Let's Partner Together

Awesome. We are going to start our time now. We set aside a portion of every single Sunday morning service where we just want to pray. We just want to take our needs and our desires and request our heart to the Lord and ask for Him to meet us especially in providing things for us. My wife Becca did a great job leading worship this morning, but she is not our week-to-week worship leader. We are asking that God would provide that for us. We need a new music worship leader. So, what I’m going to invite you to do is to grab a neighbor and to pray as we continue to ask God to reveal who this person is for us. We trust that God is already lining that person up. We trust that He’s already got someone in mind for us. We just don’t know who it is yet. So, we’re going to ask that God would reveal that. So, you grab a neighbor, pray for that for a few moments, and I’ll bring us all back together again. Thank you, guys.

Father, reading the book on prayer this past week and I was reminded that there are two things that You store up and You keep forever. God, You keep our tears and You keep our prayers. God, these prayers where we come to You and we are just asking for You to provide for us. Lord, that’s so dear to You. You care, God. You care that we are calling on You, asking for You to provide the next person that’s going to lead the music for our church. You care, God. You care about the things we go through every week. Lord, You care about our heartbreaks. You care about what frustrates us. You care about our tears, what makes us cry, what keeps us awake at night. God, You care. Thank You. Thank You that we pray to a God that’s not indifferent to us or a God that’s removed from us, but as we’re going to start reflecting on next Sunday, we pray to Emmanuel, the God with us. Jesus, You cared so deeply that You came and You left Your throne and You took on human form. And You knew what it was like to be a newborn baby. You knew what it was like to be a 5-year-old boy. You knew what it was like to be a teenager. You knew what it was like to be a young man. You knew what it was like to live here because You care. Thank You for caring. I do pray that You would make it so clear very soon who the music director is for our church. Lord, that our congregation would just rally around this person, God, that we would leave worship services knowing that we’ve encountered the living God of the universe through music and song. Father, as I turn my attention to the sermon, I’m begging that You would get a hold of this. Lord, You and I have met this past week. I believe You’ve given me a message for this church. Now, Holy Spirit, may You please plant it deeply into our souls. May we apply it so that people would see it through our actions. And God, in all this, I pray that the hope of the gospel would ground us and would fuel us, Lord. We love You. It’s into Your hands that I entrust the next few moments. Amen. Amen.

Well, if you have a copy of the Bible with you or if you’re going to turn it on, I would invite you to go ahead and turn to 2 Corinthians chapter nine. As you turn there, I’d like to share a little bit about this crazy miracle drug I heard about this past week. You know, there’s always these infomercials and commercials for these things you could take or these treatments you can do and it solves tons of problems. The doctors of this drug say that whenever you take it, it reduces both the adrenaline and the cortisol flowing through your bloodstream. If you don’t know, adrenaline and cortisol, that’s what spikes your stress response in life. Now, you need adrenaline if you’re going to say deliver a public address or if you’re playing sports or if you’re going through some sort of crisis like climactic moment, but adrenaline living with it is not a very good thing. This drug reduces those which means it lowers stress. Any professionals in the room or young parents want lower stress? Seems interesting. Not only does it do that, but it actually also lowers your systolic and diastolic blood pressure. So, in addition to removing stuff in Your blood, it actually makes your heart beat a little more regular, a little calmer. That sounds nice. The doctors of this study, they said it actually also releases dopamine into your blood system. That’s the feel-good hormone. It’s what makes you want to keep doing something. Now, dopamine is bad when it’s attached to a bad thing, but dopamine can be good when it’s attached to a good thing. So, taking this medicine, this treatment, it actually feels kind of good. Sounds nice so far.

The developers even claim that it lowers your inflammation and joint pain. Anybody wake up with some achy knees or shoulders this morning? That sounds kind of nice to me. It extends your health span. Now, your lifespan is how many years you have on Earth. Your health span is how long you live in those years, how long you’re vibrant. It not just reduces your joint pain, it extends your health span. The doctors even say it increases your immunity by your white blood cell performance being boosted. Anybody dealing with some sniffles in the home winter season? That sounds kind of nice.

The developers, they go further. They say that it lowers your depressive thinking and habits and it increases your energy level. Anybody else kind of struggling with it be getting dark at like 5:15 these days and you just kind of want to curl up with some really hearty, not so great for you food? That’s because of the winter season. This medicine, it it fights all that stuff. In addition to those things, if that’s not enough, it gives it it helps you feel better about yourself. It gives you like a little more purpose in life.

The craziest thing is that the developers of this medicine, this treatment have created a like a a fluctuating cost structure. So, if you don’t make that much, you only pay a little bit to get it. But if you make more and you’re a little more well-to-do, you have a little more disposable income. It’s a little more expensive for you, which means it’s it’s accessible for anybody. Anybody else see this? This study come out, generosity, giving your money away. I’m not joking. Studies have been done on spiritual habits like reading your Bible, attending church, fasting, and giving your money away. Everything I just said is true. It is not published by Christians, and it was found by non-Christian scientists in scientifically viable studies. Giving your money away is one of the best things you can do for your health.

Now, let’s contrast that with some of the feelings that I have caught wind of over the last three weeks as we are going through our generosity series. If this is your first Sunday with us, man, you’re totally off the hook. I’m not asking anything of you. I got a couple relief looks just now. We’ve been going through a generosity series because, man, I just fully believe as a pastor, man, it is my job to initiate conversations about stuff that vies and fights for your attention and your love and your affection. That’s just part of my job. The culture is doing that because you’re getting, man, you are just being swamped with advertisements on Facebook and YouTube and the TV about stuff to buy for your kids or your loved ones. Companies are just randomly calling all of us trying to sell us something. So, I figured the church ought to be a place where we can talk about this stuff. Is that fine? I’m the guy with the mic, so I’m just going to keep going.

So, not only all of that, but Jesus Himself even said, “You cannot serve God and money.” As a pastor, I would not be doing my job if I if I didn’t address things Jesus directly said you can’t serve. However, over the past couple weeks as I’ve been delivering these messages on generosity, man, I’ve getting a full spectrum of feelings. One of our members, I don’t know who it is. If this is you, I don’t know who it was. It was just reported to me. One of our members leaves service last Sunday and they said, “You we really have another week of this?” Whereas last Sunday, I get a text from multiple of our members saying, “Thank you so much for talking about money.” And then on Wednesday night, we start Financial Peace University and we’ve got a dozen people with Scott over in the old church learning about how to steward their finances. You’ve got some people that think I’m a hero for talking about money in church, and you have other folks that are just waiting for me to stop talking.

about this: reduced stress, longer health span, better feeling joints, a better performing body, more purpose and self-esteem. Man, what God wants to offer us through financial generosity is not another whip on the back telling you, “You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to do this.” What God is offering you is life and peace and joy.

What if we were so hungry to hear what the Bible has to say about this that when we finish this series this morning, we would all say, “Why do we stop? Why can’t we keep going? I want to learn more about doing something that feels good for me. Why do we have to stop, Jeremy? I want to learn more about how to have more energy in life. Why do we have to stop, Jeremy? I want to learn about something that I can start doing right now regardless of how much money I make.” That’s God’s offer for us.

You see, we need to know that generosity is not just a worthy sacrifice we make. It’s not even just a service to your own well-being. Generosity is also an investment into God’s work. Now, I think all of us in some capacity are living for some sort of return on investment. We want to make sure that the way we spend our time, our money, and our energy, and how we use our resources is going to have some sort of observable good in the world. Or is that just me? Do you want that, too? Yes, we all want that. That’s why you’re here right now. You want your life to matter for something.

And God has told us in His word, one of the best ways to make your life better now and to matter more into eternity is by taking your wallet, your checking account, your toys, and your stuff and giving it back to Him and saying, “It’s all yours. Do with it what you want.”

The one main thing I want all of us to take away from this morning as we close out this series on generosity is this: God invites us to partner in His harvest. God invites us to partner in His harvest. That’s the main thing I want you to take away from this morning. God invites us to partner in His harvest. So, I’m just going to take that main statement and we’re going to break it down and take it kind of piece by piece.

The first piece we’re going to look at is God’s invitation for the Corinthians. If you’re there with me at 2 Corinthians chapter 9, let’s read verses 1-5. This is Paul speaking to the church at Corinth.

Now, concerning the ministry to the saints, it’s unnecessary for me to write to you, for I know your eagerness, and I boast about you to the Macedonians. Achaia has been ready since last year. And your zeal has stirred up most of them. But I am sending the brothers so that our boasting about you in this matter would not prove empty and so that you would be ready just as I said. Otherwise, if any Macedonians come with me and they find you unprepared, we not to mention you would be put to shame in that situation. Therefore, I considered it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you and arrange in advance the generous gift you promised so that it will be ready as a gift and not an extortion.

Right off the bat, we see that God is inviting the Corinthians into something. He’s inviting them to join in what Paul calls the ministry to the saints. Ministry. It’s a funny word. It’s a bit loaded in church culture. I think most of y’all think that what I’m doing right now is ministry. I’m opening God’s word and I’m I’m teaching it. Some of y’all think that I am doing ministry when I officiate a funeral or it’s something of that sort of capacity. But here’s what ministry is. We got to simplify it. Ministry simply is spiritual service for someone’s good. When the Bible describes ministry, it’s just serving people for their spiritual good. That’s what ministry is.

And in fact, Ephesians 4:11 and 12 says that I’m not in ministry. This is what Paul says to the church at Ephesus. God gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. Yeah, that’s me. To equip the saints for the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ. My job, God’s assignment for me is not to be the minister. That’s your job. Your assignment is to do ministry.

So here in 2 Corinthians, Paul is Saying that God is inviting the Corinthians in to ministry. And I think right now God is looking at the church in in this room here at Sauldam Baptist Church and He’s saying, “Y’all are the ministers.” Have you ever thought about that? How you are a minister. How you open your home can be ministry. How you live can be ministry. How you spend your money can be ministry. Calling a friend and encouraging them when they’re going through a hard time, that can be ministry. Serving in our kids ministry, that is ministry. Serving with the AV booth, that is ministry. Everyone here can and should be a minister. That is God’s design for you. His design for the church is not that me and Al and Carter and Donna would be the ministers. His design is that we would be the folks that would equip y’all to do the ministry.

So, what’s the specific ministry God was calling the Corinthians to do? Now, we got to get some context on that one. This goes all the way back to the book of Acts in chapter 11. You just kind of bear with me. The early church is starting, they’re based mostly in Jerusalem, but they’re starting to spread to some other areas. And it says that in those days some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. And one of them named Agabus stood up and predicted by the Spirit that there would be a severe famine throughout the Roman world. This took place during the reign of Claudius. This is something that we see in history books. We know about this. So verse 29, each of the disciples according to his ability determined to send relief to the brothers and the sisters who lived in Judea. They did this, sending it to the elders by means of Barnabas and Saul, the guy writing this letter right here.

So what we need to understand, I’m giving you trying to give you some context, is that Second Corinthians, aside from having a lot of theology, aside from being addressed to some particular issues with divisions in the church, Second Corinthians mainly is a financial support fundraising letter. That’s what Paul is doing. He is sending the letter with his protege named Titus so that Titus would deliver it to the Corinthians and the Corinthians would go ahead and start gathering a financial gift for the churches in Macedonia or for the churches in Jerusalem. Paul has been bragging on the Corinthians to the Macedonians and that’s where all this is coming.

Let me put a map on the screen for us to put some of this in context. That bottom right hand square, that is Jerusalem. It’s in Israel. Where Paul is or where Paul is writing to right now is the green square on the left side. Those are the people that live in what’s called Achaia. That’s where the city of Corinth is. Up above them, that’s Macedonia. So when Paul is saying that the Macedonians, let’s call them the northerners, when the northerners, think about you southerners, they’re so stirred up. They’re like, “Man, those southerners are so generous. They’re so kind. They drink the best sweet tea.” No, I’m just kidding. That’s not really what it is, but that’s the situation.

So Paul is writing to the southerners and he’s saying, “Hey, I’ve told the northerners that y’all have committed a lot of money to send to that green square over in the bottom right hand corner. So how about y’all go ahead and start gathering all that money now before the northerners get there or else it’s going to look like y’all just kind of passing the hat.” You get the situation now. Paul is saying, “Hey, there’s a ministry you can join in of gathering the funds to support the people in that bottom right hand square. Let’s not be outdone by the people in that top square. At the very least, let’s not feel shame when they get to you.”

Man, my question in all of this is, what ministry is God inviting you to join right now? What ministry is God inviting you to join right now? God might be inviting you to join our kids ministry where Kim is leading an incredible dedicated team of people that are making disciples of the next generation. God might be inviting you to join our student ministry. We’ve got Carter for two more Sundays before he starts a new role with DSS in Berkeley County and we’re now going to need a a student director. We need adults that are going to pour into our middle and high school directors. Maybe God is joining inviting you to join our worship ministry lead helping lead worship or singing in the choir or playing instruments. Maybe God’s inviting you to join the AV ministry, kind of leading from the back and making all this run from a technology standpoint. Closer to the heart of the passage I’m preaching, God is definitely inviting all of us into the ministry of giving. He’s inviting all of us into the ministry of generosity. That’s what this is ultimately about. Specifically for the Corinthians and for us, God is inviting them to join in the ministry of being financially generous. He calls the Corinthians to go ahead and collect a gift so that the collection wouldn’t be an extortion later. You see, it’d be no good for the Corinthians to feel like they are being forced to gather something. So Paul is saying, “Hey, before anybody shows up on your doorstep asking where the money is, let’s go ahead and start gathering it now.” That’s what this is all about. God’s heart for the Corinthians is that they would feel the joy of giving, not to feel oppressed by it.

Verse five, it’s really interesting. I’m read it again. Therefore, I considered it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you and arrange in advance the generous gift. I hold this one that you promised so that it’ll be ready as a gift and not as an extortion. I’ll hold this one. That word gift, it literally means blessing. Go ahead and start arranging the blessing now so that it won’t feel like an extortion. That word literally means a greedy oppression. Some of y’all right now listening to me talk about giving your money, you’re ready for the blessing and you want to just be a blessing to others through how you use your money. Others of y’all hear a fourth sermon on giving money and you feel like this is greedy oppression and you’re like, man, let’s just get on with this thing. God is inviting everybody, regardless of where you fall on that spectrum, to view generosity not just as good for you, but as a way to partner with God in His harvest. You see, in gathering the gift, the Corinthians would experience the joy of becoming a blessing. Yet, God’s invitation is bigger than taking up a cash offering. God’s invitation, point number two, is to partner in His harvest. To partner in His harvest.

Verses 6-10 put it this way. The point is this. Thank you so much, Paul. You’ve really helped me as a as a preacher. Here’s the point. The person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. And the person who sows generously will reap generously. Each person should do as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or out of compulsion. Since God loves a cheerful giver, God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always, having everything you need, you may excel in every good work. Verse nine, as it is written, He distributed freely, He gave to the poor, His righteousness endures forever. Now, the one who provides seed for the sower and bread for food will also provide and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

Paul is saying that we get to partner in His harvest. We get to partner in God’s harvest. Right off the bat, you see that there is an agricultural analogy, this thing about a farmer. You don’t have to have a green thumb to know that what you sow into the ground is directly related to what you reap out of it. If you want a particular crop, you’ve got to plant the seed of that crop. If you want to grow corn, you’ve got to plant corn. If you want to grow blueberries, you’ve got to plant blueberry seed. If you want to do spiritual good, you have got to plant spiritual good. And that’s a promise for any of us. If you want to do spiritual good, all you have to do is plant that in somebody’s life. You don’t have to go to seminary. You don’t have to be with me for sermon prep all week. You don’t have to learn how to do biblical counseling. All you have to do is just want to plant spiritual good and follow God in doing it.

But there’s two principles here that we have to pay attention to. This is from Pastor J. Greer in North Carolina. Two principles with God’s harvest out of this verse. Verse six. The harvest is limited to what we plant. If you don’t sow, you don’t reap. Man, some of us. We get so frustrated and we feel like our lives just have no direction and we’re like, “God, why don’t I have the joy of leading my family member to Christ? God, why don’t I have the happiness that that pastor is talking about? God, why haven’t You used me in this situation?” And we’re wanting to reap something we haven’t sown. If you want to reap, you have to sow. The harvest is limited to what you plant. I’ll put—I’ll say it this way. At the risk of being heretical and ran out of here, you have the power to stop God’s activity in the world. If you never sow, God won’t harvest.

Verse six, here’s the point. The person who sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and the person who sows generously will reap generously. Now, God is able to make every grace overflow. God is able to provide seed for the sower and food for the eater. But man, if we don’t sow, why would we expect to be able to reap? The harvest is limited to what we plant. The harvest is also proportional to what we plant. If you sow a little, you’ll reap a little. But if you sow a lot, you will reap a lot. If you want to reap a lot of spiritual fruit in the world, then all you have to do is sow a lot in the world.

Man, most of us—most of us want to reap the fruit of miracles and salvations and baptisms and crazy lavish generosity and providing for the poor and being a blessing to our community. But we aren’t sowing. Man, if you want to reap spiritual fruit, let’s start planting spiritual seeds. And financially giving is one of those seeds that you get to plant. I don’t get to plant that for you. I don’t get to do that for you. I get to do and be a lot of things because I’m the lead pastor here. I will never get to be generous on your behalf. You get to do that.

But recognize that God, He’s looking for cheerful givers, not compulsive or reluctant givers. Each person should do as he has decided in his heart. Don’t let me berate you into this. Not reluctantly or out of compulsion, since God loves a cheerful giver.

I heard it described this way. Givers are either grapes or honeycombs. Now, both produce something sweet that we like to consume, but I’ve never seen a grape willingly give its own juice. For a grape to give juice, it’s got to be squeezed, crushed, mashed, ground up. If it doesn’t, man, it just ends up like a raisin that litters my floorboards of my car because of my kids, not because of me. Grapes, they will give you something, but never willingly. Whereas a honeycomb, a honeycomb, man, it’s just dripping with honey. You don’t have to squeeze a honeycomb. You don’t have to mash it. You don’t have to force it to do anything. It just is. And through it just being who it is and what it is, it is just dripping with honey.

The question for you, do you have to be pressed and squeezed to give your money or does money flow from you freely, nourishing whomever it comes in contact with? Now, you can press that too far. You can make that metaphor mean things it’s not supposed to mean. But I think you get the gist. Are you a cheerful giver or reluctant yet to be compelled into it? That’s my journey. Most of my spiritual life I have been a reluctant, having to be compelled giver. It was only through the ministry of a couple people in my life that where I made the cheerful jump. And I will tell you, life is better on this side. Life is better as a honeycomb than as a grape. That doesn’t mean that I don’t get pulled back into the grape land sometimes where I feel like the Lord is just squeezing and pressing me. But I will tell you, every time God has led me down that path and that journey, we have come out so much richer through it. And I’m not saying even financially, just—just better, just happier, just more joyful, more free with our stuff. And that’s what God wants for you.

Here’s the thing. God is not short on cash. He’s not short on money. He just—He’s not in heaven wringing His hands saying, “Man, if they give a little bit more, then they’ll make their budget and then I can really do some stuff.” God owns everything. God literally could make money trees if He wanted, but He didn’t, and He relies on us to get some things done. God does not demand generosity from you. He wants generosity for you. So, how do you become a willing giver? How do you become a cheerful giver? That’s when God’s overflowing grace flows through you. You see, in your own strength, you can’t be generous. We just can’t. We love money. We love the things that money provides. We love our toys, our treasures, our homes, our vehicles, our land, our stuff, our dreams, our hopes. We love all that way too much for us in our strength to be open-handed with it and to want to give some of it to somebody else. God, however, in His overflowing grace, the ultimate giver, places that grace inside of us and He enriches us through it so that we become like a honeycomb with God’s generosity flowing through us into others’ lives.

And when God’s generosity flows through you, it produces what Paul calls God’s enduring righteousness, a harvest with an eternal return on investment. Here’s the deal. God uses your sincere efforts at generosity on earth to bear forever fruit in heaven. I’ll say that again. God uses your sincere efforts to be generous now to produce fruit that lives forever in heaven. Do you want to live with some sort of ROI? Do you want some sort of return on investment? Do you want to be part of a harvest that endures forever? If you do, then you will trust God when He is inviting you into this particular ministry.

Here’s the deal. We serve the God who can feed thousands of people with two fish and five loaves of bread. We serve the God who looks after all of our needs on a daily basis. We serve the God who sent His own son to save us from our sin and bring us back to Himself. God is not stingy, weak, or short on cash. God is able to fully backfill anything you give up for His kingdom and for His name’s sake. We can trust Him and He’s already proven Himself trustworthy in sending His son Jesus Christ, the ultimate gift, the one who freely gave His life on the cross, offering you the honey of salvation and eternal life. Yes, Jesus was pierced for our sins. He was crushed for our iniquities, but not as a grape that would not give of its life. Jesus came and willingly gave it up for us all.

He gave it for you.

If God would give us His son, how will He not give us all things we need? If Jesus was happy to come and be slain for us on the cross and trade places with us, we deserve the cross. We deserve God’s punishment. We deserve to be eternally damned by God for our sin. And Jesus said, “I will take their position. Let’s switch it up. I will take that on me.” That’s the God that’s inviting you into generosity. Not some sort of cosmic miser who’s counting on your last penny to make His plans work. You serve a good dad who loves to lavish His kids with kisses and hugs and gifts and I love yous and I’m proud of you and [inaudible] you serve. How could you not just take these pockets and open them up and say, “God, just take it all. My house, it’s yours. My car, it’s yours. My investments, they’re yours. My dreams, they’re yours. My family, they’re yours.” How could you not have that response to the God who has shown you time and time again just how good He is to you?

And we got to remember part three. God invites us to partner in His harvest. It’s not ours. God invites us to partner in His harvest. Verses 11 and following. You will be enriched in every way for all generosity which produces thanksgiving to who?

Now say it one more time with me. Thanksgiving to who?

God.

Yes. Verse 12. For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to who?

Okay, you’re getting it. All right. All right. Because of the proof provided by them this ministry, they will glorify God.

For your obedient confession to the gospel of Christ and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone. And as they pray on your behalf, they will have deep affection for you because of the surpassing grace of God

in you. Thanks be to God

for His indescribable gift.

Man, we get to be vessels, but the harvest is all about God. This is God’s harvest, not ours. God promises that when you pursue generosity, you will be enriched in every way, which leads to a fruit of thanksgiving to God as you supply other people’s needs. Talk about that enrichment. I’m talking about your joints literally won’t hurt as bad. I’m talking about your immune system literally will function better. I’m talking about when you wake up in the morning, literally you feel a little bit better. Guys, I I Uncle Jeremy is right here. I’m not the kooky guy at Thanksgiving that’s about to give you a bunch of conspiracy theories. This is true. There is a connection between your body and your soul. How you live in your soul directly impacts your health. The Proverbs, man, are flooded with these promises. A bitter soul becomes a sick body. A healthy soul becomes a healthy body.

I’m not going to overpromise and say that if you start giving your money to the church, you’ll have no more problems. I will never say that. What I do know is that God has designed this world so that when you do the things He tells you to do, you are enriched through it. But remember, this is not for your benefit ultimately. It’s God’s harvest. See, God won’t provide for us. For us to be selfish for us, for us to be greedy for us, or for us to be comfortable for us. God provides for us to be generous for Him so that our generosity becomes His glory. When He enriches us, the ultimate fruit is that others are thankful to God.

And God’s end goal is that more people would be thankful to God and would glorify Him. Do you want to know the future? Here it is. Revelation 7:9 and 10. This is the end of the world. After this, I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne, and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and with palm branches in their hands, and they cried out in a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb.” The end of the world is everybody united in song singing about how great God is. God’s end goal is that more people would thank Him and glorify Him. And you get to put more people there by how you live here.

Everything has been created by, through, and for [inaudible] everything in the universe has a distinct purpose to glorify. When we use money and stuff for God’s purposes, we’re tapping into our original purpose as people to glorify.

It’s even better though. When God enriches us for generosity, we become more like Him. Think about that. Do you want to become more like God? Like in a healthy way, more kind, more loving, more generous, more gentle, more gracious, more self-controlled. All of us want that. When you start living generously, give your money to the church, use your stuff to bless other people, even kids. I’m looking at you kids. When you take your toy and you let your brother or sister play with it or your friend or your cousin, God takes that and He changes your heart just a little bit more to look like His. Your financial gifts to the church and to others not only meets tangible needs, but it serves God’s greater purpose to grow His glory.

So, how has God been harvesting through partnership with Him? This year, we’re coming to the end of 2025. This is just a few ways that your financial contributions have been harvested by God. 15 people have gotten baptized here at Sauldam Baptist Church this year. Did y’all know that? Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. Let’s celebrate that, too. Some necessary facility upgrades. Man, we’ve worn out this baptistry. Seriously, we’ve worn it out. That’s the best way I know how to put it, man. We just broke that thing down. And your provision and your generosity got that thing back up and running.

But we also we get to be part not just we’re we’re not just a single isolated church. We’re part of a state Baptist convention. And did you know this? We tithe as a church. Not just you as a member. Did you know that we as a church tithe? 13% of every dollar you put into the offering plate, we send right back out. I think that’s stinking awesome. We send that money. 10% of that goes to the state Baptist Convention, which means what you’re about to hear is fruit that God has harvested through your partnership. You know how many people have been baptized by Southern Baptist churches in 2025? 12,355. Let’s go. 42 new churches started this year through your generosity.

To the South Carolina Baptist Convention. 146 pastors and their wives went to a marriage retreat, and 38,699 people were met with disaster relief because of Hurricane Helene and other stuff this year. Give yourselves a round of applause, man. Everything you do for the kingdom is worth it. Every dollar you put in is worth it. Every time you pick up somebody that’s walking on the side of the road, you give them a ride. That is worth it. Every time you let your older brother or your younger brother play with your toy, that is worth it. Every time you host some crazy family member for Thanksgiving, that’s worth it. Every time your family hosts you, I’m just kidding.

Here’s the question that you’ve got to wrestle with. Do you want to partner with God and God’s harvest? I can’t do it for you. Do you want to partner with God in His harvest? Let’s actually just close our service. I want you to close your eyes and prayerfully consider that question. You put it in the first person. God, do I want to partner with You in Your harvest? You pray it again. God, help me. Help me to see. Do I want to partner with You?

Some of us need to begin partnering for the very first time by giving our lives to Jesus, by accepting the gospel and saying, “God, I’m tired of running. I’m tired of the weight of my sin on my shoulders. I accept forgiveness in Jesus. I turn away from it.” That’s how you need a partner this morning. You say, “God, please save me.”

Some of us in the room need to partner financially for the very first time. You say, “God, please help me to start giving just to give somewhere.” And some of us need to go into a deeper financial partnership with God. Say, “God, I give. I feel like You’re calling me to more. How much do You want me to give?”

I want everybody then to pray, God, give me the courage and the faith to follow through. God, I know from experience, God, that every time You reveal a need to us, You are inviting us to join You in a specific assignment. Lord, I praise Your name that You have sent us Robbie, who’s gonna, Lord, lead us in joining You through Celebrate Recovery here at our church. I praise Your name for Matt, Lord, who’s leading us to join You through establishing the net ministry. God, I praise You for the folks that were already handling so much for our church. And Lord, I praise You in advance for the ways You’re going to invite us into specific ministry in 2026. God, I praise You in advance for the folks that are going to get baptized. I praise You in advance for the folks that will get saved. I praise You in advance for the families that will do financial giving for the very first time. God, give us the courage and the faith to follow through. Lord, we love You. Amen.