26-0215p - Detailed Summary

Preacher Steve notes that as he mentioned that morning God’s divine intervention in providence is something we need to always recognize. He has complete control of this world in everything that it does. No matter what subject we want to talk about God has His hand in it including divine intervention providence and preservation. He has more to do and more to say about our finances either independently individually or even as a nation or as a world. It revolves around His will.

One of the things Steve likes to think in terms of is Paul’s talking about God’s involvement in our lives as seen in Acts chapter 17. Paul is in Athens on Mars Hill given the opportunity to speak to the Athenians. He is aroused and dismayed by all the idols for the various gods of the many nations. He stumbles upon a statue dedicated to the Unknown God and uses it to share with them this God that they ignorantly worship.

Reading from the New International Version starting at verse 22 Paul stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said people of Athens I see that in every way you are very religious for as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship I even found an altar with this inscription to an Unknown God. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands and he is not served by human hands as if he needed anything. Rather he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.

From one man he made all the nations that they should inhabit the whole earth and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. Steve points out that God even established where people are going to live such as the Chinese in their land Africans in theirs South Americans in theirs and Americans in the United States. We should be thankful for living here as he would not want to live in very many parts of the world. This is a beautiful point about the world.

He continues noting that God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him though he is not far from any one of us for in him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said we are his offspring. Steve wants to make the point that Paul is acknowledging God determines anything that involves finances. The way he moved people around in those days and the way he moves people around today he believes he still does.

In times past God used famines and circumstances to move people. He used Abraham with his personal situation involving his nephew Lot and got Abraham to move to a certain area. This was to show and give Abraham’s descendants assurance that they would have this land as an inheritance.

When it came time for Jacob to fulfill the prophecy that God made concerning the Israelites living in Egypt it took more than just Joseph being moved and sold as a slave into Egypt. It took more than that preparation God made to get Jacob to move. Jacob realized Joseph is alive and wants to see his son which might mean moving to Egypt. But the determining factor was a huge famine that took over the place. It took the famine to get Jacob to even think in terms of moving his family to Egypt.

God had to assure him that he needed to go because he had made a prophecy to Abraham that his family would be in Egypt in a land where they would be strangers. They would live there for five hundred years then come back and come out to live in the land God wanted to give to him and his family as an inheritance. It took a famine but God moves people around.

We lose jobs and we get jobs. For example Ford Motor Company which Steve is very familiar with because he lives in Lorain had a large facility there and still has some. They are in cahoots with Mazda making pickup trucks in Avon or Sheffield. In order to get people to come to Lorain there had to be jobs. Lorain has the International Festival because people come from all nations Russia Czechoslovakia and Romania and they are all living in that area. Jobs brought them there.

Ford decided to open up a plant there and people from the South decided they needed a job. So they came in huge numbers to take on the jobs Ford was going to establish. Then after several years many years Ford decided they did not need that plant anymore. So they closed it down. But they gave the employees the opportunity to relocate. God moves people in various and many ways and especially financially too.

As Steve was on the way up here with Scott and Jean this afternoon we got to talking about how God involves Himself in crops for the farmers and how He involves Himself with their cattle their herds. He makes it profitable for them to increase their profits or to decrease their herds in order to force the market to go certain ways. God divinely intervenes in our lives.

Just as a point take a look at Job. If you are familiar with the story of Job you know that God blessed him. That was one of the points that Satan made when God says to Satan have you seen my servant Job he eschews evil. What was the thing that Satan said to God? Would not you if you were blessed like you blessed him all the time? I will bet you he would if you would take his finances away from him he would curse you. And God took Satan up on that.

Then Satan comes back again. God says where have you been? I have been out traveling around the world. Have you observed Job my servant? He eschews evil. Again if you will just let me take his health away from you he will curse you. And so God allowed that to happen to him.

We have examples after examples about how God divinely intervenes in our lives. The main thing we are talking about today is finances. One of the things that attracted Steve to work with the congregation here especially the first time was the location. He loves this location and he still loves this location. He still thinks that God has got plans for you plans for us perhaps who knows.

Steve believes that God in his infinite ways is going to bless this congregation and it is going to bless him very well. He really believes that. He shared that with Scott when Scott asked him if he would come up here and throw his experiences a little bit this way. Steve said yes he will because he believes there is life here and he believes God is going to bless this congregation.

He thinks that is because of the history of this congregation and its history and benevolence. When he was preaching here the second time the benevolence was just fabulous. Brother Fouts was involved in it at that time. They were helping the various families attend. This congregation is noted for its benevolence.

Steve thinks that God is going to bless this congregation in many many ways. It is something that we need to stop and think about. God involves himself in our lives. In this particular case he wants us to be beneficial and he wants us to have programs of benevolence. We are helping individuals not only those of our number who are in need from time to time but also those that we come across.

This is one of the reasons why Steve asked us to take a look at 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9 in particular. Because chapters 8 and 9 talk about benevolence. It talks in chapter 8 about Israel’s specific need for finances for financial help. He does not know if we have the time to read both chapters in its entirety and for him to make a comment on it but he would like to make an attempt at it. Let us take a look at chapter 8 and then we will go into chapter 9 and finish up with that scripture that was read.

Paul is talking to the Corinthians and he wants them to be benevolent. He is going to be using Macedonia as an example for their benevolence and their desire to help Israel out. Paul wants to take a collection to help the Christians in Israel in Jerusalem in particular because they are experiencing a famine themselves.

Steve notes that farmers in the south will help farmers in the north when they are needing and farmers in the north will help the farmers in the south when they are needing. The concept is that God is going to bless one area so that they can help the one. God is going to bless the other area so that they can help this one. They are constantly balancing each other out.

Picking up at verse 1 and now brothers and sisters we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. The reason is because they are willing to be benevolent. There are poor congregations there are poor people. Paul is going to be talking about lifting them up about how they were so generous. Brothers and sisters we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Remember the word grace because God is blessing them because of the things that they have done. God will bless this congregation because of the things that it has done.

In the midst of a very severe trial their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own they urgently pled with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. They exceeded our expectations. They gave themselves first of all to the Lord and then by the will of God also to us.

So we urged Titus just as he had earlier made a beginning to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. But since you excel in everything in faith in speech in knowledge in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you see that you also excel in this grace of giving. Paul is really going to emphasize how God is going to bless people and make it possible for us to be benevolent. He has just expressed that about Macedonia.

I am not commanding you but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. 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 through his poverty might become rich. He is making reference to the fact that Jesus left heaven to take on flesh and to be that sacrifice on the cross for your and my sins. So he through his yet for your sake he became poor so that through his poverty might become rich.

Here is my judgment verse 10 about what is best for you in this matter.

Paul continues addressing the Corinthians last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. Now finish the work so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it according to your means. He emphasizes according to your means. He is not asking them to excel or to be uncomfortable about it. For if the willingness is there the gift is acceptable according to what one has not according to what one does not have.

Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard-pressed but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality. As it is written the one who gathered much did not have too much and the one who gathered little did not have too little.

Thanks be to God who put into the heart of Titus the same concern I have for you. For Titus not only welcomed our appeal but he is coming to you with much enthusiasm and on his own initiative. We are sending along with him the brother who is praised by all the churches for his service to the gospel. What is more he was chosen by the churches to accompany us as we carry the offering which we administer in order to honor the Lord himself and to show our eagerness to help.

We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift. We are taking pains to do what is right not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of man. In addition we are sending with them our brother who has often proved to us in many ways that he is zealous and now even more so because of his great confidence in you. As for Titus he is my partner and co-worker among you. As for our brothers they are representatives of the churches and an honor to Christ.

Therefore show these men the proof of your love and the reason for our pride in you so that the churches can see it. Moving to chapter 9 there is no need for me to write to you about the service to the Lord’s people for I know your eagerness to help and I have been boasting about it to the Macedonians. Telling them that since last year you and Achaia were ready to give and your enthusiasm has stirred most of them to action.

But I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you in this matter should not prove hollow but that you may be ready as I said you would be. For if any Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared we not to say anything about you would be ashamed of having been so confident. So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you in advance and finish the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised and it would be ready as a generous gift not as one grudgingly given.

Steve makes an observation in the brotherhood during the years of his growing up and experiences missionaries would come by and ask for support. Congregations would say sure we will support you like two hundred dollars a month maybe better maybe a little less but they would say yes. Then maybe a year later they would write and say I am sorry but we cannot continue the two hundred so we are going to drop out. A lot of times that happens and that did happen to Paul which is probably one of the reasons why he wrote what he wrote here concerning them.

When looking in the Philippian letter Paul writes to the Philippians thank you for renewing your help to me for you were the first ones to really become a service to us and in supporting us in our work. But for some reason or other you had to discontinue it but I am so glad. This is found in chapter four the very last part of the letter to the Philippians. He says I am so glad that you are able to renew your interest in us.

So he knows what the brotherhood does and he knows that from time to time we do renege on some of the promises that we make and so that is one of the reasons why he wrote there not to say anything about you but would be ashamed of having been so confident. So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you in advance and finish the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised. Then it would be ready as a generous gift not as one grudgingly given.

That is what he is talking about he is talking about the fact that they may renege on their promise. Verse six remember this and here is the important thing for us and this is what Paul wants us to realize concerning God divine intervention and providence in our lives. Remember this whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.

He is talking to an agronomy community they are grain raisers and so when he is talking about sowing sparingly he is just going like this and what do you expect for return. Smaller returns but he says if you go out and you sow generously what do you expect. Bumper crop something very beautiful and that is what he is trying to point out to us.

You want to give generously then God will bless you generously. That is what he is sharing with us about that. So whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver and of course we quote this scripture constantly whenever we are about ready to take up a collection on Sunday mornings and this is endorsed by God and then what we do is endorsed by Paul and Paul is just telling us what the Holy Spirit shared with him.

So God loves a cheerful giver and God is able to bless you abundantly. This is verse seven. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart give not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver verse eight and God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things at all times having all that you need you will abound in every good work.

Let us stop there for the moment anyway. What is he sharing with us what is Paul telling us. He is guaranteeing us that whatever we give say like I open up my billfold and you take a collection and all I got in there is a twenty dollar bill. What am I going to do renege and not give it or do I give it. If I give it then I do not have the ability to help anybody else down the road do I. I do not have the ability to give to anybody else.

What Paul is telling us is that even if you give the very last shilling out of your pocket the next opportunity to do good you will be able to do it because God will make sure that you can fulfill their need too. Read that see if that is not what he is saying. Every time you have an opportunity to do good he wants you to do good to the ability that you have. And if you give the five dollar bill to him you still have fifteen left. Somebody else comes along and they need help.

You give him a ten you got five left. Somebody else comes along you still got five but if you give that five you do not have anything to eat on them. You cannot stop at McDonald’s. You are going to be hungry before you get home. Paul is telling us if somebody comes up to you even after you have given your last five out that somewhere along the way if that person has the need you are going to be able to fulfill it. You are going to be able to fulfill it.

Read it. Now verse ten now he who supplies seed to the sower that is you and me our income that we have the amount of money that we have earned from our jobs from our investments whatever way we have he is able to supply the seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.

You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving. Let us it is reinforced again. Let us go back up to verse eight and God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things at all times having all that you need you will abound in every good work. As it is written they have freely scattered their gifts to the poor the righteousness endures forever.

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. And I love the book of Job because I believe that that is exactly what Job did. You read that book of Job you will see that he is defending himself from his friends who are accusing him of sinning because that is the reason why he is experiencing all of this stuff.

Surely you sinned and God is punishing you for this. Job says no I have not sinned. There is no way that I can sin.

And he talks about how that he helps the needy and he goes out of his way with his benevolence and he talks about feeding everything. I guarantee you God knows what you are going to do with your money. I guarantee you that God will give you what you intend and enable you to do what you intend to do with it because he knows your heart.

He knows your heart. So if you are not getting very much money he knows your heart. But I guarantee you that if you are making money he knows your heart because you are going to give it to somebody. You are going to be benevolent. You are going to help somebody. He is going to bless you.

Look at all the things God blessed Job with. He helps us in doing these things. So verse twelve the service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God because of the service by which you have proved yourselves.

Others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you because of surpassing grace God has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.

And what Paul is pointing out is God is working with us to help us to be benevolent. And when we are able to be benevolent and bring ourselves to that point of being benevolent God is being glorified. God is being glorified. That is what Paul wants us to realize. And that is one of the reasons why God is helping us in our ability to be benevolent is because he knows that when we help somebody they are not only going to say thank you brother but they are also going to say thank you God. And when they say thank you God he is being glorified.

And we are glorifying God through our benevolence. There is one thing that puzzles me and troubles me from time to time and that is where does the Christian believe that the source of income is going to come from. Source of money that is going to come and enables him to be benevolent. I want you to know this God is your source.

And why do I say that because so many people want to think that God is blessing them through gambling. So many people want to think that if they go out and buy a lottery ticket and they win God is blessing them. So many people think that if they are walking down the street and they find a lottery ticket on the ground and it is a winner that they will promise God I will give you ten percent. No. God wants to be the source of our income and he wants that source of income to be from industry. He wants you to earn.

He wants to be able to give you a blessing. And he does not want Satan to get the glory. He does not want to share his glory with Satan.

Why do I say that because the lottery ticket is the works of Satan. It is not the works of God. The lottery does not give God blessing. God does not want us to go out and spend money on a lottery ticket or gambling going to the racetracks going to casinos. He does not want us going there. He wants us to get our money from him through his benevolence and through industry.

He is enabled us to work. He is enabled us with abilities. He is enabled us with a brain. He is enabled us with talent and he expects us to use it for one another. And not only just one another he wants to use those talents to bless us. And he blessed you with your talents and he does not want your income to come from anybody else except him as that sank into your mind.

So God does not want us to be blessed in any other way than the way he has chosen and for us to be able to say thank you God. He wants us to say and realize that our ability to support our families and not only the ability to support our families but to be able to be benevolent and help other people comes from him. Even Satan knew that because he told God why does Job do what he does. It is because you are blessing him in everything that he does.

Satan was not taking any credit for it was he. He knew that the blessings that Job was experiencing is coming from God and the blessings that you and I experience is coming from God. God enables us to be benevolent and he wants us to be benevolent. There may be someone in the audience this morning or this evening that perhaps has never given any thought to those things and a lot of that has to do with our relationship with God too does not it.

And if we are denying God in our lives and God knows whether or not we are denying him in our life by the way we live and he wants us to change our ways. He wants us to repent in those things and he wants us to come back to him and recognize him and give him the glory and he has done that for giving us the ability to come back to him and being reconciled to him through Jesus. I sent Jesus to die on the cross as propitiation for our sins. A death penalty for sins was needed to be paid and Jesus paid it and he is willing to pay that death penalty and use his death penalty and credit his death penalty that he paid anyone who would like to come to him and become his disciple and to bring their lives around to what God would like to have them do.

And so he says take disciples of them baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and the Holy Spirit and they shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and the forgiveness of their sins. And if there is anyone here that needs to do that and comply with that we would like to extend to you the opportunity to do so. Come together we stand and sing the psalm of the Lord.