I want to prepare our hearts for worship this morning, so if you would please turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 8, 2 Corinthians chapter 8, and we'll read together verses 1 through 15. 2 Corinthians 8, beginning in 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 and their deep poverty abounded unto 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 hoped, but first 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. Therefore, as ye abound in everything, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also. I speak not by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others, and to prove the sincerity of your love. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. And herein I give my advice, for this is expedient for you who have begun before, not only to do, but also to be forward a year ago. Now therefore perform the doing of it, that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be a performance also out of that which ye have. For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. For I mean not that other men be eased and ye burdened, but by an equality that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want, that there may be equality. As it is written, he that had gathered much had nothing over, and he that had gathered little had no lack. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the reminder in this passage about giving, about giving to the needs of the ministry and the needs of others, and I do pray that you would give us a scriptural perspective, and blessed pastor, as he opens the word to us today. Lord, may we learn to be cheerful givers and to give not out of need or want or compulsion, but to give cheerfully. And we do pray for your blessing on this service today. Lord, it's our desire that our worship be pleasing to you, so help us as we sing the songs today and as we give our offerings and as we listen to the preaching of your word. Lord, may it all be acceptable to you. And we do pray that you would use us, use us this week, that we might be an encouragement to your people and also be light to the lost world. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Please open your Bible to 2 Corinthians chapter 9, 2 Corinthians chapter 9 this morning. As Pastor Milligan mentioned, this week is our missions conference. It's just a blessing to participate in such a wonderful event. The Lord has blessed our mission conferences in the past. They're just so rich. They're so encouraging. They just lift us up and lift up Christ and encourage our hearts as we see the gospel going forth around the world and we hear from our missionaries and we're encouraged, of course, from the Word of God. Now, as part of that, every year, we ask our regular attenders to prayerfully consider what the Lord would have them to give in the new year, in the next year, for missions. And then we distribute these little cards, these mission giving cards to, again, our regular attenders. We don't ask our visitors to give or anything like that, but our regular attenders just to prayerfully consider what they would give to missions. And if you look on the back of your bulletin, you will note that we as a small church support 21 missionaries. They're distributed in 11 countries scattered around the earth on six continents. That's pretty good. There's only one more, okay? We do thank the Lord for the missionaries that we support. Every one of them is doing a vital work in the Lord's harvest. And the leadership team is prayerfully considering the possibility, if the Lord would so grant, to allow us to add another missionary to that list in 2017. So in light of these facts, I thought it would be very timely for us to consider an encouragement that we find here in 2 Corinthians chapter 9. It is an encouragement for us to be cheerful givers. 2 Corinthians 9, look at verse 6. But this I say, he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he is purposed in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver." Our Father, I do pray that you would speak to us in this hour. This is Holy Scripture. This is sacred text. This is in our Bibles, and you have given this to us. You have caused the Holy Spirit to inspire the writer to record these words, and I pray, Lord, that we would take them to heart and see the application for us today. In Jesus' name, amen. Now, it is true that there are certain topics that certain preachers like to ride as hobby horses. Perhaps you've heard that expression before. I once had a man visit our church here, and as he was leaving, I was greeting him as he was leaving. And he shook my hand and he thanked me. And he said, Pastor, thank you for not preaching on giving. He said, I visited some other church in the area and I visited there three times and every time the pastor was preaching on giving and giving more. And it turned him off. And he said, so I decided I would not go there anymore. I stopped going there. And that's just an illustration of the fact that there are certain preachers who ride this topic as a hobby horse. But the fact is that the Bible has a lot to say about money. The Bible has a lot to say about stewardship. The Bible has a lot to say, in fact, about giving. And so it's really my solemn duty as your pastor to proclaim to you the whole counsel of God. It would be just as wrong for me to ride this topic as a hobby horse as it would for me to be totally neglected. I cannot do that. It is part of the whole counsel of God. But I thought I would be full open disclosure here and I went back and searched my sermon archives looking for how many times I have preached on this topic. Now this man was turned off by a pastor preaching at three times. Do you know in my entire preaching career I have not preached on giving that many times. According to my records, best I can tell, I have preached on this topic one and a half times. One full sermon from Malachi 3, and that was on bad stewardship, where there in Malachi, the people were neglecting the tithe. And so that message, we delved into that whole issue. And half of a sermon from Genesis 14, where Abraham had an example to us of generosity, so it was appropriate in those occasions to talk about giving. So even though today I'm going to preach a message about giving, and I really feel for our first-time visitors, okay? You're getting the wrong impression here, all right? Please come back. I don't always preach about giving. I think it's safe to say that I'm not riding a hobby horse. Will you grant me that? So if you'll pardon the pun, let's giddy up and let's get right into it. Let's look at this passage here. Now, this passage is found in the context of a discourse that Paul begins way back in chapter 8, verse 1, beginning with the passage that Brother Milligan read for us this morning. Here's a situation. The brethren in Jerusalem had some very severe needs. And Paul and others were taking up a collection for them from the various Christian churches that were scattered about. And as Paul goes on, and he's writing now this letter to the Corinthians, and he holds up to them the example of the Macedonians. Now the Macedonian churches, they weren't rich, they weren't wealthy. In fact, they were kind of needy themselves, but they were prompted to give, to give to the brethren who were in greater need there in Jerusalem. And so Paul held up the Macedonians as examples of sacrificial giving. And then Paul goes on to point out that you Corinthians, You have a desire to give. I know that you do because you've made a commitment. You indicated a desire to give to this cause. And so now Paul is writing this to encourage them to follow through on that desire of theirs to give. And the reason he gives is found back in chapter 8, verse 8. He says, I speak not by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others and to, note this, to prove the sincerity of your love. How sincere is your love for the saints of God? Are you willing to give when you see a need and you have the means to meet that need? How sincere is your love for our missionaries who are toiling on foreign soil, making great sacrifices for the sake of the gospel? How sincere is your love for our missionaries? How sincere is your love for your Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, and for his church? And so our passage today encourages us to give. And it gives us four encouragements, and we're going to look at each of these. It encourages us to give bountifully, to give purposefully, to give freely, and to give cheerfully. And why are we to do this? It's because God loves a cheerful giver. God smiles. He is pleased when people give and they give cheerfully. And so let's consider now each of these four encouragements concerning giving. The first one is to give bountifully, to give generously. And if you look there at chapter 9, verse 6, it compares giving to sowing seed. Paul is using a well-known principle of agriculture here. If you just take a little bit of seed and you put it out in the ground, you're gonna get a little harvest. You're gonna reap a little. But if you get a whole bunch of seed and you put it out, you're gonna reap a big harvest. It's just a basic principle of agriculture. Even a child can understand this. The point here is that you must sow bountifully if you want to reap bountifully. So the encouragement is to give bountifully. Now some people are really good at gardening. I'm not one of them. Some people just know how to work the soil and to plant the seed. They know exactly when to plant the seed, how deep to plant the seed, how much water to give that plant. And they take care of their garden. They pull the weeds and water it. And those people reap a harvest. They reap the pleasure of seeing a flower garden that blooms and is beautiful and rich in color. They reap the rewards of a harvest from their vegetable garden, and they can enjoy those fresh vegetables. Now, if you're a gardener and you have a surplus of fresh vegetables, just keep us in mind, those of us who aren't gardeners, okay? You understand. See, gardening is not my thing, but by the grace of God, I can give. I can give to the Lord's work. I'm in the Lord's work, but I can also give to the Lord's work. And it's a delight to me to be able to participate in that opportunity. I can sow through my giving and I can reap what I sow in the form of divine blessings. But this really begs a question for us to consider. In what form do those blessings come? That's a critical question. Because there's a whole group of people out there, prosperity preachers, who erroneously teach that the blessing automatically comes in a material form. Some years ago, Gloria Copeland wrote a book entitled, God's Will is Prosperity. In the book, she's using the example that we actually talked about in Sunday school today about, you know, making sacrifices in this life and the Lord rewarding a hundredfold. Here's what she said, quote, give $10 and receive $1,000. Give $1,000 and receive $100,000. Give one house and receive 100 houses. She kind of catches herself here on this and says, or a house worth 100 times as much. Give one airplane, receive 100 times the value of the airplane. In short, Mark 1030 is a very good deal, she writes. Well, is this right? You know, sow a little money, get a little money back. Sow a lot of money, get a lot of money back. Is that what this passage is teaching? This is what the prosperity preachers want you to believe. But is that what the Bible is teaching? Well, how do we know? How do we know how the blessing comes back? In what form the blessing comes back to us? How do we know what form the reaping will take when we sow bountifully through our giving? Well, all we have to do is exegete the passage. All we have to do is go a little bit further into the text here. Look at verse 8. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. As it is written, he hath dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor, his righteousness remaineth forever. Now he that ministereth seed to the sower, both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed some, and increase the fruits of your righteousness, being enriched in everything to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God." So these verses tell us exactly what form the reaping takes. We see here a principle of sufficiency. This is material, for sure. Sufficiency. If you look at verse 8 there, it says, we'll always have sufficiency in all things. We're going to have enough. We're going to have our needs met. That's what that verse is saying there. We're going to have what we need. And we are also told in verse 10, that the Lord's going to give us enough food to eat. He's going to give us bread for food. Our basic needs are going to be met. So absolutely, yes, there is a material form in the reaping. But it's only at the level of having your needs met, having sufficiency, having enough. And so that is the material side of it. And then we see here in verse 10 that there is a return on investment. that the Lord would multiply your seed some. Now there, it's not so clear what form that multiplication takes place in. And it would seem to be that the Lord may be taking the little bit that you give to his work and then multiplying it in terms of its effectiveness. That could be what's in view here. It may also just simply be that the blessing that you receive will be more than offset by the sacrifice that you make in the giving. And I think that's the general principle in view here. So return on investment. But we also see here an increased spiritual fruitfulness. In verse 10, it says, increase the fruits of your righteousness. And so as we look at the form in which the reaping comes to us when we sow in our giving, there is a material aspect. Our basic needs are met, and there's a spiritual aspect, increased spiritual fruitfulness. And verse 11 then summarizes the outcome, that you'll be enriched in everything to all bountifulness. In other words, you'll have more to give. You'll have more to give. You give to the Lord. Here's the principle. You give to the Lord's work, and he's going to give you more to give. So in other words, give to give more, don't give to get. See the difference? So you'll be enriched in every way, and the end result will be a heart full of thankfulness to God. See, this is the blessed thing. You're not being coerced to give. You're giving. We're going to get to this willingly, cheerfully, and as a result there's thanksgiving in your heart to God because you see Him allowing you to reap the reward of your sowing. And you will sing your praises to God. We have some very notable examples of people who were led to give and give in very generous ways and they sowed bountifully and they reaped bountifully. One example is J.L. Kraft, head of the Kraft Cheese Corporation, Kraft Foods now. He gave approximately 25% of his enormous income to Christian causes for many years. And he once said this, quote, the only investment I ever made which has paid consistently increasing dividends is the money I have given to the Lord. What an example of giving bountifully. Then there's Henry Parsons Crowell. Henry Crowell received Christ as his Savior as a very young man. He became the founder of the Quaker Oats Company and a significant contributor to the works of the Moody Bible Institute. When he started out in business in a little Ohio factory, he promised God that he would honor him in his giving. And God's blessing was rich upon him. And as his business grew, he kept increasing his giving until he reached the level of giving away, get this, 60% of his income. And he did this consistently for many years. Toward the end of his life, he testified, quote, I've never gotten ahead of God. He has always been ahead of me in giving. A well-known philanthropist was asked, how is it that you give away so much and yet have so much left? I suppose it's like this, he replied. I shoveled out and God shovels back in and God has a bigger shovel. And it's true. It's true. So, the question is, how bountiful is your giving? You can't out-give God. God loves a cheerful giver. We're looking at four encouragements to give in this passage. The first encouragement is to give bountifully. The second one is to give purposefully. We might use the word deliberately. Look back there at verse 7. Every man according as he hath purposed in his heart. so let him give." Paul is telling the Corinthians, give according to what you have purpose to give. It was in your heart to give, so now give. Follow through. You see, purposeful giving is just a very simple two-step process. Step one is to purpose to give. Purpose in your heart. Verse seven says, they purposed in their heart as every man individually purposed in his heart. So he was to give. This word purpose means to determine ahead of time. It means deliberation and deliberateness. In other words, a giving plan. And so I think we have very sound scriptural basis for what we do when we ask people to consider what their giving will be in the new year for missions. We're giving deliberately. We're giving purposefully. And the simple fact is that the Corinthians had a giving plan. They had expressed a desire to give to a particular need in God's ministry. In fact, they expressed that desire a full year before Paul wrote this letter. If you look back at chapter 8 and verse 10. And herein I give my advice for this is expedient for you who have begun before Not only to do, but also to be forward a year ago. What the Corinthians did is they got together as a church and they said, you know, next year we're going to give. We're going to give a gift to this cause. Doesn't say in the text, but the implication is maybe there was even a size indicated how much they would give or at least a willingness to give. And so now Paul saying, let's take the collection. and let's get the gift over there where it's needed." The Corinthian church had become aware of the need. They heard. In those days, I don't think they had missionary prayer letters. They certainly didn't have email, but somehow they got the message that there was a need. And no doubt they prayed about it, and they asked for the Lord's leading. And they individually purposed in their hearts to give a certain amount to this need. And now Paul's saying, please follow through. They weren't told to give a certain amount as if they were paying some sort of dues. And there are certain denominations that basically give demissions kind of like that. There was no bidding war to see who would give the most. It wasn't like a public auction. Each one purposed in their heart, privately, individually. Now I've been in some churches and been in some church business meetings where a certain need of the ministry was presented. We don't do our business meetings this way. But I've been at business meetings where the need is presented and somebody in the church hollers out, I'll give $50. Somebody else, I'll give $50. And a third one comes along, I'll give $100. How do those first two people feel now? Okay, I'll change mine. I'll meet that. Okay, I'll give $100 now. You see, this is no way to do it. This isn't purposing in your heart. This is spontaneous recklessness and one-upmanship. And the Lord Himself forbid such a thing. Matthew 6.1, Jesus says, "...take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them. Otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven." God is the one who gives the reward And Jesus goes on to say, but when thou doest alms, do not let thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. Just keep it secret. It's between you and the Lord. That's the way it ought to be. And Jesus goes on that thine alms may be in secret and thy father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. So it's between you and God what you give. It's between you and God. That's why on our giving card, there's no name blank. It's anonymous. It's between you and God. And you give as you are led, as you purpose to give, so let you give. The amount you decide is between you and the Lord. And the only reason we collect these cards is so we have some idea of how big to size the mission budget in the new year. So purposeful giving, it's a simple two-step process. Step one, purpose to give. What do you think the second step is? Give it. Give it. It's pretty obvious. Look at chapter 8, verse 10. And herein I give my advice, for this is expedient for you, which have begun before, not only to do it, but also to look forward a year ago. Now therefore perform the doing of it. That is, there was a readiness to will, so there may be a performance also out of that which ye have. Simple two-step process. Purpose to give and then give it. That's what Paul's saying. The Corinthians planned to give. There was a readiness, an eagerness to give to this need. And so Paul says, therefore do it. Follow through. One commentator said this, inward resolve is to be followed by decisive and cheerful giving. That's right. Now, I need to clarify at this point that purposeful planned giving is not presumptuous giving. And Paul himself expresses this in chapter eight in verse 12. For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. For I mean not that other men be eased and ye burdened, but by inequality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want, that there may be equality. So I want you to focus on that phrase, according to that a man hath, according to what he has. Not according to what he does not have. We are not to presume upon the Lord. Or strike some deal with God. God, I'm going to give you, you know, I can hardly make my mortgage payment. I'm just suffering here, Lord. I'm barely making ends meet. But Lord, I believe that you want me to give this amount And I don't see how I'm gonna give it, Lord, but I'm gonna give it knowing that you're going to give me that reward." You see, that's presumption upon God. And we're not to presume upon God. The clear pattern of Scripture is that we give according to what we have, not in accordance to what we do not yet have. We give according to how the Lord has blessed us. As the Lord has prospered us, so we give, not the other way around. Proverbs 3.9 says, honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine increase. That's pretty clear. The substance is what you have. The increase is your income. That's how you give to the Lord. And then Paul himself in 1 Corinthians 16.2 lays down this principle, upon the first day of the week, Let every one of you lay by him in store as God has prospered him." So how is God prospering you? Give according to how God prospers you. The Lord would have us to give purposefully, planned, deliberate giving. That's not to say that we wouldn't spontaneously give at a love offering. but our regular pattern of giving should be deliberate and planned. So let me ask, how purposeful is your giving? Do you have a giving plan? Is there a certain amount that you are giving to the Lord out of your increase, out of your abundance, out of how God has prospered you? It may be that we would follow the pattern that we have in the Old Testament. That's the pattern of the tithe. But we're not under the obligation of the tithe in the New Testament era. You understand that? You give according to how God prospers you. You give according to the abundance that God gives to you. Maybe it is a tithe. Maybe it's less than a tithe. Maybe it's 2%. A tithe is 10%. You give according to how God prospers you. The Lord knows how much you have to give. He knows what you're able to give. He knows if you can give on a craft level or a crowl level. He knows if you're on fixed income. and can give just a few percent. The Lord knows, and God loves a cheerful giver. So we're looking at four encouragements with reference to our giving. We're to give bountifully, we're to give purposefully, and thirdly, to give freely. Verse seven says, not grudgingly or of necessity. Two very important key words here. We're not to give with a sense of reluctance. We're not to give with a sense of compulsion. Jesus said to his disciples, freely you have received, freely give. That's the pattern here. We freely give because we have freely received. We have been on the receiving end of the grace of God. In fact, what's interesting is if you read through this entire treatise on giving, chapter eight and chapter nine, It's interesting to see the number of times that there is reference here to the grace of God, to grace. Look at chapter 8 and verse 1. Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia. Look down at verse 6. And so much that we desire Titus that he has begun so he would also finish in you the same grace also. And look at the next verse. Therefore, as ye abound in everything, in faith, in utterance, in knowledge, and in all diligence, in your love to us, say that ye abound in this grace also. Look at verse 9. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for your sakes he became poor. Look at verse 19. and that not only, but who was also chosen of the churches to travel with us with this grace. So see, the gift itself is even referred to as grace. And then, of course, in 2 Corinthians 9, 8, look at verse 8 there, and God is able to make all grace abound toward you. This is the idea of you can't out give God. Think of all the grace that God has poured upon you, certainly beginning with your salvation. If you know Jesus as your Savior, what a tremendous grace God has given to you. He's given to you eternal life. He's given you all that you need in this life and many blessings in the life to come. His grace is abundant on us every day. And as God has given to us his grace, So let us also reflect the graciousness of our God through our giving. Let us give freely. Let us give of our own free will. Let us give willingly. God is a God of grace and he enables, by his grace, he enables his people to give. And consequently, the gift given is a gift of grace. One day the Lord was talking with a farmer and he asked the farmer, if you had a hundred horses, would you give me 50? And the farmer said, well, yes, Lord, I'd give you 50. And then the Lord asked, if you had a hundred cows, would you give me 50? The farmer said, well, yes, Lord, I'd give you 50. And then the Lord asked the farmer, if you had two pigs, would you give me one? The farmer said, oh, cut that out, Lord. You know that I have two pigs. And then the Lord says, well, who gave you those two pigs? You see, this is grace giving. This is the principle we have in the New Testament. God, in his grace, has lavished so much upon us. He's given us more than we need. I think every one of us sitting here today has more than you need. And so out of your abundance, the abundance that God himself has given you, give a little back to him. Now, I'm not going to tell you how much to give. That's between you and the Lord. I don't know how much you give and I don't want to know. I really try to keep a very long arms distance from all of the financial workings of the church, especially on the giving side. I don't know. I honestly don't know how much anyone here gives. It's between you and the Lord. The ushers aren't watching to see how much you put in the offering plate. You understand? The deacons of the church aren't going to come along and say, we want you to give more now. It's between you and the Lord, and the reason, the principle here is that we want you to give freely, because that's what the scriptures tell us to do, to give freely, of our own free will, not under compulsion, not grudgingly. And if we're able to give freely like this, then the fourth thing will come. We will give cheerfully. We will give cheerfully. Verse seven says, for God loves a cheerful giver. The word cheerful here comes from the Greek term that we get our English word hilarious, hilarity. So we're to be hilarious givers. Some preachers will say that. Give with hilarity. There's a children's song. God loves a cheerful giver. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Yeah, that's good. That's the idea. It should bring joy to our hearts to give to the Lord's work. knowing that the reward, the harvest is so great. God loves. He takes delight in those who cheerfully give to His work. He delights to bless them so that they can give more. So how cheerful is your giving? How happy are you to sit down each week and write that offering check? I hope there is joy in your heart when you do that. Many years ago, a certain woman was preparing a box to be sent to some missionaries in India. And a child gave her a penny. And with that penny, she went and purchased a track. Now you can tell this was a long time ago. She purchased a track to put in the box. And eventually this track reached a Burmese tribal chief. And through the means of that track, he heard the gospel and he received Christ as his savior. He was genuinely saved. And that chief then, as a converted Christian, began to share the gospel in his tribe and beyond. A church was established there and over 1,500 natives were converted to Christianity. Folks, no gift is too small for God to use and for God to multiply and for God to bless. And so I want to start with the very young people here to make application. No gift is too small for God to use. So parents, you ought to be training your children to give to the Lord's work even when they're young. Help them to get into that habit. Are you giving your children an allowance? Teach them to give regularly out of that allowance to God. Are your children receiving gifts, birthday gifts, Christmas gifts? Teach your children to give some of that back to the Lord. Are they earning money from a lemonade stand? Well, teach them to save and teach them to give. These are principles of stewardship that we find in the Scriptures. And a tithe is a good guideline. It's an easy thing to calculate. And so that's very good to start off children with that habit. So children, children, give according to how God prospers you. When money comes into your hand, Give some back to God and be a cheerful giver in that. God is blessing you with an allowance or a gift or some earned money from your lemonade stand. Be a faithful giver to God and start when you're young. Children, are you earning some money? Do you have some kind of income, a little job that you're doing and somebody's paying you for it? Give some of it back to God. That's the principle here. Give some of it back to God according as God prospers you, even if it's just a penny. Develop that habit. Oil tycoon J.D. Rockefeller said this, quote, I never would have been able to tithe the first million dollars I ever made if I had not tithed my first salary, which was $1.50 a week. So start when you're young. Start when the income is small. Devote that habit. And to the rest, I would say, have you been given a raise? Well, how about giving the Lord a raise? Have you been blessed with some unexpected income? Then look around. There might be a need in the Lord's work where God wants you to give a special unexpected gift to his work. Are you on a fixed income? The Lord knows. He knows how much you have to give. And he asked no more of you than that. Give as you are able. Give thoughtfully. Give purposefully, give freely, give cheerfully, for God loves a cheerful giver. He takes delight in it and he will bless. And furthermore, giving to his work will reap eternal dividends. Think of what God does with your money that you give to his purpose, to his cause. Christ is proclaimed around the world. That's what God does with it. Christ is proclaimed and souls are saved and disciples are made and grown in the faith through your giving, through our giving, through our little church here. The Lord is multiplying. The Lord is blessing. We are suffering no need, I can tell you. I don't need to ask you to give more money to our church. Enough is coming in. But I can tell you that the more you do give, the more that can be done in the name of the Lord. Our Father, we thank you for this very practical lesson, a topic that some would ride as a hobby horse and others would avoid altogether. And Lord, we pray that we would just be simply faithful to what we find in your word. You have spoken. You have encouraged us to be joyful and cheerful givers. And Lord, you have promised us that there would be a harvest. that if we would sow, you would allow us to reap, to reap your blessings, both materially and spiritually. Lord, I pray that we would just be a people who delight in giving and seeing you work. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.