May you all be eagles' wings, may you all have the dawn, What's up? Chester A.R.P. Church devotional podcast, 2 Corinthians chapter 8 is where we are. Paul continuing in his writing to the church in Corinth, the second letter we have in the scriptures. We'll pick it up here in verse 1. This is what Paul writes, 2 Corinthians chapter 8. 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 overflowed 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 accord, 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, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, in our love for you, see that you also 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. And in this matter I give my judgment. This benefits you, who a year ago started not only to do this work, but also to desire to do it. So now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have. For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have. For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened. but that, as a matter of fairness, your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be a fairness. As it is written, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Now this is a fairly familiar passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and in the book of 2 Corinthians as a whole, where Paul is encouraging the church in Corinth to participate in this offering that is being raised for the churches in Jerusalem. Now the need to support the churches in Jerusalem and Judea is a need that goes way back to the very beginning of Paul's missionary efforts. In Acts chapter 15, the church gathered together, the leaders of the church, what we know as the Jerusalem Council, They gathered together and they asked the question of whether or not Gentiles should have to be circumcised in order to be true Christians. So the question was, should Gentile men have to be circumcised, become Jewish as it were, to become a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ? Apostles gathered together under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit said, no, that is not necessary. They gave them some commands of things they ought to do. They must not eat of the blood. They must maintain the truth of the gospel, et cetera. And then the last thing they said was you must meet the needs and take care of it. Don't forget the needs of the church in Jerusalem. The brothers and sisters in Christ in Jerusalem and in Judea had suffered hardships and difficulties. They were under severe persecution under the Roman leadership at that time. They were under severe persecution as a result of the Jewish leadership at that time in their areas. And so they were forced out of their homes. They were forced out of their businesses. They were forced out of the synagogue experience, which was the center of life for the Jewish people at that time. And as a result of their commitment to the way they were persecuted, their commitment to Christ, they were persecuted and kicked to the margins of society. And they had need. They had need. We see it all through the beginning of Acts, as the brothers and sisters came together to meet the needs of one another. And so as the church begins to spread, the call of the Apostle Paul is, listen, remember those brothers and sisters of the faith in that homeland, of the faith in Jerusalem, and take collections and take offerings and deliver them to meet the needs of those in that area. Well, in this particular case, Paul is writing to the church in Corinth, which exists on the Peloponnesian Peninsula. He's writing to encourage them to finish the work that they began a year ago. A year ago, a year prior to the writing of this letter, they decided they were going to receive an offering And they were going to give it to the church in Jerusalem to meet the needs of the Christian church there in Jerusalem. They started out with great earnestness. They started out with a great desire. They started with a lot of activity. And they were fired up about the opportunity to meet the needs of those brothers and sisters in Jerusalem. Problem is, is that over time the excitement waned and they never actually finished the collection of the offering. They started out strong but they didn't complete the task. Kind of reminds me of when the exiles returned in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah and in the prophets Haggai and elsewhere and Zechariah, the people returned, the exiles returned from the captivity, Babylonian captivity to Jerusalem and they got back and they got really excited to build the temple and they started the work of building the temple and then they went off and got kind of caught up in their own world, doing their own thing and God has to send a prophet Haggai and say, hey listen, get yourself together, finish the work that you've been asked to do, you've come back to do. The first thing you are to do is take care of the house of God. excuse me, to reestablish the worship of God. Well, they just kind of lost excitement for it. You do the same thing, I do the same thing. We do the same thing at our church, right? We get excited about something, we'll start a project, and we finish most of them, but there are some that are still out there we just hadn't finished because for whatever reason, we just lost our excitement, our enthusiasm. Well, that's what Paul's saying to the church here in Corinth. He says, listen, the church in Macedonia, which is the mainland of Greece, Philippi and elsewhere, they are already finished their task. They had great poverty, yet they gave an abundance and there met the needs. You are in a great abundance right now. I want you to finish this task. Complete the work. Complete among you this act of grace. You excel in faith, you excel in speech, you excel in knowledge, you excel in earnestness, you excel in our love for you. Paul said, listen, you have a lot of great things going for you, so what I want you to do is I want you to finish this task, finish the collection that you began to meet the needs of the saints as they have need in Jerusalem. Finish it well, Paul says, that your readiness and desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have. It is a wonderful thing to want to contribute to the needs of other people. It's an outflow of God's grace and God's love in our lives. The challenge for us is to complete that work, complete that task. And Paul says it is time for you to complete that task. Finish the job. What a wonderful message for us. We get so caught up in starting projects for the Lord and starting things for the Lord that sometimes we lose our enthusiasm, sometimes we simply get busy, sometimes we let it slip to the side. We are to finish what we started, especially when it comes to meeting the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world, particularly of our homeland. One of the reasons Patty and I have such a passion, I think, for Scotland and for doing ministry in Scotland is that we came from Scotland. My own personal heritage is Scottish, but also our denomination. And so our brothers and sisters there have some challenges as a result of living in the society they live in, one of the darkest and most progressive cities in all of Europe. And so as a result of that, we want to share the gospel there. We want to meet their needs because that's where we're from. And I think the same is true for what Paul is saying. You came from Jerusalem. The gospel came out from there. Go meet those brothers and finish the task. And what a wonderful message for us and a challenge for us. Finish the work God has called us to do. Eagerly starting it, there's one thing to do that, but there is a whole other thing to eagerly finish it as well. So finish the work that I've given you to do, that you've taken on for yourself. I've gone way too long, apologize for that. You guys have a great day, God bless you. Catch you next time. ♪ Raise you up from the evil's wings ♪ Make me to shine.