If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 8. 2 Corinthians chapter 8. Now, as I always say, always want to remind you, the Bible is the infallible, inerrant, inspired Word of God. It is our only rule of faith and practice. Amen? So with that in mind, I want to read to you from 2 Corinthians 8, starting at verse 1. Hear God's word. Then a brief prayer. Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. For I testify that according to their ability and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints. And this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God. So we urged Titus, that as he had previously made a beginning, so he would also complete in you this gracious work as well. Let's pray. Father, in the name of Jesus, we ask that You would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains may quake at Thy presence as fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes the water to boil, to make Thy name known among Thy adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Thy presence. So Father, we pray that the Holy Spirit would come upon the preacher and every one of us here today, and that we would understand how utterly rich we are in Jesus Christ. Because Paul says to the Ephesians that we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So Father, we pray that you'd help us to understand the glory, the privilege of faith, promise giving, what it is, why we do it, how we do it. But most of all, we want to see Jesus because He alone is the Savior of the nations. And Father, we desire that if there's any here today who are not yet in Christ, that you would even use a sermon like this. to draw them to Yourself, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Now, Paul, after his first missionary journey in Galatia, where he went to Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, everywhere he went, he was beaten. While he was in Iconium, he was stoned and left for dead. There he is, lying unconscious before his disciples. They're wondering, well, I guess it's over now. He's dead. And then he comes to And if I'm Paul, I'm heading to the next city. He didn't do that. He went back into the city and preached some more. Then he finished his first missionary journey, came back to Antioch, the home church. And then, of course, there has been a controversy that has developed. In Galatia, where he had been, primarily preaching to Gentiles, and the Jewish believers in Jerusalem have heard about the great harvest of souls amongst these pagan people. They're pretty happy about that. But then they go up and they say, well wait a minute, now it's good that you Gentiles have become followers of Jesus, but now you know you've got to become Jewish, right? You've got to go along with the Jewish rituals that we have. And now they're confused, so a great controversy develops. The Jerusalem Council comes together in Acts 15. Paul and Peter are part of that. And then Paul is given marching orders, as it were, from the Jerusalem council. He goes back up to Galatia, and he passes out the information. And then Luke tells us, in the early part of Acts 16, that Paul's desire is to go into Asia, or Asia Minor, western Turkey. But the Holy Spirit forbid him. Then he says, well now, I'm going to go into Mysia, which is northern Turkey, up near modern-day Istanbul. And the Holy Spirit forbid him from doing that. So he makes his way to Troas, the ancient city of Troy. And then he sees in a vision this man from Macedonia in northern Greece saying, come over here and help us. And so Paul goes over. Paul begins to preach the gospel in Philippi. And he soon run out of Philippi, but he establishes the church there. Then he goes down to Thessalonica, the same thing happens. He's in Berea for a short period of time. Then he makes his way down the coast to Athens. Very little response because of the sophistication of the Greek philosophers. Very little response. Then he makes his way further south into the province of Achaia and this wicked, vile city of Corinth. We know that it was difficult. In Acts 18 it says that He's praying and he has a vision from the Lord Jesus. Paul, do not be afraid any longer. Keep on preaching the gospel. I have many people in this city. The great apostle himself, he even tells us in 1 Corinthians 2 that he came to them in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. The great apostle himself. Yeah, that's right. Paul was afraid. But he established the church in Corinth. Then he makes his way back up where he had been. That was usually his custom. Finally he comes back to Jerusalem. He stops off at Ephesus briefly on his way back. After a short time in Jerusalem, he's back at it. He goes up to Asia Minor. This time he's in Asia Minor at Ephesus. And he establishes the church there and he's there for three years. Now while he's there, A famine begins to develop in Jerusalem and the whole area is devastated by this famine. Now Paul knows that there are Jewish Christians and there are Gentile or formerly pagan Christians and there clearly is some tension going on. You see it a number of places in the book of Acts. There's tension. And Paul, as a good apostle, is trying to break down these walls of partition or division, these cultural walls that separate the two. One of the ways he thinks he can do this is to encourage the Gentile believers in Macedonia, the northern Greece province, or in the southern province of Achaia, to give to these particular needs. There's a relief project going on for the believers in Jerusalem who are Jewish. Would you be willing to give above your tithe for this very specific purpose? So Paul obviously has some information that they're willing to do so. Now while he's at Ephesus, he's writing back to the church at Corinth. The first Corinthians, he's dealing with a number of different problems. Now he finds out that yes, though the people in Macedonia have given a promise to give above their tithe to the need in Jerusalem, the people of Achaia, for whatever reason, are dragging their feet. So Paul writes back to them what I just read to you, plus the rest of chapter 8 and chapter 9. He's writing back to them, and he's urging them to follow through and to give what they had previously promised to do. Not that they had to do it. He's very clear later on, you're not under obligation, but now you did promise That if God provided you would give it, you don't give according to what you don't have, you give according to what you do have. And so he's writing back encouraging them, and then he says, I'm going to send Titus to you to help expedite the situation. So now picture in your mind Titus. Paul's servant crosses over from Asia Minor, he goes down into Achaia to the church at Corinth, and he's speaking to them. And he begins to make visits in the congregation. The first person he comes to is a farmer. And he says, now, you said that you would give to this particular need in Jerusalem. We haven't received your gift yet. I'm wondering if and when you think you can come through. When do you think you can deliver? And the farmer says, listen, I'm already tithing to the church, which I want to do and I know I should do. And, you know, we've got this new building program going on, and I've made a pledge to the building program. And beyond that, I've got two children in college at Athens. I knew you'd love that. And, you know, I'm just tapped out. I ain't got the money. Titus says, I get it, I understand. But listen, you are a farmer, right? Yeah. Okay. Now, what would you expect a good crop for you to be any given year? Well, now, you know, if I get a thousand bushels in my harvest, I've had a good year. Well, alright then, let's say that God gives you this year an abundant harvest and you have twelve hundred bushels come in. If God gives you an abundant harvest of 1,200 bushels, and you've got 200 extra bushels than you were expecting, would you be willing to give at least 100 of those bushels to this particular need in Jerusalem? Well, yeah, it's a no-brainer, of course. Sure, I'll do that. All right, I'm going to mark you down then. If God provides, you don't have to do it if He doesn't provide. If God provides, you're going to give a hundred bushels to the particular need in Jerusalem, right? Yeah, I'll do that. Okay, great. Then he goes to the next guy who is a shepherd. And they talk, and the shepherd says the same thing, you know. I got some kids in college. I'm tapped out. I tithe. I'm giving the building fund. All right, well, what would be a good year of lambs to be born to you? Well, you know, if I usually get maybe 50. Well, that's pretty good. Well, what happens if you were to have a really good year and you had not just 50 lambs born to your flock, but you had 65? You have 15 more than normal. Would you give that extra 7 or 8? to this particular need? Well, yeah. So, okay, so we're going to pray. We're going to pray that God will bless your flock with an extra 15 this year, just as I'm praying for the farmer to get an extra 200 bushels. We're going to pray that God will provide that. Can you see? I believe He will because God's concerned about these people in Jerusalem, and He wants them to have what they need. So, this is all about God meeting the needs of His people and His mission. So, we're going to pray for that. All right? Then he comes to the next man, says the same thing, and he says, well, look, there's no way I get extra income. You see, I'm a provincial worker in the Roman government of Achaia. I don't get bonuses. I get a fixed income. So, you know, that's not going to work for me. Alright, well now you know, Paul wrote in that letter I just sent to you, just brought to you. He said if you give, they gave, the Macedonians gave according to their ability and beyond their ability. Now these first two guys I talked to, the farmer and the shepherd, they're giving beyond their ability. They don't know how it's going to happen. Now if God provides it, they're going to give it. Now you don't have a bonus, right? No, I don't get a bonus. Alright, well then, You get a fixed income, right? Yeah, that's right. Well, what about this? What if you gave according to your ability? What if you could see how you could give? What if, like I bet you go out to eat lunch every day, right? Well, yeah, I do that. Well, how much does your lunch cost? Well, about two denarii a day. All right, well, instead of eating lunch out every day and spending ten denarii a week, why don't you take a sandwich from home one day a week and you save those two denarii? And if you save the two denarii, and 50 times 2 is 100, by the end of the year, through your sacrifice, you can see how you can do it. You don't have a bonus coming in, but you can see how you do it. Then, what if, if you do that, you could give 100 denarii? Can I put you down for 100 denarii? Yeah, go ahead, I'll do that. That's easy. That's a no-brainer. I'll just deny myself eating out lunch one day a week. That's how I'll do it. Okay, great. Then he's got one more person to visit. He's on a roll. Things are looking good. So the next one he comes to is a retired Roman military officer who got converted a couple of years before through Paul's ministry. Goes through the same spiel. Look, I don't get a bonus. I'm not working. I'm on a pension. And it's not a whole lot. I'm on a pension. I just don't know that I can do it. Well, wait just a second now. You told me earlier when we got here that you're looking very forward to your vacation in Santorini. Now, you usually go for 10 days every year to Santorini, right? Yeah. Well, what about this? What if you cut your vacation to Santorini short two days? Oh, no, I can't do that. Now what about that? Because remember, there's a great need in Jerusalem. We're seeing that our Jewish brothers and sisters in Jerusalem are starving to death. Don't you think you could maybe cut your vacation to Santorini short two days, just this year, and give according to your ability? You can see how it can happen. All right, Titus, you drive a hard bargain. Okay, put me down for that. My dear friends, that is faith promise giving. To be more specific, what is faith promise giving? It is not a tithe. A tithe, I hope, is what you already do. The Bible's quite clear, Malachi 3, if you're not tithing, you're robbing God. So you ought to be tithing. That's a given. The faith promise is also not an offering. I believe I heard last night from our missionaries in Kenya that the church or somebody around here had an offering. And they raised, what, $30,000 or something. That's wonderful. But that's not a faith promise. Offerings are good. And a lot of times we give a Christmas offering to the PCA. That's great. But the faith promise is not an offering. Now, the faith promise is also not a pledge. I would imagine that when y'all built this beautiful building here, you probably took pledges from people to try to figure out how much you had to build the building, how much you'd have to finance and so forth. And again, that's great, that's wonderful. But the faith promise is not a pledge. Well, the faith promise is a promise. That's what it is, it's a promise. Don't you see that here? They had promised to give. Titus is following up. It's a promise to give, not to John the pastor, not to the elders or the deacons of the church. It's a promise not to the World Missions Committee of the church. It is a promise to God. That if God provides it, you will give it. If God does not provide it, you don't have to give it. So how do you actually do a faith promise? Well, as I've already suggested, there's two ways according to what Paul says. You give according to your ability and you give beyond your ability, okay? According to your ability. You work in a job where you don't expect a bonus. Maybe you're retired, you've got your retirement plan, you're not expecting a bonus, you're not making what you used to make. So how do you do it? Well, again, maybe you decide, I'm going, instead of buying a new car this year, I think I'll put it off a year or two, and some of that money that I've been putting aside to buy a new car, I'm gonna give that money to missions. Instead of playing golf, Now I'm getting into some people's business. Or instead of going to all the Georgia football games, I cut it back and maybe go to eight of the twelve, you know what I'm saying? And I can see how I can generate $500, $1,000, a couple thousand dollars, whatever, to give to the faith promise. I can see how I can do that. So that might be your situation. I want you to be thinking about that right now. You know, what could I do? Yeah, you know, I could deny myself. I don't have to eat out every week, you know, or every day. Maybe, you know, maybe I could figure out how to do that. But then some of you who do get bonuses or do have a fluctuating income in some fashion, you might could say, well, you know what? If God provides this amount of money, if God, you know, if God gave me $3,000, I honestly don't know where it would come from. I honestly don't. I'm looking at my, I've had a pretty good year. But you know, it's not a great year. I've already got these obligations. You know, I'm not seeing it. But you know what, God? If you provided another $3,000, yeah, I'd do that. I'd give that. Absolutely. So here's what I'm suggesting you do. Between now and next Sunday when you give in your cards, you pray. And what my wife and I do is we pray separately for several days. We're not consulting each other. And you pray, now God, can I give according to my ability? Yeah, all right, I can give up this. Okay, God, so I'm gonna give this up. I'm gonna multiply that by 52 weeks. I can give $1,000. I can see how I can do that. I can give according to my ability. The rest of you would pray, God, would you give my wife and me some kind of, understanding of what we can give. And at the end of the week, he'd come together. And my wife and I, a couple of times we'd come together on that, and we're hitting it right on the same figure. But there's been a couple of times, her figure was way past mine. I said, now hold on just a second here. But we would usually do what she suggested and God provided. And then what happens is you look for that money to come in. You expect it to come in. Listen, Paul says a little bit later, those who sow sparingly will reap sparingly. Those who sow bountifully will reap bountifully. I mean, this is a no-brainer, right? The farmer, I've got 1,000 acres of land. This year, I'm going to sow only in 100 acres. Guess what? He's not going to have a big return. I have a thousand acres, I'm going to sow a thousand acres. Now it doesn't necessarily guarantee that he'll have a bumper crop of a thousand acres, because we know the farmer better than most people realize, he's utterly dependent upon God. You know, if the rain doesn't come at the right time, if he gets too much rain, not enough rain, he doesn't have a good crop. So we get that. But assuming that Over the long haul, over the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years, the farmer understands, if I sow bountifully, I will reap bountifully. If I sow sparingly, I will reap sparingly. My dear friends, this is a biblical principle. If you sow sparingly, your time, your money, your resources, you're going to reap sparingly. It's not that you lose your salvation. No, no, no, not at all. You're just not going to be blessed if you so bountifully over time, maybe one year not so much, but over time you will reap bountifully. Now my wife and I have a hundred stories about this. I want to tell you something. You want to increase your faith? You want to see God work? Listen, we all need money. We can't live in this world without money. And money is one of the most tangible ways you see God at work. If you want to see God at work, you make a faith promise. And by the way, I expect children to make faith promises. I remember at our church at St. Simon's Island, we had these little boys that would make a faith promise. $50, $100, or whatever. One time, one of the boys was 10 years old. He was very excited. For the week, he had taken care of the neighbor's dogs and vacuumed out their pool and all that kind of thing. And he came home after they'd come back from the trip. He comes in all excited. He says, Daddy, they gave me $200 for this work this week. The father said, that's great, son. You can put that into your savings account. He goes, no, no, no, no. I made a faith promise of $100. God provided. I'm giving the $100 of that to God's work. You see, children can do this, and they love to do it. When I was at St. Simon's, we left in the end of April in 2003 to go plant a church in Connecticut. We'd made our faith promise in November. We always started, made it in our missions conference in November. They would start in January. My wife and I made a sizable faith promise, and I told her, I said, now listen, we need to, if all possible, honor this faith promise before we leave on April 30th. That's only four months. I said, I want to have that done. And it was a sizable faith promise. My wife's mother had died about a year before. Her father died about six months before that. My wife and her sister and brother were settling the estate. Their parents had a condo in Decatur, Alabama. And they're getting ready to put on the market. And somebody comes to them and says, you know, my mother needs a place to stay for the next year. And we know that you're wanting to sell your parents' condo. We're wondering if we can go ahead and rent it for a year. And I know this sounds strange, but what we'd like to do is to go ahead and pay you $2,000 a month and pay it all up front. Is that okay? Yeah, we can handle that. And our cut in that covered our faith promise for the year. I mean, it's amazing, the stories you get. So here's what I want you to do. I want you this week, pray, God, how do you want me to make a faith promise? Now listen, your church is a lot better than most. Your church, I believe 60% of your people give the faith promise. That's awesome. But why not more? So you pray this week, what can we cut out that's giving according to our ability? Whoa, God, you want me to make a faith promise of $5,000? I'm already tithing. I'm giving to this particular ministry outside of the church, whatever. You want me to... I'm not seeing it, God. But all right, I'm going to pray. And if you provide it, I'll give it. Expect it. Look for it to come. Now, why do we do this? Because these wonderful missionaries you have need the money. It's costly. It costs big bucks to be a missionary these days, I'm telling you. So we need to give. Let me tell you one story about this. I go to India twice a year, and about this time last year, I went, and whenever we go, we go out and we preach in the villages on a Sunday, and we always have a baptism service. It's the most awesome thing I've ever seen. That particular time, we went to three different churches. I mean, out in the boonies. We come up on this body of water, and then there's all these people standing around. The women have saris, you know, the long saris on. And we're going to baptize them in the water. It's not clean water either, let me tell you. And I'll never forget this one woman. She was from the Banjara tribe. She was a tribal person. She was 80 years old. Long, beautiful, gray hair. A beautiful woman. She had the Banjara women wear lots of bracelets on their arm. And so does my wife. And I came home and said, Winnie, you would fit very well in the Banjara tribe. And so there's this old woman. She can hardly walk. She's been a Hindu all her life. And so before they baptize them, they've become Christians. They've been trained for several months of what Christianity is. And they ask them to stand and to bear testimony. And so the testimony is this. Do you believe that Jesus is the only Savior? Do you renounce all 300 million of your Hindu gods? And on and on and on. And so this woman, when they asked the question, do you believe that Jesus is the only Savior of sinners? She went on for five minutes, gibbering. Of course, I didn't know what she was saying. On and on, very animated, you know, like I am. You know, animated and stuff. And then I said, what's she saying? She said, oh yeah, I denounced all those guys. Those gods are false. Jesus is the only Savior. It was beautiful. And she couldn't even get down into the water. They had to pick her up and put her down in the water. I know what you're thinking. I bet you think we dunked her. No. We baptized her the right way. We didn't sprinkle a little water on her head. We poured it on her head. And she, later we went to the church service, there's her son and daughter-in-law, and they both had become Christians as well. And now God's opening up the gospel amongst the Banjara people in this little, little community. Utterly cut off, they were Hindus. They're Hindus, and they're coming to Jesus. Now why should we, what is the real motivation here? Let me remind you of something, alright? Paul, when he's at Ephesus, he started a church at Ephesus, Acts 19, we know at least 10 churches came out of that church, and while he is now in prison in Rome, he's writing back to the church at Ephesus, and he says to them, reminding them of their former state, just as I am reminding you of your former state. You were dead in your trespasses and sins. in which you formally walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit who is now working among the sons of disobedience. Among them too you lived in the lust of the flesh. You were indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and you were by nature children of wrath. like everyone else. Let me break that down for you a little bit. You, my dear friends, the very best of you, the most moral of you, the ones who go to church in your entire life, prior to one moment, prior to God's regenerating work in your life, you were dead in your trespasses and sins. You had no interest in the gospel. It's like a dead man. You walk up to a dead man at a funeral. Hey, how about a Coca-Cola? Would you like one? You want a hamburger? What happens? Nothing. Why? Because they're dead. That's why. They have no thirst. They have no hunger. That's the way you were. You had no appetite for the things of God because you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world. You were living just like everybody else. You were on the broad road to destruction. It's like the cattle in the cattle car on the highway. They're driving, they're in the cattle car, they've got water to drink, they've got feed, and they're thinking to themselves, why is our Master so good to us? And yet, you know where they're going. They're going to the slaughterhouse. And that's how you were. You are living according to the course of this world. I'm having such a great time in this world. I got it going. I am living large. And you were headed for destruction. You didn't even know it. You were living according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. You were in the devil's hip pocket. You didn't know it. He had blinded your mind to the things of God so that you could not see the glory of Christ as the image of God. You didn't see it. You weren't buying it. You were living according to the sons of disobedience. You were rebellious and seditious, just like everybody else. You were indulging the desires of the flesh. You were living an ungodly lifestyle. Paul goes on to say you were indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind. The word indulging is our Greek word poema, where we get our word poem. You had some style, man. You had your own brand of sinning. You were indulging the desires of the flesh. and of the mind. Maybe you were not fleshly and wicked and ungodly in that fashion, but you fashioned in your own mind, I'm sophisticated. I'm an atheist. I'm an agnostic. I think I'll try some New Age mysticism. You are indulging the desires of the mind. He goes on to say, you were children of wrath. just like everyone else, and if you had died one moment before God's regenerating grace, you would have gone straight to hell, and you would have received exactly what you deserve. But my dear friends, Paul goes on from there after laying out this sordid picture of every last one of us, and then he gives us the two greatest, most magnificent words in all of the Holy Bible. Then he says, but God. My dear friends, but God. Watch this. Being rich in mercy. Being rich in mercy. because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions. My dear friends, He's loved you as long as He's existed. How long has God existed? Forever. He foreknew you. He predestined you to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ Himself according to His kind intention, to the praise of the glory of His grace. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, for by grace you have been saved. And He raised us up with Him, and watch this, and He seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, in order that He might show the surpassing riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Paul is so caught up in what we call an anicaluthon. He's making this marvelous parenthetical statement. Paul dictates his letters, and he gets so caught up in the glory of it all, he just starts heaping one phrase on top of another to the praise of the glory of His grace. He's amazed at what God has done. For by grace, he says, you've been saved through faith, not of yourselves. It's a gift of God, not as a result of works, lest anyone should boast. He says, you didn't even have the faith to believe. He had to give you the faith. You had nothing. Why? Because you were dead in your trespasses and sins. It's all by grace, my friends. And then he says, for we are his workmanship. There's that word poema again. In a positive fashion, for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, for what? For good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. God has put you in the United States of America, the most affluent nation of the world, that every last one of us here are infinitely, infinitely rich compared to the world, and God has put us here. To whom much is given, much is required, not just financially, but spiritually. Will you make a faith promise? God, what would you have me do? I can see how I can do this. God, I'm not saying it, but if you provide it, I'll give it. Not for yourself. Look, this is not for the church. Church isn't keeping any of this money. It's not about in here. It's about out there. There's too many missionaries struggling for years and years and years to get their money to go to the field. It ought not to be that way. This is a great church in missions giving. It can be better. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this church. Thank you for your word. And I pray, Lord, that you would use this church powerfully, Lord, as you have. But I pray they would grow even more in their faith. And, Lord, that as they look to you to provide the faith promise, that it would increase their faith and they would be able to say, wow, that's amazing. Lord, hear our prayer. We make it in Jesus' name. Amen.