I'm going to be preaching from 2 Corinthians, chapter 8, verses 1 through 9, before I read the word. I want to make just a couple of quick announcements. One, we are so glad everyone is here. There's a blue friendship pad on the left side of each pew. If you would please fill it out, pass it down the pew and then back so you might recognize who it is as worshiping with you today. Also next Sunday, we're going to have a prayer time for our world missions and our parlor from 830 in the morning till 915 would encourage you to be there. Also, if you've ever desired to be in the choir, at least for a day or a time, or if you think you have a good voice and want to see whether they're not that's true. If you want to make a joyful noise from somewhere other than the pews, we're going to have returning our men's ad hoc chorus next Sunday. And the following Sunday, the women's, which is on Valentine's, and I think there was a reason why they chose it to be in that order. So next Sunday, February 7th, the men, if you want to be in the choir, meet here at 8.45 a.m. in Cambridge Hall. Just up the first flight of stairs can't miss it. And then the following Sunday, the 14th, the women will be doing the same thing. And I don't know if you remember it last year or not, but it was very beautiful. It was exciting to see all the different faces in the choir. And I'd encourage you to consider being a part of that. Okay, second Corinthians 8, one through nine, this is part one, part two is coming next week. Here we go. Paul writes, we want you to know brothers about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overwhelmed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means as I can testify and beyond their means of their own free will, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. And this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started so he should complete among you this act of grace. But as you excel in everything in faith and speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness and in our love for you, see that you excel in this act of grace also. I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. This is the word of the Lord. Makes be to God. Please be seated. Father in heaven and the brief moments that we will be looking at this text today, we pray that your spirit would continue to pour out into our lives. That our ears would be opened, our mind able to think correctly, our eyes to see right and our hearts to feel as they should feel. Thank you for what you've done already this hour and pray for your continued work. In Jesus name, amen. Last week I concluded our series in Joshua by revealing to you that he had given them four options. They could serve the Babylonian gods, they could serve the gods of Egypt, they could serve the God of the Amorites, Mollek who desired child sacrifice or they could serve the living God. We know that Joshua said, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord and I'm confident that any man or woman who would profess faith in Christ would say that. They would feel great about that plaque being in their office on the refrigerator in their house. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord and we ended our service last week by making a vow and the vow was this, we proclaim the true promises of God. He is leading us. He is with us. He will never forsake us. But as we consider that phrase, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. We now lean towards what does it mean practically. The reason that gods have been created and served and sacrificed to really since the beginning is because they've sought provision, protection, peace and a perception outside of God's will and we do the same thing. And so though we're quick to say, of course, me and my house will serve the Lord. The temptation is to not serve the Lord but to serve other gods, a pantheon of gods, and for us the God is so often money and it's so seductive and it's so powerful. But talking about money and a church like ours, well it's not really that comforting. It's interesting. Churches talk about money for the wrong reasons. But churches also don't talk about money for the wrong reasons. We should talk about money and we should talk about money often. Why? Because Jesus did. A lot. Because the one who created all things and spoke them into existence understands the lure. He understands the trap. He understands what can happen when we really do fall in love with it and we believe that it will be the ultimate protection. It will be the ultimate provider. It will be what gives us peace. It will give us the right perception. And so Jesus says many things as a warning to the rich and because we're rich, we are. Even the poorest among us here is rich compared to much of the world. We should talk about money. But the reason I think we often don't want to talk about money is that we don't want to be known as one of those churches. We don't want people to visit even today and say that's what I thought. It's one of those churches all they want is my money. Well that's not the kind of church I want to be. I want so much more. I don't want your money. God doesn't want your money. He wants you. All of you. It's not your money to begin with. So we're going to talk about money this Sunday and next and perhaps at other times. Some of you might be offended but I don't think you should be. If we don't talk about money, it's as if I went to a meeting that was organized and I walked into the meeting because it had the right title and I knew where I was and I walked in and I said hi. My name is Mark and I'm an alcoholic. And there at an AA meeting, I say those words, expecting them to welcome me but instead they say, we don't talk about alcohol here. If we don't talk about money, we're not talking about the greatest vice, the greatest chain that can continue to rob us of the joy that God has. And so this morning I'm going to give us the first point from this text. Three more will follow. I'm not going to be able to say everything about money, not everything you wish I would or think I should, but I'm going to share with us the wonder of what God says over the next two Sundays. I know some of you are struggling. You don't have a job or you have a job but you're not making any money. Some of you are deeply in debt. Maybe it's just simply because of bad spinning habits and using credit to sustain a lifestyle that you really can't afford. I've been there. I've done that. I'll tell you more about that next week. The brothers and sisters, the prayer is that all of us, all of God's people would honor the Lord with all of our wealth no matter what your circumstance, no matter what the economy and we should talk about money. In this church, we have a deep money problem. When I say that, most of you think of the budget. You look to the bulletin that as in its panel, this huge deficit. I want you to know right up front the budget is not the issue. In fact, I think God for where our budget is. I think God for what the Lord has done in this church the last couple of years because if it wasn't for the budget, I'm not sure I would be talking about money. And to be honest with you, that's the real problem. You see a couple of years ago when things began to look a little bit lean. As a church, as a leadership, we decided that we were going to look at everything and we were going to begin to cut and we did. We made a lot of decisions which I know a lot of you were real happy about. It was hard. And the Lord may still be calling us to cut more, but I want you to know this. We are now cutting into muscle. People, missionaries, agencies who support will not be able to bless the same way as we've been able to by God's grace for many years. We have sought to be faithful to trim. Now we're asking you and me to honestly look at what God's word says. This is going to be an exciting journey because you're going to see things you didn't see before just as I have seen things that I haven't seen before. But we've got a money problem. And I'm going to tell you what it is. It's a problem that's disguised in a blessing. And for many years in our church, we had the blessing of a surplus. But the blessing of a surplus disguised a real problem. And the real problem is that many of our members, not people who attend regularly, but many of our members don't give a scent to this body. They may very well give to ministries like young life or reformed university fellowship or campus crusade or mercy street or a missionary or two or ten that they love and love the work they're doing. And I'm not in any way saying that that's wrong. But every member of this church should be giving something to this church. 100%. That's the only percentage I'm interested in talking about. Today, I'm not interested in talking about whether it should be 10% or 1%. I can make a case where it should be 25%. I'm not interested. I'm interested in 100% 100% of our members saying I'm given something generously to this body because God's called me to be a part of this body. If not, you really need to think about the value made as a member. The fourth question that comes to you says this, will you promise to the best of your ability to support this church and its work? If the best of your ability as a member is to give nothing, I have a problem with that. I think God has a problem with that. And I want you to hear that. Again, I don't care if it's $5 or $500. I want you to honor the Lord with all your wealth. Don't get distracted by the argument today of whether it should be the church or another organization. If this is your church, you should be given to this church. If this is your church and you're not a member but you're a regular attender, I think you ought to be given here as well. Imagine if everybody said, well, this church seems to be doing fine, it's a rich church, so I'm going to give to other things. If everybody said that, we wouldn't have the wonderful things that we have in this worship service. We wouldn't have many, many ministries that we support, which I hope you trust were being aggressive at making sure we're spending the money well. I want to do that really well. I will be held accountable for that. And I want to do it right. And I believe we're on the right track. Is it perfect? No. This side of heaven, you will always be able to go to a line item and say, what about that? Mark, did you really need to eat at that restaurant? What about that? Do we really need to buy that nice of a coffee table? But if it's true that we can do that as a session and you could do that to us if you look closely, I bet we could do that with each other, couldn't we? I bet we could look at our budgets and say there's more that we could be done. And that's what I want us to do. My simple prayer is this, that over this next week, God would do a very bold work that He would cause all of us to honor Him with all of our wealth. I want you to understand that I'm speaking of a spiritual problem which can only be solved in a spiritual way. So I'm not looking at this simply as we try this or try this. This is a spiritual issue. So let's seek to solve it in a spiritual way. And God's Word teaches us how to do that. Paul uses this group of people, the Macedonians, to elevate their generosity as a model for this church at Corinth, the church that in many ways would be like ours. He says to them that you excel in everything in faith and speech and knowledge, but essentially make sure that you excel in this act of grace also. So here's my first point. If we are to honor the Lord with all of our wealth, number one, it must come from God's grace, write that down. If we are to honor the Lord with all of our wealth, then it must come from God's grace. Here's the foreshadow of the next three points. Number one, we must give from our abundance, and it's not what you think. Just have fun thinking about that this week. Number three, we must beg God to give. And number four, we must give ourselves to him before we ever give him anything else. That's where we're going. That's the four points. So number one today, very briefly, we must give, and this giving must come from God's grace. Here's why I say that. Verse one of chapter 8 says this, we want you to know brothers about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. When Paul speaks about their giving, he speaks of it as a gift that was given to them, a grace that they have been given. Grace is always defined as irresistible. It's something that you get that you didn't deserve. And if you understand the depth of your own poverty and your need, and then when you sense grace, you embrace it. You're excited about it. You want to let the world know about it. That's why when we sing that song, and can it be? And can it bill hill? And can it be that his love would be that amazing? George C. And can it be that his love would be that amazing? Does it not when you sing it cause your heart to stir? Where you realize it makes no sense. And can it be? Yes, because he ordained it. And it's his grace. And so in verse nine, Paul says, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor so that you by his poverty might become rich. And what happens? When we understand what Jesus did, what the choir just sung, when we understand that he came to this earth, demonstrating grace even in doing that, and then he died for us on the cross that we might have life suddenly like the Macedonians our heart begins to swell. And we want to do whatever we can by his grace to give, to give. And so we must understand that if we give, it comes from grace. I want to share something with you. This is true for all of us. It's true for the people right now who give regularly. It's a gift of grace. It's true for the people right now who've never given anything. It's true right now for the people who give sporadically when they have a little bit left over. Giving is a grace of God in response to the grace of God. And it demands a response. Oh, to grace, how great a debtor. That's the first point. I hope you will come back next Sunday to hear the other three. And here's why it's going to change you. The only problem I have with our budget is it's too small. It's been too small for 18 and a half years. Essentially, 10, 11, 12, or 13 families have made this church go financially.
What would happen if every member began to give out of God's grace? What would happen if we all said, Lord, am I honoring you with every cent? What would happen? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what the number would be, but I know that every life would begin to change. Last point, when Joshua said, as for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. He was speaking in continuous action. As for me in my house, we have served the Lord. As for me in my house, we are serving the Lord. As for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. When it comes to honoring the Lord with our wealth, it's not something that we decide to do once. It's something that we must pay very careful attention to really daily. As for me in my house, we will honor the Lord today with our wealth. We will honor the Lord tomorrow with our wealth. And what will happen, brothers and sisters, I don't know, but I believe it will be amazing. So here's my prayer. This week, I asked that you, your spouse, your children, your small group, would all be honest with one another and pray, Lord, enable me to honor you with my wealth. Tomorrow is our pastor's day of prayer. At 6.30 in the morning, we'll have a session meeting, but at 6.30 we're also going to open up the chapel. From 6.30 to 5 tomorrow, I want to invite all of you to come at some point during the day to pray that simple prayer, to pray, Lord, enable me to honor you with my wealth. Give me that grace. Some of you might want to come and just confess. I haven't done that. Some of you might want to confess to a pastor and we'll be there. We need help financially. We're really hurting. We're in really bad debt and I don't know how to get out. Come and confess it. You'll be free. You'll feel that I promise. I've been there at noon, between 12 and 12.45, we're going to have a praise and prayer service. It's going to be much like the one the elders had last Friday night. A season of praise, of thanksgiving, of confession, and then supplication, intercessory prayer, no sermon, just pray, praise, and pray. That's from 12 to 12.45. I want to ask tomorrow that you would come, if you can't, I understand. Pray at your office, or at your desk, or pray while your baby sleeps, but pray. I also want to ask that you fast. If you can't fast, I understand there's people who can't fast because we're talking about a spiritual issue that must be solved in a spiritual way. So let's together as his body, belonging one to another, pray and fast and ask the Lord to open our eyes to his generosity, to the wonder of who he is, of what it really means to be a debtor and a beggar bathing in his grace. I hope I see you there. And if I don't, I hope you'll be praying. We all need it, that we might truly serve the Lord. Amen? With hearts and response to his grace.