give what the Lord allows
you, enables you, with the heart that he's given you, whatever
it is. And if it's nothing, don't give. I mean, it's that simple.
I can't, this is what the scripture says, 2 Corinthians 9, 7. Every
man, this isn't just my opinion, this is what the Lord says. Every
man, according as he has purposed in his heart, so let him give,
not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver. See, to give is because of grace. You've received grace. You've
received love in your heart towards the Lord. You can't give without
grace. Did you know that? God has to
give grace in order for you and I to give. So why do we give?
Because the Lord's given us the grace to give. He's given us
the means. And I don't just mean the financial means, but he's
given us the heart. He's given us the faith to believe
him. And really, Not giving or giving is a matter of faith.
Do I believe him? Do I trust him? Do I give the
first fruits or do I wait till the end of the month and see
what's left over and say, okay, that's all I'm going to give
unto him. That's not a faith, is it? We give as the Lord enables
us of the first fruit. This is what he's telling us
here. If you can give, brethren, it's
because he has given you grace, the desire, the love, the means.
And someone says, I can't give much. You know who gave two mites? Don't feel guilty. Don't feel
guilty. A widow gave two mites, and the Lord said she gave all
she had. She gave more. The Lord was watching them in the temple
as they were coming up, and they were casting some of them. Rich folk
were casting all kinds of money in the basket, and this widow
woman comes in, puts in two pennies. What can you buy with two pennies?
But you know what the Lord said? She's given more than any of
you. She gave more than any of you. See, the Lord looks at the
heart, brethren. The Lord's looking at your heart
and what you're doing. You're doing it unto him for
his glory, for his honor. This is one of the ways the Lord
says, I get glory from you giving. I get glory from you giving. I've said this before, but God
isn't broke. I wrote down ain't, but All the
Tennessee people's lifts, I gotta straighten back out now. Takes
me about a week. God ain't broke. God ain't broke. He don't need your money. Did
you know that? He don't need my money. He don't
need me to be a preacher. Do you know that? He made a donkey
preach his truth. He don't need me. Oh, we can't,
we shouldn't. not give because we're waiting
on somebody else and we shouldn't give to, we give whatever the
Lord's allowed us to. He don't need it. He don't need
anything from us, but we get to, we get to give unto the Lord
and his gospel and hope that he calls us, hope that he keeps
us here and hope that he doesn't let the light of this place go
out. That's why we give. That's why we give. He told us
if I was hungry, I wouldn't tell you. I wouldn't tell you. He owns everything. He said he
owns the cattle of a thousand hills, and in Tennessee term,
we used to say he owns the taters in the hills. He owns it all.
He owns it all. So why give? Because he's given
us the grace to. He's given us the heart to, and
he's enabled us to. We love him, we love his gospel.
The second thing, how do we give? Well, never out of obligation
or necessity. Never as part of our salvation. To give is to
give out of love. That's why. And thirdly, what
do we give? Everything. Everything. It says, honor the Lord with
thy substance. Everything. Is it not true that
we love the Lord, our God, with all of our heart, mind, and soul,
and strength, when we look to Christ through faith? That's how the Lord views it.
If that is the demand, love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart,
mind, soul, and strength, we know we can't do that. But looking
unto Christ, because of what he gave, we love the Lord with
all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. That's the new
man, created in righteousness in Christ Jesus. That's what
we give unto him. Every fiber of our being, everything
that we are, we give unto him. We've got to have him. We want
to be owned by him, don't we? We do. Let's read it again. What is
our substance? What is our substance? Is it money? Is that our substance?
Well, I'll tell you this, we don't give God anything that
he's in need of. We do not give him anything that
he's in need of. And if a man is trying to convince
you that he needs something, we're not in the business of
that. We're not. That's just a business. That's
what that is. God needs your money. No, he doesn't. No, he
doesn't. God doesn't. We're not giving him anything
that he needs. We're not giving to obligate him. Men give to
obligate. Well, I've done this. I remember
one time somebody, they donated some money to a church and they
said, okay, we want a plaque to put over the door so that
whenever everybody comes, they'll know that Joe Brown gave $25,000
to the church. You know, they wanted that recognition.
And I don't know if they, and it's their righteousness. I know
it is, but that was the reward right there. I mean, if they
got the plaque. Anyways, we don't do it to gain
favor with man or gain favor with God. We don't do it to obligate
God. We give because we love Him.
We love Him because He first loved us. Evidence of His love
is the same evidence of our love. We give unto each other, don't
we? And we give unto Him. I came by, what was it? Monday,
I guess, and several of you ladies were cleaning up the church,
and I was tickled to death. I'm like, thank you, I don't
have to do that. And it looks great, that you gave. That's
giving unto the Lord. That's what that is. Brother
Mack, you've been doing some painting on the church for some
time. That's giving unto the Lord. We give, don't we, Joe? You did all this. And here's
the thing. Everybody's looking at me like,
why are you giving me recognition? I don't want recognition. That's
the point. That's the point. You didn't do it for me. And
you didn't do it for you. You did it unto the Lord. That's
the heart that the Lord gives his people. That's the motivation
unto him because of the love that you have for him. Because
he first loved you and he gave you that love. This is why we give he's given
us the grace Grace to us to give everything that we are to him.
Somebody said, well, I'm gonna give my heart to Jesus. Lord,
don't need our heart. But we desire to give it to him,
don't we? Lord, take my heart. See if there'll be any wickedness
in me. Lord, take my life. Lord, take all of me. That's
how we give unto the Lord everything. You won't hear that much in false
religion. They spend a lot of time on giving money, but they
don't talk about giving. They talk about doing works and things
like that, but I'm talking about Desiring to be owned by him,
just desiring to be one of his sheep. Today, we were in the
kitchen trying to find a lid. We've had visitors at our house
for the last couple of weeks. You guys know that. Different families
have came through. And some of them like to help in the kitchen.
And when that happens, some of the dishes get put in the, everybody
has a certain spot for certain dishes. You know exactly what
I'm talking about. And they wanted to give. They wanted to help.
So they were doing dishes. They were putting things up. And me and my wife,
I come in the kitchen, and she's, A little bit flustered, to say
the least. And I said, what's wrong? She said, I can't find
this item. And I said, OK, well, what's the problem? She said,
well, if I can't find it, I can't grind the coffee. And we won't
have any coffee. I said, OK, well, I'll help you find it. So here
I am on my knees, digging through the pantry. And I'm on the, she's
on her knees. We're up in the cabinets. I found
a lot of stuff I didn't know I had, actually. But I didn't
find what I needed for a long time. She found it. And you know
what she did when she found it? She stopped looking. She didn't
have to look anymore. See, our loving Lord, he loved
us so much, he left the 99 to find the one lost sheep. He didn't have to, he knew where
we were. But the picture is the shepherd looking all over the
countryside, not stopping, no matter rain, no matter what it
was, no matter a storm, he had to find the sheep. And on the
cross of Calvary, He redeemed every one of His sheep. That's
who gave the most, is the Lord. He gave His life. The Father
gave His Son and the Son gave His life, poured out His soul
as an offering unto death for His people to put away their
sin. He found His sheep, didn't He? He found His sheep. Behold
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we
should be called the sons of God. No greater love hath any
man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
The Lord showed us by example how to give, how to give. Is it not true that we desire
him all the time? When do you not need the Lord?
When do you not need the Lord? That's a rhetorical question,
because if you can say at a certain point, now, I understand our
minds, and we're flesh, and our minds will wonder, and we're
not really thinking on heavenly things, or thinking about the
Lord, but truly, at any point, if we look at each other and
say, do you still need the Lord, and we're made to think about
it, the answer is always, I always need him. I always need him. There's never a time, never a
second that goes by that we're not crying out, Lord, have mercy
on me. Lord, save me. Lord, don't leave
me to myself. Don't leave me to myself. All the time we pray for one
another, we edify one another. Sometimes I'll get a phone call
from one of you and we'll talk for a little bit and it's always
about the gospel. That's giving to each other. It's giving our
time, isn't it? To point each other to Christ again. That's giving.
That's what that is, that's giving. The Lord's people, the most generous
people, they give to each other. I didn't hear anybody this weekend
say, well, I did a little bit more than you did. I brought
two cases of water and you only brought one. I brought two apple
pies, you only brought a handful of peanuts. You won't hear that,
why? Because you're not doing it for
praise of each other. We're not doing it so other churches
will say, boy, Holy Grace Church, they're something else. It's
nice to hear our brethren say that they had a good time and
that they were well taken care of. You don't want them to say
they had a bad time, but we don't do it for their praise, do we?
We do it unto the Lord. Joyce said right before service,
she said the food was really good. And she said, well, I don't
mean the, The actual food we ate, I mean the spiritual food.
I knew exactly what she meant. The groceries were good and the
spiritual food was good too. The Lord did that. And it was
all because the men that were up here, they were giving of
their time to study. They were giving unto you to
offer up this, what the Lord's given them. They left their churches,
they flew up here, they gave their time. Do you think they
won't recognition because of that? No. No, it's all the Lord's
time, isn't that? That's what we give, we give
time. Why? Because the Lord's given us time. We give financial
means because the Lord's given us financial necessities. We do that. We give whatever
it is. We give unto him because he put
it in our heart to do so. David said, my times are in thy
hands, O Lord. Our time came from him. We give
our strength to him. We give our strength, don't we?
It didn't... Didn't take a lot of strength,
but everything that got put together this week, that was strength.
We had to lift tables, we had to lift chairs, had to lift up
each other a couple times whenever some of us may be getting discouraged,
we lifted with our, we worked together. And brethren, we don't,
In giving unto the Lord, we give our worship unto him. We don't
worship anything but him, do we? There's no other God besides
him. We don't worship anything but him. We give our worship
unto him, and it's because he gave us the heart to worship
him. He gave us the strength to do so. He gave us the time
to give. He gave us the money to give.
Whatever it is, he gave it to begin with, and he owns it all.
He owns it all. Now here it talks about the firstfruits,
but I wanna remind you of something in 1 Corinthians 15, 20, but
now Christ is risen from the dead and become the firstfruits
of them that slept. See, we don't look to our firstfruits,
we don't look to our increase, we don't look to what we give,
we look to the firstfruit of Christ. We don't offer up our
works, we don't offer, we don't give, and I wanna stress this,
we don't give as a work in order to gain something. We don't give
as a work to gain something. That's the wrong motivation.
If we're giving, it's the proper way, it's out of love. We look
to the same thing God looks to as our righteousness, our redemption,
our sanctification, and it's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the
only one that is all those things. We don't give in order to gain
something. We look to the firstfruits of
Christ as our hope in salvation. Now I wanna read this one more
time here. Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the firstfruits
of all thine increase, so shall thy barns be filled with plenty
and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. We give to the
Lord our substance because he's given the grace, the need to,
the desire to. What's the motivation to give?
Because he gave. Gave his son, father gave his
son, the son gave his life. Lord Jesus Christ shed his blood.
He finished the work, pouring out his soul. I've already said
this before, but that's what the Lord gave and God was satisfied. Because of this, and I wanna
see the spiritual aspect of this, because of what Christ gave on
the cross of Calvary, your barns are full. Your barns are full. There was a story that the Lord
told, a parable. He said there was a rich man
one time who had, the ground was blessed and he had many,
many crops. He was gaining crops. He got
so much crops that it overflowed his barn. He said, well, I'm
gonna have to tear down these barns and build new barns. And he said,
after I get done with that and fill them up, I'll tell my soul,
soul take rest. Take rest, for your work's done. You have plenty for years. And
the Lord said, when that happened, that day, he said, thou fool,
tonight, tonight thy soul is required of thee. Now what's
the picture there? What's the spiritual application
there? Either you're storing, either the Lord's put grace and
mercy in your barn. The barn is a picture of the
body. It's a type and picture of your
person, your individual. If you're storing up, he has
to be the one that gives it. If he has given you grace, and
he's given you mercy, and he's given you truth, and he's given
you peace, that's what he's stored up in your barn. That's what
he does for his people. But everybody else, what do they
store up? Self-righteousness? Pride? all these other things,
and they think that they're good, they're gonna be just fine. But
no, because of what Christ Jesus did on the cross of Calvary,
you and I have mercy in our barn. We have grace in our barn. And therefore, we do give, we
honor the Lord with our substance. We honor the Lord with the first
fruits. And what is that first fruit?
That's the Lord Jesus Christ. We desire to honor the Son. We desire to honor the Son. David
said this, my cup runneth over. He had a full barn, didn't he?
You and I have full barns. And we know we have full barns
because we have Christ. Christ is all. Christ is all. And I understand this may be
a little bit confusing, but what I'm trying to tell you is that
So many people will take this and not realize, even in the
part where he says, thy presses shall burst out with new wine.
What does the wine represent? Is that not the blood of our
Lord Jesus Christ? What is that? Does it not grow
new every day? Is it not afresh to you? And
does it not become more desirous of us to have the blood of Christ
applied to us? That's what he's talking about.
Every morning we wake up and his mercies are renewed. And
we see Christ's blood has put away the sin of his people. Our
barns are full. My cup runneth over. That's what
the message is here. We honor the Lord with the praise
of our lips. We honor the Lord with our substance. We glorify
the Son. We praise the Son. As you see His grace, brethren,
praise Him more. Praise Him more. Give Him praise
more. That's giving, isn't it? Give
Him praise more in the heart. You don't want to be walking
around Walmart and find something on sale and say, praise God really
loud. But first of all, people look at you like you're weird,
but that's what a lot of people in false religion do. It's just
drawing attention to yourself. You don't want to do that. But
you can praise Him in your heart. You can say, thank you, Lord.
I could have been in a car wreck just then. Thank you, Lord. Something
bad could have happened or inconvenient, I guess, may be a better word.
No, you've kept me. Most of all, you've given me
your son. You've saved me from my sin. You really put away my
sin. Thank you, Lord. We can praise him. We can praise
our Lord, and he hears those praises. Never do it out of obligation,
but because our barns are full of his goodness. We never give
out of obligation, but we give because our barns are full. Think
about the cause and effect there. If I give for my barn to be full,
It's not the motivation, not the right reason. But if I give
because I see that my barn, my cup runneth over, my barns are
full. That's the love he's put there. Love for his gospel, a
love for his people. Our presses are full of his eternal
life for his people. Our barns are full of peace,
joy, righteousness, mercy, and truth. He's given us all of that.
And the truth is brethren, we have what we have because his
son was pressed under the wrath of God, pressed, trotted in like
a wine press. The scripture says he was emptied so that we would
be made full. He was forsaken so that we would
never be forsaken. He poured out his soul unto death
for his people so that you and I would never have to taste the
sting of death. This is what he did on the cross
of Calvary for his people. Men say you have to do this and
you have to do that in order for God to do this, in order
for God to do that, they have it totally backwards. We heard
it this weekend. We don't do in order for God
to do something, we do because God has done something. God's
enabled us to do it. That's the truth of it, isn't
it? If we give, it's because he's enabled us to give, whatever
that giving is, whatever that doing is. Now let's read this
one last time. Honor the Lord with thy substance
and with the firstfruits of all thy increase, so shall thy barns
be filled with plenty and thy presses shall burst out with
new wine. Lord's people do we give out of love because he came
to where we were by grace. If he'd have left us where we
were, We wouldn't have known any different, really, until
we saw him face to face. But now that we see what would
have happened if he left us where we were, oh, we rejoice. He came
exactly to where we were. We couldn't get to him, came
to where we were. I'm gonna show us that in closing.
Turn with me to Luke chapter 19. This is the story of Zacchaeus. I
don't know that I've ever preached the story of Zacchaeus to our
congregation before. Now Zacchaeus, first of all,
would have been a tax collector employed by the Romans, employed
by the Romans. He's in the city of Jericho at
this present time and the Lord's passing by. Now, a tax collector,
he would have been hated. He would have been hated because
he would have made all of his money on extortion. The example
I would give us is he would say, you know, you owe 5% this year. You owe 5% when really they only
owe 3. What do you think went, what happened to the other 2%
that went to his pocket? And so people hated him. He was despised. So look here in verse one of
chapter 19. I'm in the wrong place. And Jesus entered, and passed
through Jericho. And behold, there was a man named
Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans. And he was
rich. And look at this next verse.
And this is grace. This is grace right here. And
he sought to see Jesus, who he was. and could not for the press
because he was little of stature." What do I mean that that's grace?
God put the desire in Zacchaeus' heart to see the Lord Jesus Christ
before Zacchaeus even knew who he was. He didn't have a clue
that God was gonna be walking past. He had just heard and said,
I'm gonna go see him. The Lord did that. You remember
in your life, whenever the Lord brought you to the place of repentance,
he brought you to the place of hearing, You weren't accidentally
at the right place at the right time. That was all purposed by
God before the foundation of the world, just like it is here
with Zacchaeus. Now look in verse four. He ran before and climbed
up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that
way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him
and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for
today I must abide at thy house. He made haste and came down and
received him joyfully. That's the effectual call of
grace. That's what that is. That's a command. No command
of our Lord that's... Think about this. Zacchaeus had
never met the Lord Jesus Christ before. And the Lord looks at
him and says, Zacchaeus, come down. For today, I'm going to
abide at your house. That's the call of grace right
there, isn't it? It is. And he joyfully received him. I love that. And when they saw
it, oh, there's always them, ain't there? There's always them.
When they saw it, they murmured, saying that he was going to be
guest with a man that is a sinner. Aren't you thankful for those
words? He's going to be guest with a man that is a sinner.
As a matter of fact, he came to save sinners, didn't he? Came
to save sinners. Verse eight. Now, this is the
work here. that's done in the heart because
of the effectual call, because the Lord's revealed to Zacchaeus
who he was, because God saved him. This is the result of that.
Nothing that Zacchaeus is about to do is the cause of salvation,
but the result of it. And look what it is. Zacchaeus
stood and said unto the Lord, behold, Lord, the half of my
goods I have to pour. I give to the poor. And if I
have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore
him. fourfold. And Jesus said to him,
this day is salvation come to this house for as much as he
also is a son of Abraham." That's the elect, the son of Abraham.
He's not talking about physical Israel, he's talking about spiritual
Israel. He's saying he's an elect, he's a child of God. Salvation's
come to this house. But not because Zacchaeus gave. And that's the most important
part here. It wasn't that Zacchaeus gave
and therefore salvation came to the house. No, the Lord's
salvation sitting at his table. Salvation came to Zacchaeus right
where he was and the result of that is he made things right
with everyone he had wronged and he gave. He gave fourfold. Now you think about two days
ago when Zacchaeus was still being a tax collector, did he
have any interest in giving fourfold back to everybody he had taken
from? No, it says he was rich. That's what it says. He was rich.
The Lord gives us the heart to give, doesn't he? Verse 10, for the Son of Man
is come to seek and to save. that which was lost. Aren't you
thankful the Lord came to where you and I, where you and I, wherever
we were, uh, this man was in a sycamore tree. I don't, I don't
know where we were at the time, but he, he came exactly to where
we were. And he said, today, I'm going
to abide in your house. Come down, come down off your
high horse. That's what happened to Saul
knocked him off of his horse. Didn't he? That's what he does
for all of his people. causes us to see Christ is all
in salvation. We're not doing anything to add
to or take away from the finished work of Christ. We are pleased
with the Lord Jesus Christ alone. His blood alone is our righteousness,
our sanctification, our justification. We are pleased with him. We don't
do anything that we do out of obligation. We don't do anything
that we do out of, uh, uh, to add to or to obligate God. Anything, any giving that we
do is unto him for the love that he's shown forth unto us. That's
the only reason. Ephesians 2.10 says, for we are
his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. I love
this verse. We are his workmanship. Created
in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. Scripture says the steps, the
steps of a godly man, a righteous man are ordered by the Lord. How can I be godly? I've gotta
be in Christ. Gotta be in Christ. And everything
that we do, Lord's ordained it. Good works unto him. What's a
good work? Well, the gospel. Preaching his gospel. That's
considered a good work. Declaring Him, declaring Him. May the Lord give us grace to
give, brethren, as He, and thank God He supplies everything He
requires, everything He requires. Somebody said, I can't give.
Well, He may not have given you enough to give then. Give your
time, give your prayers. Pray for me, if nothing else.
If you don't wanna give, don't give. Don't want to, don't. I
don't have expectations up here in my mind. Well, let's see,
I'm counting numbers now. No, this thing of giving is love
from the heart. It's got to be. It's got to be.
And it's not just under the Lord in money. It's into each other
in time and prayer and. And then maybe some affection,
too. I hug some of you sometimes I like to get hugs, you know.
Anyways, let's pray. Lord, bless your word to our
understanding, cause us to believe and be found doing that Lord,
which you have. Purposed according to your will.
It's in your name we pray, amen.