The Christian's Approach to Money part 4 - Lessons from the Macedonians

I know that I always say that I enjoy worship and I know that I repeat myself when I say I like certain songs but I really do appreciate the worship especially the last three. Those three mean something, each of them means something in my life. Facing a task unfinished is one that I used in my prayer life in preparation for going to the Philippines, listen to that, meditate over those words quite a bit.

Is your all in the altar has been a prayer of mine, one that brother Keith has sung through the years and then the church is one foundation is a fairly new one that we've used but I think it really speaks to who the Lord wants us to be here at Nola Baptist Church. And as I say regularly if any of the songs that we sing minister to you I challenge you to acquire the lyrics. Brother Keith can show you where you can acquire the songs themselves to use in your own home and your family time and your own personal time. So appreciate that worship and how it leads us right where we are going this morning.

Well take your Bible and turn back with me to our passages that we read earlier. We started off in our First Timothy passage, that's our foundational passage. It's our launching pad, we've gone back and forth to First Timothy 6 all throughout these weeks in this study. And then we were in Second Corinthians chapter 8 earlier. We'll start off in Second Corinthians chapter 8 or we'll stay there most of the time and there are a couple of times I will call you to refer back to First Timothy chapter 6. Now you know it's not my habit to have you turn here, there and everywhere. I want you to be able to follow me throughout the message.

But I always try to give you instruction as to where we're going in God's Word. Now if you've kept up with our study you know that we have had three messages and it's been dealing with the subject of money. The title that we've carried all along has been the Christians Approach to Money. We put our study through the Gospel of John on hold because we felt like it was time for us to revisit this subject of money and giving and tithing and what that looks like in the life of the church. Now this morning's message will be our fourth message and it will be our final message on the subject.

Now when I say final message I know one day we'll come back. Remember this is part of a series, a running series, messages from the pastor's heart. Every so often there are things that I feel like need to be brought to us and this is one of them. That's why we've taken four weeks to look at money and tithing and what that looks like for us. Now real quickly when we go back to that first message it was simply titled the Christians Approach to Money. And I believe the Lord set us on a journey of thinking about our money. We learn that we can't as Christians serve God in money. As Christians we can't seek to become rich.

And we also learn that we cannot fall into the trap of loving money. Ultimately we learn that we must use our money and our possessions for good. And that's where we were there in 1 Timothy 6 verses 17 through 19. Learning that we are to do good with the monies and possessions that we have. We're to do good in our families. If we do not provide for the needs of our families we're worse than unbelievers. We are to do good with our monies and the life of the church. Kingdom work here on earth and then we are to do good with others. Those outside of the church needs outside of the church within the culture.

And then second we looked at the Christians Approach to Money. We looked at the tithe. This was more educational as we looked at the tithe from Old Testament all the way to the New Testament. Now if you go back and look at that message you know that we covered a lot of scripture. A wide variety of scripture. And ultimately we learned that the tithe is not, and I repeat not commanded in the New Testament. And for some they feel that this leaves them out on a limb.

Some people when we deal with a subject like this and we explain that the tithe is not found in the New Testament they might ask a question, "Well how am I supposed to give?" That's all I've known. And that's a good question. We have to think about this subject. We have to pray and we have to get into the scriptures and we must allow God to do a work in our lives here. And I believe that's what the Lord has been doing these three weeks and this morning which will be four weeks. And then last week in our third message we looked at the Christians Approach to Money. We looked at the New Testament churches example.

Now to be honest with you we only picked out two examples and we briefly looked at them but we looked at the early church or the church in its infancy. That was the church at Jerusalem. We looked at passages between Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 8 and even into Acts chapter 11. We looked at that early, early church. And then we looked at the Macedonian church. This is where Paul really took five verses to give us one of the greatest examples of a church giving according to the New Testament model.

If you really look at those passages you can see that Paul really bragged on the Macedonian church and I don't think I'm wrong in using that language. Now with all of that said I want us to just take a step back. I want us to look at the powerful progression and what we have learned. Now use that phrase powerful progression purposely. In the beginning I wanted us to start thinking about our monies and our possessions. After that first message I had one of the men of the church text me and indicate that that message made him begin to think about his possessions and his monies. God did that work.

I said repeatedly that we needed the Lord to stir us up here, to put the large stick into our lives and just stir us up and make us think about our monies and how we give and what that should look like. Then we progressed along in looking at the tithe, where it comes from and what it looks like in the New Testament and oh quickly we glanced at the New Testament church and how they gave. And that's where I want us to be this morning. But more specifically I want us to go a little further with this Macedonian church that I feel like I just introduced you to last week. And that's the 2 Corinthians chapter 8 passage. I will go a little deeper.

I will make application. And this will be the rest of the story. Remember I've been talking about the rest of the story and the rest of the story is what we should do in the life of the church today. Now I'll go ahead and give you the title of the message. It is the Christians Approach to Money and this is part 4. And we're going to look at 7 lessons from the Macedonians. 7 lessons from the Macedonians. Now before we get into these lessons and read the text again, I want us to see the context and the purpose behind these verses. The context of these verses and the purpose behind these verses. The context.

We must see that Paul was writing to the church there at Corinth. Now we are familiar with the church of Corinth. Corinth had a lot of problems. Oh they had a whole lot of problems. If you want to know if there's hope for the church today, just look at Corinth. Because if there was hope for Corinth, then there's hope for us. There's hope for the church. And also we have the Macedonian churches. Now if you noticed verse 1 of chapter 8 of 2 Corinthians, Paul uses churches plural. "Brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given to the churches in Macedonia." Now question, who are these churches?

Now you must see what Macedonia was. Macedonia was the northern province of Greece. It was a very impoverished area. It was ramshackle because of regional wars that took place. And in the time of Paul, it was impoverished because of the Romans. So this was a poor area in the northern portion of Greece. But a more specific question, who was in the area? Who was in this region or this area? Acts chapter 17 indicates who was there. There were the churches there at Philippi. We've heard of the church at Philippi. The church of Thessalonica. The church of Berea. Those churches that we are familiar with are there or were there in Macedonia.

And then also within this context is the church at Jerusalem. I explained last week that they were going through a great time of need because of a great famine and that is the subject of this giving. This great need within the life of the Jerusalem church. So this is the context. But what about the purpose? Paul was urging the Corinthians to finish what they had started. If you move over into verse 6, you see Titus mention. Titus had been working within the Corinthian church to give an offering for the Jerusalem church, the Jerusalem problem. And Paul was urging these Corinthians to finish, if I can use this language, what they had started.

So purpose means something in examining these verses and context means something. This just gives us a fuller, fuller picture. So let's go back to these verses. I want us to read them again. Verses 1-5. And then we will dive right off into our message. Verse 1, "Now brethren, writing to the church, Christians there in Corinth, we," this is Paul, "and those traveling with him we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given to the churches." There in the region, the area of Macedonia.

"Then in a great ordeal of affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their generosity or liberality," depending upon what translation you have. "For I testify that according to their ability and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, begging us with much entreaty 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." Now you see before you how we are going to begin to break down these verses. Again, I said seven lessons, so we'll have seven major truths.

Now the first lesson I want us to see is they gave out of a work of grace. They gave out of a work of grace. Go back to verse 1, "Now brethren, we wish to make known to you," notice, "the grace of God which has been given to the churches of Macedonia." Now when it comes to giving and the life of the church, most of us have seen it all. If I were to ask you and maybe take down some of the things that you've seen, you've seen it all. We have seen good and we have seen bad and we have even seen the ugly. I'll give you an example.

I'll never forget one time in the life of one of the churches that I served, there was a very high profile and famous so-called evangelist. He passed the offering plate and the amount had been given and because the amount was not met, he passed it again. Yeah. There were lots of strange looks on people's faces when he did that. See that's the good, the bad and the ugly. But we've also seen genuine needs brought before the forefront of the people and we've seen people give accordingly. We must not always focus on the bad but we also need to see the good. Well we've seen it in different ways.

We've seen the, what I call the guilt trip giving, you've seen that. We've seen mandatory giving or giving out of duty. We've seen it all. But that is not the case with the Macedonians. I want you to notice this phrase. Go back to verse 1. "Brethren, we wish to make known to you," here's the phrase, "the grace of God." Now this is not referring to salvation. The grace of God whereby we are saved. This speaks of God inspired giving. But more, this speaks of giving which was influenced and inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. Specifically, God had worked in these people and in these churches.

And He had worked in them and moved them in this place of giving. This was personal, this was experiential, and this was unique to these particular people, these Christians, these churches. Now I want to make a contrast here that will help us to see this grace of God. This is not a human work. This is a work of God in human beings. This is not some great philanthropic work, but a work of God's grace bringing these people to give to the church to kingdom work, to kingdom needs. Now as you pastor, I want you to know my heart here. I've known many of you for quite a few years and some of you I've known for a short period of time.

And I always want you to see that I never ever ever want to guilt trip you into giving. I never want to make giving a duty or call you to give just out of rote giving. No. As your pastor, I want us to see that giving should come out of the work of God. Now there are times we know, there are black and white times we should give. But that should be because God has worked in us and created us to be good givers. We just need a work of grace to teach us how to give, when to give, what that should look like. And yes, there are unique times when God works and calls us to give in a unique way. That is the grace of God working in us.

See if we divorce the grace of God working within us, then it can become duty. That's why I wanted us to think. That's why I wanted the Lord to put that stick in our hearts and lives and stir us up and make us question and make us pray. That's why we have those three challenges that we will revisit later. We need a work of God, a work of grace to teach us. Our second lesson or second major truth, they gave out of their poverty and their generosity. They gave out of their poverty and their generosity.

Those two, that in a great ordeal of affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their generosity or liberality. For us to see what we need to see here, we must go back to our first Timothy passage. If you would, turn back to our first Timothy passage. Now we divided verses 17 through 19 in our two Wednesday night Bible studies, but I want us to read verse 17 specifically. What does he say? Instruct those who are rich in this present world. Now here we see Paul use this word rich. Now I have said this more than once. We've got to see this verse in light of their culture.

In their day, to be rich was to have food for more than one day. To be rich was to have more clothes than just the clothes on your back. To be rich was to have more than simple shelter. So comparing ourselves and our lifestyle with these people, we are filthy. And I use that word purposely. We are filthy, filthy rich. Now going back to our Corinthians passage, I want us to notice a couple of specifics concerning the Macedonians. Notice they were afflicted with great poverty. Is it that what the verse says? And in a great ordeal of affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty. So we see affliction and poverty.

Affliction and poverty. The new American uses deep poverty. The English standard version is extreme poverty. This means extremely deep. This word for poverty here, it speaks of the worst kind of economic deprivation and poverty. This type of poverty in that day usually spoke of a person who was a beggar. So they were afflicted. This was a deep poverty, a great poverty, extreme poverty. Then the second observation, they gave liberally and with joy. Go back to the verse. Then in a great ordeal of affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality or generosity. Here we see an abundant joy.

This word abundant simply means a surplus. It was through this joy that they gave, the new American uses liberality. The English standard uses generosity. This word liberality or generosity can be translated sincerity. I know I mentioned that last Sunday. This means that they were not hypocritical but sincere in that joyful giving. They were not double-minded. This was a sincere work that God had done. So we see a lot here just in verse 1, or excuse me, verse 2. These churches were afflicted. They were afflicted with great poverty, yet they gave liberally and joyfully. This speaks of their heart's attitude.

This speaks of their spirit in their giving. This came about because of that great work of grace that God did in them. As your pastor, I want to speak here for just a moment about this word joy. Now we must be careful. This word joy is not like our word happy. See, we can be happy over circumstances. We get a raise at work, we're happy. I mean we have a good day at work, we're happy. We go fishing and catch quite a few fish, we're happy. See that word happy, we abuse it. But this word joy, this speaks of a spiritual work that God does within us.

Happiness comes in joy, comes in goes, but joy is a spiritual work that God does within us, and that's what is taking place here. We see that these people joyously gave out of this afflicted position of poverty. And we, we must have God to do a work in us where we give with a joyful heart. That's why a work of grace is so important. That's why God teaching us and stirring within us and reforming how we give and why we give and what we give is key because I think most of us just write the check. We need a work of God in us and through that work we can give joyfully with a new joy, a refreshing joy, a joy that we've never had before.

Let's move on to this third lesson. Our major truth number three, they gave out of their ability and beyond. They gave out of their ability and beyond. Verse three, "For I testify that according to their ability and beyond their ability." Here we see something wonderful. This is something that is unique. Here we have Paul, the great apostle Paul, and I used this word earlier, he's bragging on these people. He's bragging on this church. He's bragging on these Christians. We know that Paul has done this before if I reference back to the book of Colossians.

We learned all about the church there at Colossae and our Sunday night small groups and our adult small groups. And we learned that Paul, he bragged on this man named Apipras. He was a strong Christian, an evangelistic Christian, and he loved the church. Well here Paul is lifting up to the Corinthians a great example. He is bragging on the Macedonians. And I think it's okay to say that. Paul is bragging on these Christians. There are two specifics I want us to see here. First, they gave according to their ability. Isn't that what he said? For I testify that according to their ability. This means that they gave in proportion to what they had.

We have learned in our 1 Timothy chapter 6, 17-19 passage that it is not a sin to be rich. It's what you do with it that becomes a sin. God blesses some with more and God blesses others with less. No matter what we have, it is a blessing from God. From these Christians, these people, they gave in proportion to what they had according to their ability. But then they gave, second, they gave beyond their ability. What's the rest of the verse? And beyond their ability. Here we see a progression. Here we see another layer. Paul says that they took it to another level or the next level. They gave beyond their means.

No, this is what's called sacrificial giving because earlier they gave according to their ability. Now they're giving beyond their ability. This is sacrificial giving. So here we see a lot as well. We have a progressive work. These people, these Christians, these churches, they gave according to their ability and then they went beyond. This speaks not of how much they gave but how they gave. That needs to be repeated. This speaks not of how much they gave but how they gave. They gave in direct proportion to what they had and then they gave beyond that and that is sacrificial giving.

Now I have said this before and I'll say it again, but I do not believe I have ever called any of us to give sacrificially. But oh, that day may come. You might ought to write that word down. I refer back to the phrase that I used last week, front of the line mentality. See when we're front of the line mentality Christians, this sacrificial giving will be a part of it and look, I have never called you to give sacrificially but the day might come when the need is put before you, the need is there for us all in a corporate manner and we all have to give sacrificially. But you know, we should always be giving according to our ability.

That ought to be the norm. That should be the everyday. That should be what we do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and then when the need comes and the Lord moves, we give sacrificially because remember, this is all a work of grace, a work of the Spirit within us. And then fourth, our fourth lesson is they gave on their own initiative. They gave of their own initiative. For I testify, verse 3, I testify that according to their ability and beyond their ability that they gave of their own accord. Now this little phrase can be overlooked but it must be seen.

This again speaks of their hearts, the hearts of these Christians and these churches. This is another layer and this is a good layer. This tells us that these churches, these people, they step forward to meet the need. This phrase literally means one who chooses his own course of action. That's what they did. They step forward. They chose their own course of action. They insisted on this course of action and that is what they did. They insisted, they took action. They jumped into the work of giving. They insisted. Go back to the verse. For I testify that according to their ability and beyond their ability that they gave of their own accord.

Now as your pastor, I'd like you to write down two words. We're good note takers. God's taught us that and you need to write down two words. This word ambition and this word initiative. We know what this word ambitious means. You know we might speak about someone at work. We might say, "Well, you know, he is ambitious in his job. You know he's ambitious. He works hard. He's thinking ahead and he's out there being ambitious." We might think about someone in school who is ambitious and that's what these people were. They were ambitious in their giving but notice the initiative. We know what it means when someone takes initiative.

They see something over here to the right and they take initiative toward that need or toward that issue. So that's what we see here. They gave of their own accord. They step forward. They had ambition. They took the initiative. You know I'm very thankful that I've seen this in the life of our church. You know as I was finishing up this morning, I thought to myself, "I want to be careful. I don't want any of this to sound like I'm scolding us. I think we're doing pretty good in some of these areas. This might be for the future. Sure. What we're learning today might be for tomorrow in a new way.

Sure." And I think that I've seen, I believe that I've seen some of you be very ambitious and take the initiative. I've heard second and third hand of needs that you've met. I think about needs when people have been sick. I think about needs when people have had babies. I know of needs when people had financial issues and some of you stepped forward. You know who you are. What am I showing you? Sometimes you see the need, you are ambitious and you take the initiative. And that's what these people did. They came to Paul and what did they do? They took the initiative in this matter.

And I think that in the future we're going to have to be more ambitious and take the initiative. Now let's move on. Let's notice our fifth lesson, fifth major truth. They gave with a great eagerness. They gave with a great eagerness. Verse 5, "Bagging us." Notice what Paul says here. They are begging us with much in treaty for the favor of participation in the support of the saints. Again, we see their heart. These churches, multiple churches in the area of Macedonia, these Christians within these churches we see their hearts. We don't know their names, but we see their hearts. They knew of the needs there in the Jerusalem church.

They had been made aware of those needs and we see more action. We see more of a reflection of their heart here. Two specifics I want us to see here. They were begging Paul. Isn't that what he says? Begging us. They're begging Paul and they're begging his associates. The new American and the English standard both use the word begging and this is extremely accurate. This word literally means with much in treaty begging. It is as if they kept on asking. It is as if they would not take no for an answer. Then the second observation, they saw giving as a privilege, not a burden.

Begging with much in treaty for the favor of participation in the support of the saints. This speaks of how they saw giving. They did not see this as a burden or a duty. They did not see this as something that they would just do. This was a favor that they could do. They saw that participation in giving to the Jerusalem church, it was an honor and a great one. So again, we're seeing the heart behind the action. They gave out of their ability and above their ability, beyond their ability. It is as if Paul is allowing us to see the behind the scenes in this offering. They begged Paul for the privilege. They begged Paul for the honor.

They saw it as an honor and never a burden. Now a question for us this morning or two questions. First question is do we beg? Do we insist on giving? Think about that. Let that roll over in your mind. Do we beg? Do we insist on giving? Have we ever given with this same heart? I think about an example that might help us here. Most of you know that my dad is older and he is struggling with Alzheimer's disease. He's doing well. But as my dad has gotten older, he's been giving things away and I mean all that in the right way.

And he knows that I like to do things with my hands and occasionally when I go, he calls me aside and he wants to give me something. Give me his tools and things like that. Sometimes it's something large and sometimes it's something small. But inevitably I always say the same thing. I always say, "Dad, you can't do that. You don't need to do that. You can't do that." And he'll look at me and he'll say, "I can do it and you can't stop me." I'll just say, "Yes, sir." Isn't that kind of what we see here? These people are saying, "Paul, we're going to give. Yes, we're going to give.

It is a high honor and a privilege and oh Paul, you can't stop us." Now the question, do we beg, do we insist on giving and do we see giving as a great spiritual honor? I hope you don't see it as a burden. I hope you don't see it as a duty. But oh, I know we've all fallen into the trap of just giving our cash or writing our check and it just becomes rote. You know when something is rote, we just do it without thinking? But not these Macedonians. They insisted on the great honor of giving. And then six, our sixth lesson is they gave and they surprised others. They gave and they surprised others.

The beginning of verse five, "And this not as we had expected." Just like in verse three, here we see Paul's thoughts. We see his heart behind the matter. Before Paul is vouching for their actions. And here in verse five, Paul is saying simply that he was surprised. The giving of these churches in Macedonia surprised Paul. He was not expecting this. Now there are a couple of speculative questions I want to ask here. Now what I mean by speculative is we can't pull this out of the text. This is purely speculation. I can be wrong here. I've said this before. You know sometimes we use our Holy Ghost imagination. Do we read between the lines?

Now we have to be careful. And I think you'll see where I'm going. First question, this speculative question. Was Paul surprised because he knew their great poverty? Possibly so. He knew the region. He knew these churches. He knew people in these churches. He knew the leaders in these churches. Maybe Paul was just surprised because he knew of their great poverty. The second speculative question, was Paul surprised because he expected the need to be met by someone else? Maybe he expected the Corinthians to meet this need. Oh, the rest of the story starts in verse six.

Titus had been working with these Corinthians and some of the commentators I read this week shared that it had been over a year since they were beginning to take up this offering. Maybe he was expecting the Corinthians to fulfill this need. We really don't know. But we do know what verse five says. He was surprised. And others were surprised. There is no way we can know what was going on in Paul's mind here. But he was surprised that these impoverished Christians were stepping up as they were. Now this is a time where I feel like I want to give us a warning. We need to be careful what we do and how we do it.

To see we need to be careful not to let our right hand know what our left hand is doing. If we're not careful, we will give and we will do things and we'll be careless for others to see. And see if we're not careful, that's when pride can slip in. Some of the greatest needs are met. Some of the best giving is done. And when no one knows. Maybe only you. Maybe your wife doesn't know. Maybe your husband doesn't know. Maybe it's just known within the confines of your home. And no one knows. What am I sharing with you? We must be careful not to let our left hand know what our right hand does.

But yet there are times in the life of the church other people will know. Paul was surprised because of the great work that was done here. Now let's move on to our last lesson, our last major truth. They gave from a life that was already given. They gave from a life that was already given. Verse 5, "And this not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God." Again, we see the heart behind these actions. It is wonderful that Paul is allowing us to see not just their actions, but who they were, their hearts, the quality of their Christian hearts. Now a couple of observations I want to make here.

First they gave themselves first to the Lord. Isn't that what it says? But they first gave themselves to the Lord and then to us by the will of God. This word first is a key word here. We see it in the New American and the English Standard. This speaks of their priority. They first consecrated themselves to the Lord. That was the priority. Giving themselves to Him. This consecration involved all that they had as well. Whether they had a little or a lot, it was consecrated to the Lord. Why? Because they were consecrated to the Lord. And then second, they gave themselves to the work. Now go back to the verse.

But they first gave themselves to the Lord and then to us by the will of God. What is this us? This is the work of the church. I am tempted to use the word next, but I will use the word because. Because they were consecrated to the Lord, they were consecrated to Paul and to the church which is true Kingdom work. They were committed to Paul and they were committed to the work of the church. They were committed to the church specifically to the church at Jerusalem. Why and how? Because they were concentrated to the Lord. Those two questions are important. Why and how? Why were they committed to the church at Jerusalem?

Because they were consecrated to the Lord. How were they consecrated to the church at Jerusalem? Because they were consecrated to the Lord. Now not only do we need to see their heart here, but we need to see their order. Order is key. They were consecrated to the Lord and then they were consecrated to Paul and his work. Now a reminder, I am repeating myself. Paul's work was true Kingdom work. And as you pastor, I want you to see there's a very, very, very valuable lesson here. Very. There are many Christians today. They are not as consecrated to the work of the true church because they have a weak consecration to the Lord.

And there are many so called, and I think you know what I mean by that. So called Christians and they are not consecrated to the work of the true church because they have never been consecrated to the Lord. And look, you cannot separate the two. It is unbiblical. It is foreign to the new Testament. If you grow more and more consecrated to the Lord out of a love for him, a devotion for him and to him and an obedience to him, then you will be consecrated to the work of the church. I want to continue with this warning by helping you see something here.

It's a big movement today in Christian circles to be very, very committed to the earthly family. Now I'm all for that. The Lord instituted family and then earthly government and all of those are from the Lord. But you know, there are some people, they are so committed to the family that they cannot be committed to the work of the church. I've seen it. I've tried to correct it. I've tried to help people here in this area. But see what happens is if your consecration to the Lord does not lead you to a solid, consistent and full consecration to his church, then that consecration is a defective consecration. Now why do I spend the time here?

There are always people that will get out of order and out of sync here and see they will have a seeming spiritual reason as to why they're not as consecrated to the work of the church. That's a defective consecration every time, not the Macedonians. Look at the Macedonians. They gave out of a twofold consecration, a full consecration to the Lord, therefore a full consecration to the church. And it did not matter their physical limitations. Now as I move away from these lessons, I want to conclude in two ways real quickly. I want to go back to our challenge. It was a threefold challenge. I have given this to us many times, several times.

This first was brought to your attention on a Wednesday night Bible study time. But let me revisit this challenge. And this is where we will go to our prayer life and continue to pray. And this will be this continuous work in our life. First of all, this first challenge, I call us all to engage in a prayerful examination of our money and even our properties. I call us all to engage in a prayerful examination of our monies and our properties. I give you an example. I've got a friend of mine. He recently was talking about this type of an examination. And he said, "You know, I begin to realize I've got a lot of things.

I've got two of those things. Why? That examination, a prayerful examination. This takes time. This takes effort. This takes spiritual discipline, discipline enough to just keep praying and examining and letting God examine what we have and what we make and what we do with it. Second, I call us all to come to a place of an honest examination between our essentials and our extras." Now there's nothing wrong with extras. We saw in 1 Timothy 6 that Paul never condemned anyone for being rich. The condemnation didn't come in being rich. It was what you did with those riches that brought condemnation.

But we need to examine our essentials and our extras. And look, this takes time and this takes prayer. And I believe the longer you pray over it, you'll honestly be moving some that are over here in the essentials over to the extras. And then third, I call you to pray and to pray and to keep praying and do not stop until God fully does the work and get you to a new place of usefulness. Now it might be different for you than it is for me. This is that grace of God work in our life. Now I will move to the rest of the story. Remember what I've been dangling before you? The rest of the story. How do we deal with this tithe? How do we give?

What is giving? What should giving look like here at Nola Baptist Church? And I want to answer that question in two ways. First, how do we see the tithe here at Nola Baptist Church? I cannot take you to any place in the New Testament and show you a command. As a matter of fact, I can't take you to one example that shows us the tithe within the life of the New Testament church. Now how do we as the elders of the church view the tithe? We do ask you to give a tithe. I believe most of you do give a tithe. I don't know who gives. I don't want to know who gives. It's not my place to know who gives. But what do we tithe for?

We tithe for the regulars. You know the electricity, the heat, the regular things that we do, the pay that Brother Keith and I receive, just the day-to-day weekly things. See, when you give the tithe, that enables us to have a consistent amount that comes into the life of the church where we can just depend on a certain amount to do the things that we feel that have got to do. I do not think there's anything wrong to ask you to give the tithe, which would be 10%. I can't command you. I can ask you. I can say that it is a good practice. I've known churches that didn't do anything like that.

And it was up and it was down and there was no rhyme or reason. And this is something that we can discuss at another day and time in private. I'll be glad to pray with you here. But we would ask you to give the tithe why. Because we can do those normal things that we do week in and week out. That's second. We will always call you to give above and beyond the tithe. This is the free will offering. This is according to the New Testament example and this is above and beyond. This is what we see all throughout the Scriptures. We've been doing this all along. I think about our friend Brother Ed Lacy.

He is an itinerant and I have called you to give and to meet the needs. He travels around and we have always graciously given. As a matter of fact, there are times when we've given a certain amount and we would just take a little extra out of the budget and round it on up. There's always men in the life of the church who are part of that. If I would use some hypothetical figures, you know, if everyone in the life of the church gave about $1700, we'd just round it up to $2000. What am I showing you? That is an above and beyond. That is above the tithe. That is a free will offering.

There are times when I've called you to give to Luke Johnson when he was going to India more and needs there. Some of you have given when I have gone out of the country. Those are just examples that are and should be above and beyond the tithe. That is the free will offering. I had one of the men of the church talk to me about this one day. He said, "You know, Pastor, I really like how you handle that. You never give an amount. You just call us to give." See that's what a free will offering is. You give out of a work that God has done within you. You know, there have been times in my life I've had, you know, extra cash in my pocket.

Just sitting on it. Then a need comes along and it's just like, "Well, there it is, Lord. There's a need." See that's the free will offering. Now what about the future? We call you to give the tithe. We ask you to give the tithe. I can't command you to give the tithe. Then we call you to meet needs. You know there are different kinds of needs. There are private needs. I've already mentioned some of those. Some of you have met private needs. I've caught wind of that. But it doesn't matter if I know, you know, because you've been led of God to do that. There are private needs.

You have a brother, you have a sister, you see a need, you step in and you meet that need. That's a free will offering. But then there will be public needs in the future. And I was sharing this with Brother Keith earlier this weekend. You know with Bruce, our friend Brother Bruce being down and his sickness, there might be needs. There sometimes we have made needs with maybe like student camps. See there are public needs and there are private needs. And we'll do that more as we continue in the life of the church. So what have we looked at this morning? Probably a whole lot. The Christians' approach to money.

Seven lessons from the Macedonians. Now why these lessons? These lessons, if they are formed in us, they will make us the givers God wants us to be. And then our approach to money will be just what God wants it to be. Let's pray. And then we'll conclude the message, conclude the series. conclude our service this morning.