What's gonna count for eternity? That's the big question, isn't it? One day we're gonna stand before the Lord and give an account. We certainly want the Lord's blessing. I want to hear, well done, thou good and faithful, what? Servant, that's what giving is. That's what missions is, is loving people, caring about the eternal destination of mankind. Take your Bibles and go with me, if you would, to the book of, 2 Corinthians chapter 8. 2 Corinthians chapter 8 lays out for us the ministry of missions. And it clearly explains what is our responsibility. Just before we read this passage, I'd like to mention that my dad started five churches Raised five boys to know the Lord and started five Christian schools. He was very much involved in the furtherance of the gospel and all five of us boys have served the Lord faithfully all these years. My brother Tim just finished 53 years in France. And now his daughter and her husband are out raising support to go back to France and minister to the youth of France. And they have a camp. It's wonderful, tremendous ministry over there. My brother Tom works with help ministries, bringing national pastors to the United States for missions conferences, which is really powerful. And then I'm an evangelist. Then I have a younger brother that works for an environmental company, and he's faithful in church, loves the Lord. And then my youngest brother is an assistant pastor in North Carolina. So God's been good to us, amen? They had 16 grandkids, and eight of the 16 are in full-time service. That doesn't happen by accident. My father and mother never gave me a reason to not want to serve the Lord. I came up with my own reasons. Isn't that something? I told my dad I'm never going to Bible college and I never want to be no preacher. And he smiled at me. I was like, he's nuts. Why would he smile over a statement like that? Because God heard what I said. Gotta be careful what comes out of your mouth. It might come back. might come back on you. I'll never forget, I went to a meeting, which I thought was a youth rally, and it turned out to be a preacher's meeting, and I got to listen to 16 sermons. How bad is that? On the 15th sermon, God called me to preach. I love the way the Lord works. Just tell him you're not gonna do something. He'll see to it that it gets done. Oh, I'm so glad. My Lord said to me, Daniel, you've come to a Y in the road of your life. If you make a left-hand turn and be a New York State police officer, you will be miserable. If you make a right-hand turn and be a preacher, you'll be happy. And I celebrate 47 years in the ministry, and I'm so grateful. God has never failed me. How do you like that for a track record? He'll never fail you either. You can't out-give God. And when we make these commitments for missions, you're not wasting money. You're investing in eternal souls for which Jesus Christ died. Isn't that wonderful? Let's stand and read that passage of Scripture. It's just six verses. This is the mind of God in relation to missions. In 2 Corinthians 8, verse 1, Moreover, brethren, We do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia. How that in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy, notice the joy in the midst of affliction, and their deep poverty abounded unto what? The riches of their liberality. For to their power I bear record, yea and beyond their power, They were willing of themselves, praying us with much entreaty, that we would receive the gift and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. And this they did, not as we'd hoped, but first, what did they do? They gave their own selves to the Lord. and unto us by the will of God, insomuch that we desired Titus, that as he had begun, so he would also finish in you the same grace also. Our heavenly Father, please, O God, move in and take over in this service. Thank you for the special music and the choir. Thank you, Lord, for your goodness to Trinity Baptist Church. We ask, O God, that you'll do it again, that you'll use them again for another year to do great and mighty things for you, because you've asked us to, and you've empowered us, if we will. And we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. It was William Carey that left England to go to India. It was David Livingston that left Scotland to go to Africa. It was Judson that left America to go to Burma. And I could go on and on and on of those that caught the vision of God in reaching the world. I want you to write down a statement, if you would, that I hope you'll never, ever forget it. Here's the statement. The supreme task of the church is to evangelize the world. And the Lord Jesus said, the field is the world. I love your theme, the sower sowing the seeds. Wouldn't it be strange if a farmer that had 150 acres that he could use only used two acres? You'd say, what's wrong with that lazy farmer? But many people are content to do little instead of much. We're tempted to sit back and to not accomplish what God really has for us. We think somebody else is going to do it, and those other people think somebody else is going to do it, and guess what? It never gets done. The farmer prepares all the soil, plants the seed, prays for a great harvest. And wow, the benefits of harvest are phenomenal. I believe heaven is gonna be so amazing, not because of its beauty, but because of how God used you to help somebody that you didn't even know, that won somebody, and that was called into the ministry, and served the Lord for years. There may be thousands of people that you helped, that you may never know till you get to eternity. The greatest investment to this supreme task of the church is that we can have a part in reaching souls for Christ. How supreme is it? Well, there's 7.8 billion people in this world. And it's increasing. It's forever increasing. And, oh, may we understand that Jesus said, upon this rock, speaking of his church, I will build my church. And it will affect the entire world because of their faith. I want you to look with me in our text. Would you notice in chapter 8 of 2 Corinthians, verse 1, Brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed upon the churches of Macedonia. God has given us his favor, hasn't he? God riches at Christ's expense. And what we have has been loaned to us by God that we might use it. in the churches of our day. How that in a great trial of affliction, it's amazing how churches grow under persecution. And we don't have the time this morning, but to talk about how that through the persecution, of Christians. The church multiplied. I didn't say it was just added to. It was multiplied. And many came to know the Lord. You'll notice in their trial of affliction, yet they had the abundance of their joy. They never lost their joy when difficulty came. Their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. You know, it's interesting, Jesus was looking at the plate, the offering plate, it tells us in the Bible, where he was looking over to see what people were giving. And a man comes and gives a significant amount of money. And then this little woman comes up with just a mite. And she puts it in, not knowing where her next meal's coming from. not knowing how she's going to meet her needs because she knew that God would meet her needs. And then he brings the disciples over and says, take a look at this. Why was he teaching a lesson? Amen. Give of your best to the master. Amen. Give all you can, because in eternity, it's going to you're going to find out what God did with what you gave, because, you know, the Bible says we're going to give an account of ourselves to the Lord. A lot of times we wonder what people think of what we do. I'd rather think about what God thinks about what I do, because He's the one that's keeping the true records. You can deceive a lot of people, but you can never deceive God. Other people may not be able to help you, but you can do it because God helps you. He takes care of us and will take care of you. I want you to understand here in verse 2 it says, how that in a great trial of affliction, I read that one. Let's go to verse 3. You'll notice their liberality. That means that they were liberal in their giving. They were willing and able to give and wanted to give. I had a businessman say to me one day, he said, Brother Dan, he said, you didn't tell me about the results at camp. I found out that you had a lot of kids saved and some called to preach. He said, why didn't you come to me for money? Well, I don't go to people for money. He never told me to. I'm not going to go to somebody for money. He said, don't you ever start this camp year out without me giving you at least $5,000. Just come by and pick up the check for camp, 500 every year. Isn't that something? He goes, I wanna be a part of what God is doing. And I thought, man, that is phenomenal, isn't it? I want you to notice here that in verse Three, for to their power, would you underline that phrase, to their power? I bear record, yay, and beyond their power. They were willing of themselves. I want you to notice two amazing things here. To their power, that's what you can give. That's what you already have stored up. that you can use for the cause of Jesus Christ. And of course, all of us have things at the house that we don't desperately need or even need at all. I remember when COVID came, we had 12 weeks of meetings canceled, so we went home. And so we started going through the stuff in our house and we sold, let me see, it was 83 items and we made $2,200. Stuff we don't even remember now what it was we sold. It was that insignificant. But it took care of our needs and we were able to continue to give. And it was amazing because God does things like that for us. where he puts on our heart to do something and then we do it. To your power is what you already have. What are we giving? What is a part of our response in giving? Well, we have to get a burden in order to do that. And we see that they gave to their power. They gave what they had. You know, the Bible says, For we know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be made rich. He takes what is considered poverty and he turns it into prosperity. He takes what we don't have and he gives to us what we need. That's beyond our power and we'll get to that in just a moment. But we must realize that we're responsible The church in Toronto, Canada, People's Baptist Church or People's Church in Toronto, pastored by a man named Oswald J. Smith. He was pastoring that church and in 1933, he got a burden for missions. And so, He looked at the finances to find out where they were financially in their general fund and in their missions fund. And it was it was pretty pitiful for the size of the church. And so he began to pray, and he preached on stewardship, and God began to work in that church. But before they started giving by faith, he taught the principle. In fact, he was really kind of the founder of Faith Promise Missions as we know it today. It's interesting that their general fund giving in 1933 was $18,000. That's what came in for the entire year. In missions, it was $23,000 in 1933. By 1961, their general fund giving was 53,000. Are you all sitting down? Their missions giving in 1961 was $319,000. The church made a decision. We are going to always give more to missions than we take in for ourself. And I think that is an amazing thought, that a church could care for souls. And they started, they got the choir to give special. They got every Sunday school class to give special. The men's fellowship gave special. The ladies' fellowship gave special. And it was amazing that they were shocked at how much God had used them to give. But it was all to their power. It was all to their power. It was what God had already given to them. that they began to give to God. And of course, many of them stepped out by faith and gave much more than they even promised because if God gives it, we're giving it. And it's wonderful. I know a preacher, maybe you know Brother Don Strange out of Fort Myers, Florida. He's been giving to missions for years. And he was sitting in his office one day and he said, Lord, Give me an idea how I could give more than I'm giving now. And so he's praying. And the Lord said to him, why don't you just ask me to give you money you're not expecting and take half of it and give it to missions? He said, I can do that. So he said, Lord, OK, from now on, if I get any money, unexpected, unexpected money, I will take half of it and give it to missions. Saul, he gets a knock on his office door a few minutes after he got done praying. It was one of the men of the church. He said, pastor, I don't know why I'm doing this, but I was driving down the road and God told me to give you this check, $1,500. He said, sit down. I gotta tell you what just happened here in my office. While I was talking to God, maybe even before it, God was talking to you. That's miraculous. How many know what that word means? That's a miracle. It's not that the pastor got up and told everybody what God had told him to do, expecting, okay, you could do it, and you could do it, and you could do it. No, no, no. No, we take our burdens to the Lord and we let God work it out. That's what miraculous is. That's miraculous giving. He gave beyond His power. He didn't have that until God laid it on someone's heart to give it. I think that's the coolest idea because if the Lord doesn't give you any money that way, apparently He doesn't want you to have it. But if He gives it to you, would you be a good steward? Would you be willing to be true to your commitment to the Lord? If we can't be true to our commitment to the Lord, we're not where we ought to be spiritually. If we want God's power upon our life, we've got to be right with Him. We've got to ask the Lord to guide us and direct us and may every area of our life bring glory and honor to the Lord. Whatsoever you do in word or deed, do it all to what? The glory of God. God loveth a, what kind of a giver? You've got that down, a cheerful giver. I remember one time, we had a special time in our church where, when I pastored up in New York, and every Thanksgiving, we asked everybody to give a whole paycheck, a whole week's pay. Well, this woman came to me, Pastor, all upset, and she said, I can't do that. I only get paid once a month. I said, sister, just one fourth, only one fourth of that monthly pay. Oh, OK, OK, I can do that. So January 1, we kicked that thing off. Thanksgiving comes in November, right? Wow, did we have an offering. It was amazing. I was shocked at how much came in and we did put new windows in and we upgraded our air conditioning. It was all for the Lord's work right here in Jerusalem. Amen. And what a blessing it was. And everybody was so excited about it because God used them. to do what God wanted done on his church. Isn't that something how the Lord works? And I told them every month, make sure you put something away every month so that when you come to November, you won't even miss that week's pay. And they did that and it caused them every year. That was a highlight in our year because everybody was saying, I've got to be a part. Everybody united. God honors that. That's called unity. And unity is something that comes from God. Division is what comes from the devil. Isn't that true? And we can give unto the Lord as he has prospered us to their power, yea, and beyond their power. Oh, may you be encouraged and strengthened. Look with me there in closing. And this they did, verse five, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves unto the Lord. Have you given yourself to the Lord? You know, we expect young people to come and give their life to the Lord to serve Him, maybe as a missionary or as a preacher or a school, Christian school teacher or whatever it may be, to serve the Lord faithfully in the church. And that's wonderful, that's wonderful. But every one of us must first give ourselves to God. Remember the day of your salvation, was that a great day? But I wanna tell you, the next best day in the Christian life is when you say, whatever you want from me, Lord, it is yours. I will hold nothing back and you'll find out that God will give you more when you surrender than he'd ever give to you by not surrendering. You know, I had a man come up to me one day in the church. He said, Brother Knickerbocker, he said, I don't, I gotta ask you a question. And he didn't really ask the question. He basically said to me, I don't really think I want my kids in the ministry. And I said, why is that? Well, there's no money in it. And I thought, wow, what do I say now? I said, Lord, what do I say? And the Lord replied to me, would you rather your children work for God or an ungodly employer? He just walked away. If you don't make a place for God, something else will take that place. Don't let it happen. Give to your power what you already have, but then say, Lord, I want to buy faith. I want to move that up a little bit. I want you to do more for me so that I can do more for you. Amen. Have you ever heard of a man named David Green? How many of you ladies know anything about Hobby Lobby? Any of you ladies? Oh, look at the hands, okay. You've been there, haven't you? Well, David Green's the founder, and he gave his business to the Lord. His sons, his children and their children, and now we're even getting into great-grandchildren, sit on a board of how to give away millions of dollars every year to the Lord's work. Interesting, isn't it? And he wrote a book, I Gave It All Away and God Gave It All Back. You ought to read it. It's a powerful, powerful book. And he explains how God opened up doors and guided them through COVID and all the stuff that went on with that. And I just say to you, when you're on the Lord's side, that's the only side you need to be on because He's enough. Let's pray together, may we? Our heavenly Father, bless in this time of invitation. Oh God, I pray that everyone here would give of themselves fully to you. There may be one here today or two or more that aren't saved. You've never trusted Christ as your Savior. The greatest gift that could ever be given is the gift that's already been given by our Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ, that you could be saved. So you could know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are God's child. Is there anyone here today that would say, Brother Knickerbocker, I need to be saved. Would you just slip your hand up? Don't say it out loud, but just say, by the uplifted hand, I don't know Christ, but I'd like to know him. Is there anyone like that? Oh, I would encourage you to get saved. How about you that are saved? Is there more that we could be doing for the great cause of Jesus Christ? How many of you could raise your hand and say, I know that we could do more? Amen, numbers of you, good. That's wonderful. Would you be willing to bow your head right now and say, oh God, I want you to use me more this coming year than you have in the past. I want to experience that beyond my power. I want to ask you to help me to do more than I've ever done. And as commitments are increased for Faith Promise for this year, I pray, oh God, that everyone would say, I want to be a part of that. I want to fill out that card whereby I can say I'll give so much a week because I want to see God use my finances to do your great work. All heads are bowed, eyes are closed. Pastor, would you come and lead the invitation as you see fit. Let's all stand, heads bowed, eyes closed. You heard the call this morning. If you need to come forward and accept the Lord as your Savior, you don't know for sure you're on your way to heaven. Let me invite you. We're going to have a word of prayer in just a moment and just have a song of invitation. Let me invite you to come forward and we'll show you from the word of God how you can be saved. Christian, you heard the challenge this morning. Let's increase our faith. That's what faith promise involves. Let's increase our faith, not just in faith promised, but in our Christian lives. Maybe you're here this morning and you have a burden that has something totally different than what we necessarily looked at this morning, talked about. Let me invite you to come forward and use the altar for what it's here for, to talk with the Lord, lay it with Him. Father, I pray that you'll bless this invitation, speak to our hearts. If there's one that's lost, save them. Deal with our hearts, those of us that are saved, Lord, and increase our faith with what we talked about this morning. In Jesus' name I do pray, amen.