Sermons and Resources | Lighthouse Baptist Church | Edmonton

What Was the Death of Christ? Why is it Our Focus? Why Does it Matter?

Sun, 01 Jun 2025 05:21:50 GMT

What was the death of Christ?

This article is from a 10-minute video excerpt from a recent sermon:

Jesus' Physical Suffering is Not the Focus
A Reconciling Death
A Propitiating Death
A Redeeming Death
A Conquering Death
A Justifying Death
What the Death of Christ is That we Proclaim

Jesus' Physical Suffering is Not the Focus

In terms of the Lord's Supper we are focused with tunnel vision upon the death. This is abnormal but this is good.

What was the death of Christ? It was the most awful of deaths. I couldn't describe a death that was worse than the Lord Jesus Christ's.

Not only was it a death that was under terrible circumstances in the time of a Roman execution, him being hung upon a cross, not tied there but pinned there with nails through his wrists and his feet.

Already the feeling of the crown of thorns now aching in his head, the bruises upon his back, the welts, the sores, all of those things oozing out a bunch of blood.

The spit that went into those wounds as they mock him. The heat of the day, the exposure to the elements that he experienced together with the emotional pain of his friends, practically abandoning him in his darkest hour.

All of those things, his own nation rejecting him, the authorities that are mocking him, mocking his every breath as he lifts himself up to take in another one.

Those circumstances certainly made it a terrible death, but that's not all. Nor should we even come to that kind of a level of thinking, only that level of thinking about the death of Christ.

Jesus' Death was a Reconciling Death

What was the death of Christ? Why is it so significant that we take the Lord's Supper together and that we proclaim outwardly this death?

It takes more than a physician to understand the death of Christ. It takes a Christian, it takes a theologian to understand the death of Christ.

What was he doing? What kind of death was it?

Brothers and sisters, it was a reconciling death. It was a death that is different than when you and I die.

It was a death that had a purpose for someone else.

He didn't die by accident. He didn't die merely as a martyr. He did not die because of sin that he himself had.

He died in order to extinguish the animosity between God and us.

We are told in Scripture that we were enemies of God. He's not looking down on us with delight and smiling and loving everything that we're doing and so excited and having a ball in heaven about us that God just can't get us off of his mind.

But rather we are his enemies, aiming our thoughts at him, aiming our words at his throne, aiming our actions in hostility against God, wanting elbow room, pushing him out of the way, getting him out of our life.

So Christ's death was a reconciling death. We were enemies.

God has taken the initiative to make us friends.

He has done that by Jesus's death taking care of the sin problem, that there would be no more record of sin to our account, that he could receive us as friends, as family, adopt us into his family.

Jesus' Death was a Propitiating Death

Not only that, his death was a propitiating death.

The death of Christ averts God's anger. It satisfies that holy fury that God's own internal justice is dead set against.

That we who have offended God's holiness and deserve it being a right thing for God to fling a soul into hell forever because we have offended infinite deity and majesty.

God in his great love sends his son to extinguish the wrath of God for us, to absorb it as if he had absorbed the waters of Noah's flood into a sponge and then wrung it out upon Christ's head.

There at the cross Jesus in his death drank that awful and bitter cup that only God's enemies drink though he was his beloved.

So the death of Christ satisfies the wrath of God, turns his anger from us. It is a propitiating death.

Jesus' Death was a Redeeming Death

Not only that, it is a redeeming death.

We need someone with more power than us to redeem us, to ransom us. We have been enslaved by sin.

We're not only hostile enemies to God but we are shackled in the very sins which we love. We kiss our shackles but we are slaves without rights.

Christ's death by the very merit of his blood, him being God and man, is able to secure for us the payment that was necessary to free us, to emancipate us.

We would be free from sins tyranny and dominion. No longer would it have us under its thumb but Jesus's blood in his death frees us.

Jesus' Death was a Conquering Death

Not only that, it is a conquering death.

Our greatest enemy, the devil himself, had us and he was our father as Jesus says in John 8.

We were under tyranny of a greater sort than just the tyranny of bondage in Egypt.

But to the devil himself, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now energizes the sons of disobedience and so Jesus in his death had totally disarmed all of those principalities, stripped them of their armor, of their weapons against us, of their stranglehold upon us.

He has no more claim on us.

Jesus' Death was a Justifying Death

Not only that, it was a justifying death.

Sin was the problem. Not just hell. Sin is the problem.

It is the great malady of your soul. It is the thing that God sends sinners to hell for.

A person who goes to hell remains unchanged and in their nature is only going to spurt up more and more sin.

Sin is the problem and that Jesus dealt with at the cross.

He bearing our guilt, that liability to punishment, Jesus paid the debt in full.

He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

So all of our record was nailed to the cross so that Jesus's holy record of righteousness, everything he has done right his entire life from youth up, can be given to the believer as a free gift and you have a grand entrance into heaven.

What the Death of Christ is That we Proclaim

That is what the death of Christ is.

That we proclaim, not just me now, but we all proclaim.

That this atonement is something that is a reconciling, propitiating, redeeming, conquering, justifying death of Christ.

And it is what we need, it is what we trust in.

If we trust in the least thing else, we have abandoned ship and we have nothing at all and we are of all people most to be pitied.

But if you have this Christ, you trust in him then you will find you have a home, you have God as your father, there is no more beef between you and God.

The judge has come off the bench and he has invited you home and Jesus is your Lord and he is a good master and then you are then empowered to go out and proclaim.

How long?

Until he comes.

(From the full sermon: A Herald in Every Helping )

Praying for our Government

Tue, 27 May 2025 06:58:58 GMT

Praying for our Government | Sun, May 25/25 AM | Logan Seibert | 1 Timothy 2:1-2

Introduction

1 Timothy chapter 2, we will continue through the letter. We have been learning how the church is God's household entrusted with a stewardship. Chapter 1 of 1 Timothy emphasizes a particular message, the gospel, God's word that we are entrusted with, that we must protect. Those who would speak against it or contrary to it should not have a voice in God's Church. Timothy was tasked to put them to silence and instead promote sound teaching, healthy teaching.

Entrusted With Prayer

But in chapter 2, we've been considering since last week how we're also entrusted with prayer, praying to God. Paul stresses this activity of prayer is to be done For all people. Let's read verses one and two, that will be our focus this morning. Paul writes, first of all then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, or on behalf of all people. For on behalf of kings and all who are in high positions. In order that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

Pray for Kings and Authorities

So as Paul calls for the church to pray for all people, he then in verse two gets into a particular group of people. He puts the focus on kings, puts the focus on those, all those who are in high positions. meaning positions of authority. They are leaders, they are over others, and this is in the civic government alongside those kings. How is the church to relate to government, to her government? How are the citizens of Christ's kingdom to deal with the leaders of earthly kingdoms, the kingdoms of this world? Well, Paul's answer to that, one of the key answers to that is that we are to pray. We are to pray for them. We're to make supplication and prayer, intercession, and yes, even make thanksgiving, believe it or not, for your government. This is what God says here. Whether it's a government that would support the free market, or it's a government that would be fascist, whether it would be a government that would support capitalism or it would be a communist government, whatever side of the spectrum, this scripture remains true. This is the template, this is the design for God's church in every generation, in every country, This is still for us to know and apply.

The Church’s Mandate

We are to pray for our government. We're to pray on behalf of them. We are to carry this stewardship of prayer, this mandate we have to stand between God and the people, the wrath of God against the sinners of this world. It is the church's role to pray for those who are still lost. so that they would be reconciled to God before they would have to meet him, before the kings of this earth would have to kiss the sun, not in repentance, but under judgment, as Psalm 2 warns us about. The church is tasked with this great responsibility to pray for the nations, to pray for unbelievers, and kings and those in high positions are not excluded from that. Just as Jesus, according to verse six, verse five rather, he is the mediator between all people and the one true living God, and just as he gave his life as a ransom for all, as the scripture here says. We need to then give ourselves to pray for all on that basis.

Review of Last Week

This is what we really laid down last week. If you were here with us worshipping, we set that out. This is one of the church's primary tasks, to be a mediator of prayer for unbelievers to God, just as Christ gave his life to save them, and God delights in saving them.

Pray for Our Government Leaders

Paul takes a particular focus here on doing this great task on behalf of our government leaders. As part of that big truth of our task on this earth, we must be diligent to lift up our prime minister, his cabinet, the opposition party, and all the leaders doing the shadow government We must lift up our premier and all the ministers of her cabinet. We must lift up our mayor and all the city council. We must pray for them as God has commanded us.

Purpose of These Prayers

And Paul gives a number of reasons for us to do that. Again, there's that big picture of the church's mission on earth. Who else will pray for them but the church? We stand in the gap. But then Paul also gives some very specific reasons underneath this great responsibility, as part of this great responsibility. And one reason he goes to at the end of verse two is in order that, praying for these people, in order that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

Understanding the Connection

So what is the connection between us praying for our government and leading this kind of life? Well, some would take this to mean something like this. This is the connection. We should pray for our civic leaders to be saved in order that they rule righteously and create the conditions so that we can lead quiet and peaceful lives, godly and dignified in every way. It would be a focus on a kind of result of us praying. We've prayed for our government, and they are getting saved according to verses 3 to 7. There's an evangelistic focus here in the chapter. And because of their now righteous rule, we have these peaceful and quiet lives to then worship and enjoy God, serve God, openness for the gospel without persecution, things like this. I don't hold that view on this passage, though I agree with everything about what I just said. I think that is something we should pray about, a salvation of our leaders and the fruit of that to then trickle down into our lives here in Canada, specifically. Yet I believe that's not what Paul's actually getting at here. I believe it's better to take the second half of verse two there, the reason for these prayers, as the purpose of our prayer. Not the results of the prayer, but the purpose of our prayer. I would be like something like this. We should pray for our civic leaders, especially for their salvation. And by regularly praying, we are leading peaceful and quiet lives, godly and dignified in every way.

Difference Clarified

Did you catch the difference here? We're not just praying for a result that's dependent on who we're praying for. We're waiting for our leaders to create the conditions of a peaceful and quiet life. That's not what Paul's getting at here. He's saying, when you pray, by being devoted to pray, you are now leading a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is part of this kind of lifestyle that God wants us to have as the church. It's bound up in the activity of actually praying for our leaders. So we live this kind of life by being faithful to our task to pray for all people. That's why we pray.

Why Interpret This Way?

Now, why do I interpret it like this? And I'm not alone by that. You can pick up commentators, and this isn't a unique view. But why do I interpret it more like this? Well, as I meditated on this, and this was, by the way, during COVID, actually, years ago as I was wrestling with some passages about how do we respond to our government. One thing I was struck with was in verse 1, Paul doesn't just focus on supplications, prayers, and intercessions for our leaders. He also adds that fourth kind of prayer, and what is it? It's thanksgivings. So I'm tipped off that it's not just a focus on praying for the salvation of our leaders. There's also this pattern of giving thanks on behalf of them, seeking to be thankful in the midst of their rule and their reign. And who was ruling as emperor of Rome when Paul wrote this? Nero. Now, he didn't go wild-eyed crazy quite yet. He was on his way there. You know, there were some signs, but, I mean, he went really off the deep end later on. That's when Paul got his head chopped off. But still, I mean, you think of the stream of emperors even before him, and none of these guys were particularly evoking a reason to give thanks for them naturally. You wouldn't be quite so thankful living under them, especially if you wanted to live godly. And yet Paul talks about giving thanks here. So it's not less than praying for our leaders and their salvation, but it is more than that.

Activity of Prayer

There's something bigger going on here in this activity of prayer. And that's what starts to tip me off to think, well, it can't all just ride on whether our leaders repent and believe. Are they the ones who create the conditions for us to lead such a life? Or does God create those conditions? We know deep down the answer is God. And we have to explain what peace and quiet really means, of course. Well, we'll do that. But that's the first tip off to think, no, there's something bigger going on here. And that goes to my second point here. Well, the kind of life Paul describes, it's not ultimately dependent on our government's rule. Leading this life is much more related to the activity of prayer for people than the results of praying for people. This is what Paul's getting at. look at what it means to lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way, to show this.

Leading a Life

Why does it not depend on our leaders repenting? Why is it instead bound up in our actual activity of prayer? Well, to lead a life, that phrase, but forget the descriptions of it quite yet, but just the bare bone leading a life, that kind of phrase. It has the idea of your daily practical living. It's a good translation the ESV has here. We ask maybe somebody, what kind of life do you lead? We use that kind of language and what is somebody asking of us if they were to ask that? What kind of work do you do? What kind of lifestyle do you enjoy? What do you do for hobbies? What do you do for recreation? What kind of life do you lead? Are you a law-abiding person? Are you a criminal? You know, do you travel a lot? Are you a little bit more at home? What kind of life do you lead? That's in our vocabulary here, and that's exactly what this Greek expression is getting at. There's different words for life, and often Paul's using the word for eternal life as something much less immediate in our day-by-day living, a little bit more lofty. Here, bios, the Greek word bios, where we get the word biology, that's the word he's using here. This is included with spiritual things, of course. I'm not trying to say one's spiritual, one's not. But it does have a little bit more of that down-to-earth, nitty-gritty, doing-the-grind-of-life kind of feel to it.

Peace and Quiet Described

So what kind of lifestyle are you living? How do you pass your days? What fills up those 24 hours in a day and then all your weeks and your months and your years? What kind of life do you lead? But then Paul uses several words to describe the kind of lives Christians should lead. What should be filling up your days and your weeks and your months and so forth? Well, he uses four different words and he starts first with these two words, peaceful and quiet. In order that we would lead peaceful and quiet or a peaceful and quiet life in the singular. Now, these two words, peaceful and quiet, they're rarely used in Scripture. The only time the word peaceful comes up, the Greek word underneath the English translation here, this is the only reference in all the Bible. Quiet is used in 1 Peter 3:4. This is a particular word to our sisters, 1 Peter 3:4, where Peter calls for Christian women to adorn themselves with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and a quiet spirit. That's the word quiet there.

Peace and Quiet Expression

And we know from other writings outside of scripture, and also looking at the words and kind of their cousins, what those words relate with, we know that these words do describe a kind of tranquility, a kind of quietness, a peace. Some people wanna try to say one's outward and one's inward, but again, they get translated and used in a variety of ways. They're kind of interchangeable. And we have an English expression to describe this, and it is peace and quiet, right? If you said, I'm gonna go out and get some peace and quiet, you're not really focused on, well, okay, this part's the peace and this part's the quiet, and I have a kinda, divided in this really, you know, cutting way. You're saying, no, no, I want a lot of peace and I want a lot of quiet. I want no disruption. I want rest. I don't want agitation. I want peace and quiet. Well, that's how this Greek phrase is being used as well.

Godliness and Dignity

The English phrase brings up maybe a scene of undisturbed tranquility. Maybe you're out at a lake and you hear a loon. Maybe you're among the forest. Maybe you're drinking coffee on your deck or something and the sunrise is coming out. You know, we think of peace and quiet like that. But Paul includes two other words that help us understand what kind of peace and quiet he's talking about here. He goes on and he says this peace and quiet, these peaceful and quiet lives and life together were to lead is to be done in all, or the ESV translation here, godly and dignified in every way. So godly and dignified are these further descriptions of this kind of life we're to lead. Literally, it is in all godliness and dignity. I think if you're using the King James, you're going to see that. And that is a more literal translation. In complete godliness, in total dignity. What the ESV is capturing here when it says, in every way, it's trying to show that that peace and quiet in your life, it's in a sphere. It's located under godliness and dignity. That's where it's living. North, south, east, west, every way, there's godliness and dignity. That colours this kind of peace and quiet.

Not Mere Relaxation

So it's not as simple as sitting out and enjoying a sunrise. Very ungodly people can do that too. That's a common grace from God for all kinds of people. But that's not quite what Paul's talking about here. There's something deeper going on, of course. We can see that by these words. We have to go to what these words mean, though. This is one of the first times Paul uses this word godly. And we might be surprised to see that he often doesn't use this word outside of his letters to Timothy and Titus. It's caught in such attraction in our language. We talk about being godly or being ungodly. But Paul doesn't use it frequently outside these pastoral epistles. It is used or it was used by pagans, by unbelievers to describe their own religious activities and the kind of moral character that came from it. Virtues that even God's law testified of the goodness of. There would be philosophers, pagan Greek teachers who would talk about virtue and good qualities of character. And though they'd always be off from the Bible's ideal, some of them got it closer to what God actually says than others. And when you would live that kind of ethical life, you have good behavior in your life, and you did it because of some religious reason, you were being godly.

Paul’s Use of Godliness

The Greeks and the Romans would have used this same word. And maybe that's why Paul doesn't use it as frequently when he writes to all the churches. Maybe when he's talking to his fellow workers, like Timothy and Titus, he uses it, but he doesn't want it misunderstood. You know, when you say something like, are you religious to somebody? Again, that could mean a lot of things. You're not necessarily asking them, are you a born-again believer, and do you follow Jesus Christ? So this kind of word, it needs some further definition to it. But of course, Paul is using this word and he's baptized it into the Christian religion. He's obviously meaning a kind of ethic, a kind of good behavior that is reflecting Christ's character. It's because of the one true living God. It conforms to his word. It's this kind of life and behavior that's worshipful to the one true God, but also beneficial to other people. So this does fit this kind of day-by-day leading a life. When you do it in a godly way, you're taking what you know about God and you're applying it in every area of your life. How you handle your money, how you handle relationships in your life, how you deal with entertainment or sports or recreation, everything. Godliness speaks to all these practical day-by-day issues. And this is what Paul wants as part of this peaceful and quiet life.

Dignified Living

But there's that final word, dignified. This life is to be led also in a dignified way. And this describes a kind of character and behavior that is worthy of respect. You think of the word dignified, worthy of respect. That's what needs to come to your mind. There's a seriousness of this character that draws respect rather than ridicule. Even if somebody were to seek to shame this person by his or her own character, that person would show that this ridicule's misplaced. There's no real evidence so that scorn and shame should be put on this person. This person handles himself, herself in a dignified way. and there should be respect. And whether that's truly given or not, you can't control that at the end of the day. But nonetheless, people sense a kind of seriousness and weight to a dignified character. It is above what is ordinary so that it carries that greater weight. In fact, in Latin, the language of Rome, they would translate this word as gravitas. And guess what word we get from that Latin word? Gravity, right? You know, being pulled down, a sense of heaviness and weight and so forth, things being drawn to others. Now, we will see both these words again, godliness and dignity. Paul's going to use them repeatedly throughout 1 Timothy. So we'll explore those words more again.

Putting It Together

But we need to go back to really answering that question. You put it all together. Okay. Well, what does it mean then to lead a peaceful and quiet life, especially as it relates to praying for all people, praying for our government included? Well, our cry is to go up to God in prayer. It is not to be against others in anger. We're to be gathering for prayer meetings and not for riots. We are to be praying in the spirit and be wielding his sword. We're not to be turning carnal weapons against others in anger. We are to be zealous but not a zealot. This is what Paul's getting at here.

Not Free from Controversy

Now Paul's not saying that this is a life that's free from controversy. This is a life where everybody likes you, there's no problems. Of course, he's not saying that. You just have to continue reading scripture to see Paul himself didn't lead a life like that. Jesus himself didn't lead a life like that. And remember chapter 1, verse 18, what does Paul tell Timothy? Wage the good warfare. He talks of the Christian life in terms of war and military. There is a fight. There is a battle. So, of course, this can't mean there's absolutely no quarrel, no disruption, no controversy.

Avoid Unnecessary Controversies

But we, as the church, must take from this a warning that we are to avoid unnecessary controversies. We're to depart from quarrels with people that are not ours to quarrel with. It's not our fight. We have the wrong focus. This is especially the appearance that we are for the destruction of our neighbours rather than for their salvation. Because notice how Paul goes on, verse 3. When after he says about praying and leading this kind of life, he says, this is good. It is pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. We need to communicate that to our neighbors. We are not against them. We are for them.

Titus 3 Example

Whether they like that or not, whether they understand that or not, But as the gospel is an offense enough to unbelievers, that's already offensive. We don't want to add to that offense. We don't want to be doing things that would take away from that message and instead give them real reason to point at us and to ridicule and to shame and to say, no, you're just a troublemaker and this is why. So we are to be promoting the salvation of our leaders and others. Now this is a repeated concern in the scriptures and among the apostles. There is going to be offense, there is a fight to wage, but we need to focus on that as the church. It's for the souls of other people. And we don't want to add anything to causing a stumbling block. Turn to Titus chapter 3 to see this. I want you to see a few passages to demonstrate this.

Titus 3:1-2

Titus 3, verses 1 through 2. Paul there says, remind them, that is remind the church, to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. This isn't a blind kind of obedience. as we're going to be looking at Daniel and others lead the way to show where there comes a point where we must obey God rather than man. But what Paul's warning about here is there's going to be temptations to just be a jerk. You think you're righteous, but really this isn't for God. You're just angry about something. You're personally offended. You're annoyed. You want something that you don't get. And therefore, you start to lash out in the flesh. You start to grumble. You start to complain. And rather than loving God and loving your neighbor supremely, you start to do a lot of other things. Whatever kind of coat of paint of godliness we would put on it, God sees through that. And even unbelievers can start to see through that. And so what Paul's saying here is he's saying Avoid the kinds of evil speaking, lack of submission, just brutish behavior, getting yourself into trouble where you didn't need to do that, in order that we would instead focus on the good work. Be ready for every good work.

1 Thessalonians 4 Example

Let's turn to 1 Thessalonians 4, 11 through 12. This is an example of what it means to live this peaceful and quiet life. Paul says it in other words. Let's actually go to verse 9 of 1 Thessalonians 4. I'm going to have you go through a few passages here. And I want us to be impressed by how many places in scripture we are confronted with this kind of language. Repeatedly, again and again, we're warned about submitting and being kind to others. And why is that? Well, we have a hard time doing that.

1 Thessalonians 4:9-12

Verse 9, now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, so to love more and more, and then verse 11, and to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders, before unbelievers, and be dependent on no one.

Evangelism by Quiet Living

So how's that for an evangelism strategy? Unbelievers, outsiders should see your walk. They should see your life. And there should be these kinds of qualities of character to it. Living quietly, minding your own affairs, working with your hands. As Paul and Silas and Timothy instructed the church, That's not as grand as standing in front of a rainbow sea of homosexuals and preaching the gospel to them. We think, wow, that's really going to be used by God to save a lot of people. Maybe God can bless that. But sometimes it's just for YouTube clicks for some people. That's what's going on out there, sadly. But what does scripture here say? And we have a lot of other passages like this. Unbelievers are going to see how you live. What is your focus in life? And in that quietness of life, there is something beautiful and glorious, actually, that a lot of unbelievers don't have. Their lives aren't quiet. Their lives are just agitated and crazy. They struggle with working with their hands, at least some of them. They're not minding their own affairs. They seem to be bogged down by the weight of the world as they're scrolling through social media and so concerned about the next person. That's life today. And what is the church instead supposed to model, actually, and then point to King Jesus and say, I have this peace because of him. I'm doing right. I'm still active and engaged. I'm doing good works. We saw that in Titus 3. And yet it's focused on him. I'm not in a hurry or a flurry. This speaks powerfully to unbelievers. And then as we pray for them as well.

1 Peter 2 Example

Turn now to 1 Peter. We'll only look at Paul. We'll see 1 Peter 2. I wanted to limit myself at three. Again, we could have done more. This will be a little bit of a longer one. Starting in verse 11. 1 Peter 2.11, Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles. So this is not your home, ultimately, he's saying. To abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles, among the unbelievers, honorable. so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation." Meaning when Jesus comes back, they are ready for Christ's return because they've repented and they've believed in Jesus too. And what has God used to bring them to that point? Our good deeds, our good conduct, being a good witness for Jesus Christ in front of them. We've said no to the passions, the sinful desires of our flesh. That's what's really waging war against us. That's the warfare right there.

Submission for the Lord’s Sake

And instead, our conduct is kept honorable among the Gentiles. They can't speak against us as evildoers, those who truly are guilty of something evil. He goes on, as part of this, one of the key ways we're going to do this, verse 13, look where he goes. Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution. Notice whose sake is it for? It's for the Lord's sake. It's not because you like your government, but it's because you ought to like your Lord. You ought to love your Lord.

Governance Function

Whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. Now notice, Peter is expecting the government will have this function. And we need to remember that in many ways we can actually give thanks for this. Governments around the world have this basic function. Some of them are doing it better than others. But you just have to learn about a society where government collapses. There's no more government.

Thanks for Order

Do you know what happens in such a country, in such a society? Lawlessness, anarchy, absolute chaos. And in terms of punishing those who do evil and praising those who do good, you're not gonna see a lot of that. If somebody came into our church building right now and punched one of us in the face, maybe started killing some of us, we were able to put that guy down, we were able to get him on the ground, call 911, the police would come. They would punish that person. Now again, would they do it as well as they could biblically? Sadly not, not under our Canadian government. But nonetheless, they would keep order. There would be a level of order maintained so that if every week we had people coming in this building trying to hurt us, we could actually appeal to the government. They would punish that evildoer. We can give thanks that we live in a society where that is still happening. There are some places they cannot do that. And often it's because government has collapsed, or it's become a million little factions that are fighting each other. We think of our brothers and sisters in Haiti right now experiencing this, where it becomes, you know, might is right. We need to pray for our brothers and sisters who don't get to experience this.

Evangelistic Witness

But what Paul, or Peter rather, goes on to say here, the church's responsibility, verse 15, For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. So you notice this. This is evangelistic. This is for the witness of the church. Rather than being guilty of joining in with evil doing and having a finger pointed at us as the church, we're putting to silence. Unbelievers have nothing to say against us, really. Because we are seeking to live as peaceful and quiet as God would allow us. And God does allow us to do that in many ways. There comes a line, there is a point. But nonetheless, we have a lot of opportunity to do this and to be a good witness to unbelievers as we do.

Live as Free Servants of God

And then he finishes with this. Live as people who are free. Not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. So using your freedom as a cover-up for evil. Well, I have free speech. I can say whatever I want. Yeah, but you'll be held accountable for what you say. You and I will have to be held accountable, give an answer for every idle word that comes out of our mouth, Jesus says in Matthew 12. So we have freedom, but how do we use that freedom? We have rights, but how do we actually hold on to those rights? How do we view that? Well, as servants of God, I mean, we are slaves of God. We don't have rights when it comes to God, but we have a perfect master who will always do us good. And that has to be our greatest identity here. And so we are free. We're ultimately not going to be accountable to answer to our prime minister. We're not living for our premier or our mayor. We're not subject to man like some might think citizens are. You and I have a sin number. They got you numbered. You're a number in a system, okay, whether you like that or not.

Freedom and Identity

Do you go off the grid? Is that how you experience freedom? Some people do that. I mean, have fun really trying. I mean, you got to be pretty on top of that to really... I looked into that years ago, survivalism. It's a lot harder than you think, especially now with all the technology they got out there. But nonetheless, is that really where freedom is? Or do you have a greater identity in the king of king's eye? Whatever these earthly leaders are going to say or number you as. Well, we have to look to our identity as the church. That's what Peter's also getting at here. And then serve him, focus on him. Don't use the freedom we have as Christians for the occasion for our flesh to be angry and to sin, to speak evil, to be unsubmissive, where really we ought to be submissive. Instead, we need to do good. We need to, as verse 17 finishes with, honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor, honor our government. That's right there with those three others.

Christ’s Example

Well, think of Jesus' whole ministry. I mean, Jesus was speaking truth. He offended many. But when they sought to put him on trial, they had nothing on him. He could say to the crowds against him, who of you accuses me of sin? And they had nothing. They tried to get him in it. They hauled up a coin and they said, should we pay taxes or not? That was a serious question. Because if you didn't pay taxes to Rome, they saw that as sedition and treason, and you were going to die for it. That's how serious the CRA was back then, OK? It's not like that today. But they were very serious about getting their taxes. And so when Jesus is given that question, that's a really loaded question. Is he going to offend a bunch of the really religious-minded Jews who bristled under the Roman occupation? Or was he going to offend the Roman authorities, and now they have an accusation against him? He's not going to pay taxes. He's teaching people not to be in submission. But he finds that perfect answer, of course. Give to Caesar what is Caesar and God's what is God's. There's a way to do both. There is a way where you can fear God and honor the emperor. We are going to need wisdom in that, year by year, and in our current climate, of course. But it starts with a real heart of understanding. God will give us wisdom if we first have this heart to say, yes, I can do both these things. I must do both these things.

Wisdom Needed

I mean, brothers and sisters, I don't have all the answers about that. Some of you a few weeks ago were asking me about separatism. I don't know all the answers about that. I'm still figuring out that. I'm praying about that. But whatever, wherever each of us are leaning on those kinds of questions, We need to fear God and we need to honor our government. We need to pray for our government. There's opportunity to do good while we seek to leave that peaceful and quiet life. And Jesus is that great example of it. So they couldn't pin him with anything, really. They had to make up things. They had to twist his words about destroying the temple in order to try to get him accused of something. And then when he does boldly say, yes, I am the son of man that you're going to see on the clouds, coming down to judge the living and the dead, as Daniel 7 talks about, now they say, okay, he's a blasphemer, now we got him. But that's what he was guilty of, truly not guilty, for revealing himself as the Messiah. They couldn't get him with anything else. And that's what we need to be, quote unquote, guilty over too. They believe Jesus is the King of Kings. They believe He's the Savior of the world. If people are going to persecute us over that, amen. That's what we should be guilty over. But nothing else. Otherwise, we should have these kinds of lives.

Old Testament Background

Now, there's a background to this as well in the Old Testament. I've got a few more passages for you to look at with me here. Going to Old Testament, Jeremiah 29. I want you to turn to Jeremiah. Jeremiah, the prophet, the weeping prophet, he preached in the days where Judah, the last of God's people in the land, really, were taken away to Babylon. They were put under exile. And while in Babylon, and they were wondering, what do we do? Do we rise up? Do we have these pagan leaders over us? How should we respond to them?

Jeremiah 29:7

Well, look at verse 7 of Jeremiah 29.7. This is one of the things he tells them. Pray for the Babylonians. Pray for Nebuchadnezzar. Pray for these ungodly leaders who destroyed this city, maybe killed your brother or your sister, and yet God had a purpose in that judgment. You know, God has a purpose in the judgment we Canadians are experiencing right now in our nation. And make no mistake, we are under judgment. I mean, read Romans 1. Read that chapter about what God's judgment looks like on a people, and you will see Canada in it. But God has a purpose in it.

Daniel’s Example

And instead of bristling and being angry and fearful and focusing on all those problems, all the earthly problems, the spiritual problems, we need to repent of and encourage others to. But the welfare of the city, praying to the Lord on its behalf, this is what we also must do as exiles and sojourners, as Peter, as we just read, calls Christians. We are under pagan leaders. We are still in one sense under exile, waiting for our king to return and establish the true kingdom. Things are not what they should be, this is true. And yet here we are called to seek the welfare and pray for our leaders, for the unbelievers around us. And who took up that in a wholehearted way? The prophet Daniel. Daniel is a model for this. Pastor Bud used him as an example earlier in the service. He was able to even serve under the king while not compromising his faith in God. I mean, it's hard to imagine how you really could do that. How could you do that in a pagan kingdom? Daniel did that because he understood, this is how I can fear God, and these are the areas I can submit to my leaders over." Now, did he have words for Nebuchadnezzar to do justice and to repent? Yes, he did. But Nebuchadnezzar understood, this man's not against me, he's for me. The Persians, when they took over, they understood Daniel. He's kind of weird with his Jewishness as one God thing, and he doesn't eat the food we eat, and he's very pure, and he doesn't want a multitude of women around him all the time. He's kind of weird. But he's a good guy. They saw that in Daniel. He's a wise man, and we want to hear from him. This is what the church should be emulating as well. And so Daniel is an example. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are also examples. Because when they're called to bow down before the idol, that's the line. That's where they say, King, oh, King, live forever, but we're not doing that. Whether you kill us or not, whether God saves us from that fire or not, we can't do that.

Ezra 6 Background

Now, they didn't turn around and start a revolt. They didn't try to make a revolution in Babylon. But when push came to shove, they stood their ground, and they say, no. King, we're going to obey you in many other areas, but not here. And that's the attitude, that's the wisdom we as God's people need even today. I want you to turn to one last passage, Ezra chapter six. So you're going back now. We're going forward in time from Jeremiah, but backward in the book ordering, going in what's called the historical books. Ezra chapter 6.

Ezra 6:9-10

In Ezra's day, the Jews had returned to the land. Persia, not Babylon, was the big dog of the world. And in Persia, the king allowed the Jews to have their land back, but when they came back, the people who had been living in the land, the Arabs or the Nabataeans, the Samaritans, so the mix of Jew and Gentile, that's what Samaritans were, they didn't like that. And when the Jews tried to rebuild the temple, and then the city wall, these peoples of the land were against them. And so they wrote a letter, this is earlier in Ezra, they write a letter to the king of Persia saying, do you know about these Jews? They're troublemakers. Do you know about the history of Jerusalem? Go look back in the records. They've just caused headaches to the kings of Babylon. And you know, part of it was true. I mean, Jehoiakim, Jehoiakin, Zedekiah, those guys were nasty kings. The people were fickle under that rule. And so at first, the king says, OK, yeah, we're shutting this down. I can't trust these people making a temple again. And they're going to get too rowdy. But by God's grace, the king does relent. And he allows them to build the temple again. But notice what he says. Ezra 6, 9 through 10. So he says in verse 9, to give them whatever is needed, bulls, rams, sheep for burnt offerings to the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, or oil as the priests at Jerusalem require, let that be given to them day by day without fail. So they were set up for worshiping at the temple. But verse 10, what's the purpose of it? That in order that they may offer pleasing sacrifices to the God of heaven and pray for the life of the king and his sons. This is what that pagan leader expected. I need you to pray for me, oh Jews. I need you to pray for my sons. You don't have to worship my gods, but the God of heaven that you worship, make sacrifices on my behalf, pray on my behalf. And this set up a pattern for the Jews. When later Rome would conquer them, they didn't make Jews worship the emperor. Instead, they said, you need to pray to the emperor. You need to make a sacrifice on his behalf for his good. For the emperor, that's right. Pray to the emperor. Oh, rebuke me, brotherly. Pray for the emperor, on behalf of the emperor. So that was established in Jesus' day.

Sign of Rebellion

What we know later on, after Jesus rose and ascended, Book of Acts is going on, leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70. We know that the sign that the Jews were against Rome now, that they were in open rebellion, would lead to the destruction of the city. What was one of the first things the historian Josephus says that they did? They stopped praying for the emperor. They said, We're done. We're not going to pray for your good. We're not going to pray for your sons. We're not going to sacrifice for your good. We're against you now. We're not praying for you. We're going to curse you instead. They would wave black flags with curses of the emperor on their camels and whatnot. Can't even reference that flag without being profane in this house. They would curse the emperor rather than seek his good. And this was the sign, okay, rebellion has started. And it led, years later, to the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome.

Our Role Today

So we have this background behind the Bible in the Old Testament. All of this is to inform our understanding of this great task we have as the church. that we need to pray for our government. When we pray for our government, we follow the godly and dignified pattern that God has laid out for us. We keep ourselves blameless from the accusations of unbelievers. The only accusation is concern for their eternal good. This is what we must be subversive and guilty over. As they couldn't get anything on Daniel in Persia, they wanted to pin Daniel with some dirt, and all they could do was make a law that says you can't pray to your God anymore. And when Daniel disobeyed that law to pray, that's when they had something on him and threw him in the lion's den. They couldn't find anything else on him. And so this is the call for the church as well. When we pray for our leaders, nobody can point at us and say, you know, you're just trying to destroy our nation. You're just trying to cause a bunch of trouble. No. I'm seeking my leader's good. I'm seeking my neighbor's good. I'm seeking to do everything I can to lead a peaceful and quiet life like this. Yeah, but you want everybody to be a Christian. Yes. Okay, I'm guilty about that. Yes. This is what must characterize us.

Shared Testimony

Now, we must help one another in this. I want us to look at the language back in 1 Timothy 2. You're flipping everywhere. Flip back to 1 Timothy 2. Notice how Paul phrases this. This shows us how much we must help each other with this. It's in order that we make these prayers, in order that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. We may lead a peaceful and quiet life. He doesn't say lives. He doesn't say each of you may lead a peaceful and quiet life. He says we, together, would lead a peaceful and quiet life. Singular. Because we are bound together. You as a Christian, you as a Baptist, you as a member of Lighthouse Baptist Church, your conduct is going to tell other people about other Christians, other Baptists, other members of Lighthouse Baptist Church. It reflects on other people. It reflects on the brothers and sisters around you and I, even around the world. We can't isolate ourselves from one another like this. And unbelievers are sniffing. They're looking for anything they can find that will then say, ah, I knew this one Christian. I'm going to write them all off as hypocrites. Now again, they'll have to answer to God for that. That's not a righteous kind of judgment. And there's going to be some people that will do that, and they have no real basis in it. But we should not give any fuel to that kind of fire. We should not be adding to that kind of stereotype or judgment, feeding into that. So we need to help each other with this. We do share a testimony together.

Challenge to Our Priorities

This all challenges us as well on the kind of life we are to lead. Are we looking at the peaceful and quiet life the way God wants us to? Is it really godliness and dignity that we treasure above so many other things in our life? We shouldn't despise earthly temporary matters. We should seek peace in our neighborhood, for example, not to be overrun with criminality or drugs. We should seek a good economy that would still be upheld by righteousness and fairness and equity and so forth. We should seek these things. Those aren't bad things. But nonetheless, if we think our lives are dependent on the policies of our government, We're putting our lives into their hands rather than God's hand. I cannot enjoy my life unless the government does this or that. Now you've just made yourself ultimately a slave to the government. Now again, we pray for good policy, but we're not gonna be bound to what others would do. Our dignity as Paul says, godliness and dignity should characterize our lives. Our dignity is not bound up in how other people treat us. Your dignity as a Christian is going to be seen in how you treat other people. The world is going to say, don't tread on me. You have rights. Don't let other people do things to you. It's very undignified. Well, what did they do to Jesus? As he was naked on the cross, We look at this symbol now. We have a symbol there, symbol there. This is a symbol of humiliation and shame and horror. And yet some of you have it around your neck right now. Do you understand what you're communicating about that? And we're gonna be offended how other people treat us? We need to find our dignity in how we treat other people. This is what Paul's also getting at.

Martyrs’ Dignity

We think of the martyrs of the faith. as they sang as they went to the fire and to the lions, as many of them still would trust God as they go to be shot or butchered by evil people? Do they have dignity as they are like sheep going to the slaughter? Well, the world says no, but a Christian should say yes. When you can look death in the eyes and you're not afraid, there's something deeply dignified about that, and nobody can take that away from you. if you have it in Christ. And so Paul wants us to understand that this is the stuff of life. This is what we need to be focused on and encouraging one another with.

Invitation to Know Christ

Jesus is our ultimate example in this. If you don't know him as Lord, if you don't have him as Savior, you're not going to understand any of this message. Your focus will be on the earth rather than on heaven. And when people do you wrong, and they will, whether it's government or your neighbor, you're going to bristle and you're going to act out in the flesh instead of seeing it as an opportunity to love and to do good instead. You need to have that relationship with Jesus Christ, and it needs to be alive, and he needs to be giving you that freedom and that boldness so that you can walk with him through the evils of this world. So know him. Know Him more. As we see the days get harder in our land, we need this message on our hearts. We need these examples close to our hearts. And we need to embrace as the church that special role we have among the kingdoms of the earth, that we are the ones who pray. We take everything that makes us worried or scared and we pray. We give thanks when others don't give thanks. We trust God when everything seems so bleak. And we have joy from the Holy Spirit, even in affliction. God can help us with this. So let's pray that he does help us.

Closing Prayer

O Father in heaven, we need your grace to embrace such truth. O Father, we need your help. so that our eyes would be set on the hills where our help comes from. We can't look to man or the arm of flesh for salvation. Lord, we pray for our leaders. We pray that where there is unrighteousness and foolishness, you would grab hold of their hearts. They would turn to you. They would be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. They would do good in the land. But Father, help us as your people to do good, to take hold of our responsibility, to pray and to lead peaceful and quiet lives, godly and dignified in every way. Oh Lord, you know where each of us struggle with this. You know where each of us are afraid or angry. And we pray that your grace would be bigger than any of those sinful emotions. And Lord, for anyone here who is still not yet submitted to the greatest authority, to the Lord Jesus Christ, may they kiss him in respect and submission and faith before they perish on the way. And we pray you would give them that joy that no one else can take from them because it's hid in you, Lord Jesus, and you have overcome the world. We thank you in your name. Amen.

Look and Live | John 3:14-15

Tue, 13 May 2025 05:30:14 GMT

Look and Live | Sun, Jan 05/25 AM | Bud Talbert | John 3:14-15

Pastor Bud Talbert
Text: John 3:14-15

Introduction to William Augustine Ogden

Good morning. Merry Christmas. Happy anniversary. Happy New Year and happy birthday. Covered everything for the year. Good to have you back today. It’s nice to be back to a regular schedule. I hope you enjoyed any time away that you had and that whatever your regular schedule is, you’ll enjoy getting back to that. Nice to have you.

If you want to follow along in the message, you can turn to Numbers chapter 21, where our reading was from. And I want to introduce you to William Augustine Ogden, born in 1841. He died just before the turn of the 20th century. He was born in Ohio but he and his family moved to Indiana when he was just six years old. It was a bit of a progeny when it came to Prodigy, when he came to Indiana. Indiana, began to study music in the local schools there when he was 8 years old. By the age of 10, he could read church music well. In other words, he could read the music out of the church book after 2 years of studying music from the age of 8 to 10. He began to write music at the age of 9. He could write out a melody just by listening to it sung the first time. He could put the proper notes down on paper as a 10-year-old. What an amazing gift for music that he had.

William enlisted in the Civil War in the 30th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. He was 20 years old at the time. For those of you who don’t know, the American Civil War began in 1861 and ended in 1865. And so he participated in that, but as a musician, he participated in that, organized a male choir that became well known throughout the army of the Cumberland, of which the Indiana Regiment was just a part. After the war, he returned home, resumed his music study, and taught school. married and had two children and for most of his life worked in the Toledo public school system in Toledo, Ohio, where he taught together with well-known gospel musicians, Lowell Mason and Thomas Hastings. They were his fellow teachers and actually helped him to learn. because their training was better than his was. He wrote many hymns, both lyrics and or the music, and even issued his first book of songs, first of 11 of them, when he was just 29 years old. One of Ogden’s most sung gospel songs is entitled, Look and Live.

The Hymn “Look and Live” and Its Connection to Scripture

When I was first saved, the hymn book that we used had a lot of this kind of music in it, so I learned that hymn at a very young spiritual age, and that’s the one we just finished singing, Look and Live. And I wanted to tell you a little bit about its author and its writing. because it fits the text we’re going to look at this morning. John chapter 3 verses 14 and 15, which are the two verses ahead of Well, let me put it this way. They’re the two verses at the end of Jesus’ interaction with Nicodemus. Verse 16 is the beginning of a five-verse section of John the Apostle’s commentary on Jesus’ interaction with Nicodemus. So, we’re going to talk about that a little bit more when we get to John.

The People Sinning (Numbers 21:4-5)

I want to begin, though, by looking at Numbers 21 verses 4 through 9, the passage we read, and I’ve entitled it, The Beginning of Faith. Really the theme of this entire idea, which occurs in Numbers 21, 4 through 9, is the idea of faith, even though faith is never mentioned in this passage. But there are three sections, verses 4 and 5, the people are sinning, verses 6 and 7, the people are repenting because God’s punishing them for their sin, and then verses 8 and 9, the people are healed. So those three parts of this passage are before us.

Israel’s Journey and Faithlessness

To begin with, the people sinning, the year is about 1400 BC. Israel has wandered, they’re just finishing wandering about 38 years in the wilderness. He said, I thought they were punished and had to wander for 40 years. Well, they spent three years getting to Mount Sinai. They spent the next 11 months, almost a full year, on Mount Sinai or at the foot of Mount Sinai. The people, Moses and Joshua, were the ones who were on Mount Sinai. So when they were free, it took them about three months to wander to the Kadesh Barnea, the town just on the south border of the land of Canaan. And if you remember Numbers chapter 13 and 14, they sent some spies to sort of rendezvous and look over the land so that they would have an idea of what was involved in moving in there. But when they got back, 10 of the 12 leaders of the reconnaissance work did not want to go in.

Do you remember why? There were giants in the land. They were afraid. Some of the cities had huge walls. And, I mean, they didn’t even, we don’t even know whether they went to Jericho, but the city of Jericho was there. And the walls of the city of Jericho were wide enough for people to live inside of them. I mean, imagine a wall that was 33 feet thick, but not solid. hollow in the middle. And we talked about that when we talked about Rahab over the Christmas holidays. But they had large, powerfully defensed cities and too many people, not just giants, but just too many people. So they got back from their reconnaissance and Caleb and Joshua said, we can go in, we can defeat them. And they said, no, no. We can’t defeat them, we need to go back to Egypt. And for their faithlessness, you know it is interesting when we read this part of the Bible that you see God divide the Red Sea, you see God lead them by a pillar of fire and cloud, you see God provide food supernaturally for them, they get tired of the food so he provides quail. Quail. I’ve never had quail before. They’re very good, very tasty meat. I mean, it’s not like McDonald’s. It’s really good, good food. And the people who gathered the quail, imagine the quail. You know, you’re in the land. Quail love lots of trees, lots of cover. And here they are, and they’re all starting to leave. And a quail says to another quail, why should we leave here? I don’t know. We just have to. But look, there are millions of them. Yeah, I know. I don’t understand. But we’ve got to go south. But there’s nothing in the south but sand. I know. We have to go. I mean, God did all of this and then all of a sudden we can’t defeat these people. I think we get that way about our sins sometimes. Oh, we just can’t. Have you ever overcome anything? Well, yes. Well, what makes you think you cannot do this? It’s just too strong. It’s not just too strong. We simply choose to be defeated in this.

Well, here they are. Down there, the nation of Israel was not permitted by the Edomites to pass through their territory. They had wandered for these 38 years. They came down to right at the end of the Dead Sea. They just wanted to cross over right there at the end of the Dead Sea, the southern end of it. And Edom said no. So where did they have to go? They had to go south all the way to the end of the border of Edom. And then they had to go to the east. Now, if you’ve never looked at this on a map, when you go east on the other side of Edom, it’s the Arabian desert. No McDonald’s, no water fountains. I mean, it is grim. And so the scripture says the people became impatient on the way. It was hot. There was little or no water and food and they’re getting tired.

Imagine this. They’re getting tired of just eating manna. It’s called angels food. It’s called the bread of God. They’re tired of it. I mean that’s like getting tired of eating Tim’s doughnuts. Only this is better food. Well, they begin to complain and to grumble. And the Christian is urged to be content with what we have because God has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And here’s the idea in those two ideas. How can I, those two statements together, how can I be content? because God is with me. It’s because he’s with us that we can be content. Why? Because he will always provide for our needs. He didn’t take Israel out into the desert to kill them and yet they kept thinking that. And sometimes when we go through hardship, we think, why are you doing this to me? Why are you punishing me for this? It is not punishment. It just is to teach us that we live by the commandments of God, and not by food, and not by just money, and not by just these circumstances that I think are so necessary for my life. and for which we complain so much when God takes them away and says, in essence, now believe in me, trust in me.

Complaints Against God and Moses

Well, something may have happened to bring their unhappiness to the breaking point. Verse 5, the people spoke against God and against Moses. “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt? to die in the wilderness, for there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” [Numbers] [21]:5. And they’re talking about the manna, worthless manna. I wouldn’t mind walking into a Sobeys and saying, you know, where do you keep the manna on your shelf? I’d like to try some of this angel’s food. It might be nice to have. Suppose the Sobeys was empty of everything but that.

We would have the opportunity to have some for a long time. And maybe we would get to the point where we complain.

And I want to speak about that for just a minute. They’ve been wandering for 38 years. During that 38 years, what’s been happening to the parents of these young people? They’re dying. They’re dying by the thousands every week and they’re dying because that’s what God said. You said my children and my wife will die if we go into Canaan but because you won’t go into Canaan you’re going to die and your children and your wives will survive. And so here we are in Numbers chapter 21 and all the parents, all the husbands are dead. but the children now are grown up and they’re adults.

You remember what the people said to Moses and Aaron, that they had brought them out of Egypt to die in the wilderness. And then what do their kids say? What do their children say? Exactly the same thing. I was raised in a home where From time to time, my father said, don’t do what I do, do what I say. That’s a farce, folks. For anyone here who’s a parent, that’s a farce because your kids know what you do and they will follow that, not what you say. And this is what’s happening here. That generation’s complaint was a charge against their parents, against the Lord, against their spiritual leaders, Moses and Aaron. There is a proverb for that, by the way. The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree. Yes, you’re raising a bunch of little apples, but they’re going to be big apples. And they’re going to be just as rotten at heart as you are if you show that kind of behavior in front of them.

The People Repenting (Numbers 21:6-7)

So the people repent, verses 6 and 7. What causes them to repent? Well, they are complaining to God. We don’t think of grumbling as a real bad sin. Look what he’s doing because of that. By the way, they were grumbling when they didn’t want to go into Canaan. We grumble about some of the tiniest things, relatively speaking. You say, well, it’s a really big thing. What if you were to die today? Would it be that big really once you’re dead? You know, we always think rebels are right. I mean, they bring up a good point until they’re dead. Then it’s not a good point anymore. It doesn’t make any difference anymore. Why didn’t they behave differently when it came to trusting in? the one true God.

God’s Punishment: Fiery Serpents

Now we don’t know, well, what verse 6 says is, then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died. [Numbers] [21]:6. Now the reason they’re called fiery serpents, we don’t know. We just have to guess at it. Because when it bit them, they swelled up in that biting place and it turned red, fiery red. Maybe that’s why they were called fiery serpents. But the Lord made them that way. It may be just because the serpents had that effect on people or the serpents look like that when they were biting the people of Israel. They repent because God punished them for their sin of grumbling.

What would God do to us for complaining? Especially complaining against the Lord’s servants. I’m not holding myself up in this way. But I mean, this is what they were doing. And the Lord responds very seriously. So we don’t know how many fiery serpents there were, but many people of Israel died, so there were probably many serpents doing this. Many people rebelled and so they died and the rebel sounds, as I mentioned, the rebel always sounds like he has a good point until he’s dead.

His situation doesn’t seem to be so bad compared to being destroyed for all humanity. What happens when people die? Saved and lost, they immediately go. to the presence of God and they understand everything in their lives at that point is compared to what he says in his word. They either are put in a temporary Hades until they stand before Christ at the white throne judgment or they are ushered into the presence of the Lord. Somebody asked me, what was wrong with committing suicide? If you were a Christian, then why was that a bad thing? I said, because you stand uninvited immediately in the presence of God. And that’s a bad place for a Christian to be if you’re uninvited. Was not him who chose to end your life. That was you who did that. if you do that, and I digress, sorry about that.

Moses’ Meekness and Intercession

So verse 7, many people came to Moses, they said, we have sinned, here’s their repentance, for we’ve spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that he would take away the serpents from us. [Numbers] [21]:7. So Moses prayed for the people. It’s a good example of Moses’ meekness. The people attack him, they speak against him. And yet when they’re in trouble, he prays for them. That’s a good sign of meekness.

The People Healed (Numbers 21:8-9)

And so this takes us to verses 8 and 9, the people are healed. But notice the Lord did not take away the fiery serpents. He did not remove them as they asked for Moses to ask God to do. But the Lord said in verse 8 to Moses, Make a fiery serpent out of brass or bronze and set it on a pole. Everyone who is bitten when he sees it, that’s the first word to underline in your Bible, he sees it, shall live. [Numbers] [21]:8. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look, there’s the second word. Underline that. They see, they look. Two different terms, which is interesting. And they look at the bronze serpent and live. [Numbers] [21]:9.

Faith and Obedience Required for Healing

So rather than remove the snakes, God made a way for them to be healed by faith. You say, why do you say it’s by faith? Because it’s what Moses told them to do. It’s because it’s what the Lord told Moses to tell them to do. So what are all the people obeying? They’re obeying the word of God through the servant of the Lord. But it’s God’s word. And I’m going to speak to everyone here this morning and tell you to look at the raised Jesus and have eternal life. And somebody probably in this group, a group this size, is gonna say, well, either I don’t want to, I can’t do it, we have all kinds of reasons for why we will not do it, but it is, As the song says, it is only that you look and live. It is a very simple thing to do to get saved. It is not complicated. You say, well, I have to clean my life up. No, you don’t. In fact, no, you can’t clean your life up. That’s impossible. God’s not going to like you for saying, I don’t believe you, but I do believe what I’m doing.

The Act of Looking: A Deliberate Faith

Well, Moses did two things. He set the bronze serpent on a pole and it had to be high enough for all the people to see it from a relatively far distance. Also, the bronze serpent had to be of sufficient size to be clearly seen from relatively far away, but the people then would look at the serpent, see the serpent. These terms, especially the second one of looking, is not a glance but a deliberate focusing. As one examines something, one commentator said, it was necessary to do more than simply see or catch a glimpse of. One actually had to fix one’s gaze. Pay attention to this figure, a definite act of the will, this is faith, that’s what it is. I will do this if one wanted to be healed. So the bronze serpent was made, fixed on a high pole, perhaps some of the priests were the ones who held it up.

Many Israelites died that day but many Israelites looked at the serpent and lived. How long did this drama last? We don’t know. An hour? Many hours? How long did the fiery serpents last? We don’t know that either. How long after being bitten before the deadly poison killed its victim? If they were all black mambas, about 10 or 15 minutes. If that long, depending on how much of a bite they got. But these are all questions. that were not given the answers to, how many died, how many refused in their hardness. You say, oh, surely nobody would refuse. Oh, yes. Never underestimate the depravity of your own heart to do wrong. Never underestimate that. You are far worse, I am far worse than we have any real idea of. We are capable of the worst possible sins ever committed by any one of the human beings who’ve ever lived. Some definitely would refuse to look until it was too late.

Whatever the answers are to these questions, the one thing we know for sure is that the bronze serpent on the pole was kept. It was not thrown away.

The Perversion of Faith (2 Kings 18)

That takes us to 2 Kings chapter 18, where we move to the subject, the perversion of faith. This perversion of faith moves us ahead about 700 years. So we’re about 700 BC. This was the time when Hezekiah was king. He actually came to the throne in 715 and ruled to 686. We’re told about Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18 that he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. Why did he do that? Because in those, or until those days, the people of Israel had made offerings to it, to the bronze serpent. And after Hezekiah had destroyed it, they called it Nehushtan, a piece of brass, a hunk of metal.

I got news for you. I grew up in a well-known religion where we were surrounded by pieces of ceramic. And we were commanded to bow down and show reverence to them and pray to them as though there was something there in these statues. And if you did not revere them, something bad would happen to you. The Bible calls that something. He calls it idolatry. It is not worship. It is not real. There is no being in there except, well, we’re going to talk about what there is.

The Bronze Serpent’s Transformation into an Idol

So I want to go back then to the plague being over, the priests aren’t going to just toss in the trash the artifact that saved so many people and that represented the power and grace of the Lord of Israel. Perhaps they hauled it out of this, they hauled out this museum piece for the one-year anniversary of this event, and the celebration was so great they did it again the next year. After a few years, they cut the pole shorter so it wouldn’t be so difficult to store. When it was brought out to the people, some got the idea of bringing poor Aunt Bessie to stare at the bronze serpent so maybe she could be healed of her rheumatism. It didn’t work. They had some kind of regard for this thing that had healed so many people. No, folks, the thing did not. How did those people get healed? God did that, not the thing. And here they were making offerings to it. But it’s nothing but nehushtan. It is nothing but a piece of metal, a hunk of metal that perhaps Hezekiah just threw on the pile of bronze that was being saved up for the building of the temple or for the renewal of the temple.

Some of the people just never let go of the idea that the serpent itself had power, that the thing had power. Century after century of idolatry. Other religions celebrated their amulets. They had power. Why can’t we do the same thing? Because we don’t have the religion of other people. Because we don’t worship a false god the way they do. We worship the true God. And it wasn’t the serpent that saved them, and it wasn’t the serpent that deserved the offerings. So here it is, in the time of Hezekiah, it’s nothing more than a whittled block of wood or a carved piece of rock, nothing but an idol. So the cloud dark, the dark cloud rather, does have a silver lining and what is that? If we read the verses before 2 Kings 8 and verse 4, we read that when Hezekiah became king that he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

God, the Real Source of Healing

Now, the interesting thing is for the people to worship the bronze serpent did not take faith in God, it took faith in the bronze serpent. And when people are called to fall down in front of a statue, it takes their faith in that statue. But that’s why we called it the perversion of faith. That is not what we believe in. Well, how do I know what to believe in? It says what to believe in. That’s how we know what to believe in. That’s why we preach from the Bible. That’s why we urge people to trust in Jesus Christ to get saved. It’s not just up for the best idea I might have for how to do.

Well, there is faith, there’s real faith in Hezekiah even though there wasn’t in the people. The Lord had said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole and everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live. So Moses made the bronze serpent, set it on the pole and if the serpent bit anyone He would look at the bronze serpent. Why did that make him live? Because that’s what God said to do. Why do I look to Jesus to make me live? Because that’s what God said to do. And that’s what the Son of God was doing. What did the serpent do to effect a healing? Nothing. Nothing.

The Perfection of Faith (John 3:14-15)

So we come to the perfection of faith in John chapter 3 verses 14 and 15. This passage in John 3 brings the reader about 800 years from the piece of brass from Nehushtan to the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re moving from Before Christ, B.C. into Anno Domine, after the Lord. We’re moving from B.C. to A.D. and from Hezekiah to Nicodemus and Jesus. It is night. Why is it night? Because Nicodemus has no faith. He’s curious and he has something of an open heart. But he does not truly believe, and the Lord will tell him that.

This passage features Nicodemus the Pharisee as the central figure in a discussion with Jesus focusing on three questions. Questions in verse 2, verse 4, and verse 9. Aren’t you sent from God? It’s not stated as a question but that’s what he says. We know that you are from God because no one can do the signs you do unless God is with him. And the Lord Jesus answer to that is you are paying so much attention to the sign. I mean, we may be like Gideon, you know, I’ll believe what you’re saying, God, if you do something special for me and you do it the way I want it done. We give a little too much credit to Gideon for asking for that if we want to follow his example.

The second question, how can a man be born again? And he answers the same way he answered the first one, except the first time you have to be born again to see the kingdom of God. And in the second one, you have to be born again to enter the kingdom of God. And then this teacher of Israel says, how can this be? That’s his third question, which the Lord answers saying four different things. Number one, are you a teacher in Israel and you don’t know? Ezekiel 36, folks, is very, very clear about what being born again is, about how we behave when we’re born again, about what it means to be born again. And here’s a guy who’s supposed to teach people the Old Testament and he doesn’t even know what that is? Well, why is that? Because he hasn’t grown up with the Bible. He’s grown up with tradition. He’s grown up with all that the other rabbis say, all that they need to know about what the rabbis teach. Don’t you know this? And the answer is no. I mean, he’s asking the question as though he expects a negative answer.

Number two, he says, we have told you this, but you will not believe. He says it three times in verses 11 and 12. This is the problem with the Pharisee. They are instructed not to follow anybody that doesn’t agree with their theology. Jesus didn’t agree with their theology, so they ask him to be murdered, forgetting that there’s a problem with murdering according to God’s Old Testament. But Jesus responds to that. I know what is true because I came down from heaven.” Did any of your rabbis come down here from heaven? No. Verse 13, he is the one who brings the answer from God the Father in this. And then he says this, you need to believe the same way Israel believed in Numbers 21. The same way they had to look, and as a result, you had to live. You need to do this. Only you’re not looking at a piece of brass at Nahushtan, you’re looking at the only Savior.

The Call to Believe: Parallels with Numbers 21 and John 3

There are six points of analogy between the Numbers 21 demand for faith and the Gospels demand for faith. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him, not in it, in him, may have eternal life and he’s not making that a conditional may, he’s making you have to look, you have to believe, you have to surrender in order to be saved, in order to have eternal life. [John] [3]:14-15.

What are the six points of analogy between these two? Well, Israel had sinned and we sin. Wasn’t the snakes that made them sin. They just did that on their own. the same way we do it on our own. Israel sinned. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. (That reference is to [Romans] [3]:23, though not quoted here in the sermon text.) And so Israel was punished. I mean back in Numbers 21. They were punished with fiery serpents. We are punished too for something much worse. or buy something much worse. Number three, God provided a way to be healed. The analogy with the gospel, God has provided a savior who will save us. And what does it say? If you confess with your mouth and believe in the Lord Jesus, if you confess him with your mouth and believe in your heart that God really did raise him from the grave, you will be saved. You will be, not you might be. (That reference is to [Romans] [10]:9, though not quoted here in the sermon text.) If you’re good after you do this, you might be. Not if you follow all these rules, you might be. God provided a way for Israel to be healed. God provided a way for us to be spiritually healed. A serpent was lifted up, a savior was lifted up. Israel must look to the snake in faith. We must look to the Savior in faith. If Israel had faith, they were healed. If we have faith, we have life. And we can observe the ordinance of remembering his death for us.

William Ogden’s Hymn, “Look and Live”

Well, William Ogden’s most popular hymn, the one we sang just before the message, I have a message from the Lord. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord that I have a message from him. The message unto you I’ll give. That’s what I’ve been doing. It is recorded in his word. Hallelujah. And you know that because you’ve either followed along or listened to me read the passages. It is only that you look and live. Look and live, my brother, my sister, live. Look to Jesus now and live. It is recorded in his word. Praise the Lord. Why? He wrote this. He wrote this New Testament part 2,000 years ago. Why do we still have it? Why is it still here? Just some freak accident that people decided to publish this thing when they created a press that was able to make a book like this? No, no freak accident. God did this. It wasn’t Nehushtan. It wasn’t just somebody saying, hey, I think I will make a copy of the most widely published book in the history of humanity.

Well, look and live. Look to Jesus now and live. Why would you wait? Why would you wait? I mean, if somebody said, look, I’ll give you $10 million if you just come right now. I mean, you know, we would tear off the door. We would ruin the car just trying to get there in time because now you have a real motivation. Boy, if that’s the case, you got serious, serious problems. It is only that you look and live. It’s not complicated to get saved. It is simple. Look to Jesus on the cross. He is there paying for your sins, all of them. Look to him in earnest faith. Do you mean to really believe? Or, and I’m speaking to the young people here, did you just go through the motions of saying, I want to be saved? I want you as my Savior.” Did you just make up the words? Did you just say that to make people leave you alone or did you really mean it in your heart because you will not be saved if you just did it to make people leave you alone? Do you mean to truly receive it? Because if you do, if I do, then eternal life is ours. And we don’t have to worry about dying. Now, I do pray about that. Lord, if you can make it so it doesn’t hurt so much. But if hurting would make me holier and better prepare me for heaven, then Lord, just give me the grace to bear with that.

Conclusion and Prayer

This is what we are participating in today, remembering his death to save me, to save you from our sins. Let’s pray. Father, we ask your blessing now upon the participation in these elements which are A memorial for us to remember what you’ve done for us and as a time of rededication. We are yours, Lord. We do not belong to ourselves. It is not our career. It is your career that you have moved us into. And if not, then Lord, give us the understanding and the wisdom to change careers. We ask, Lord, that you would save us from our sins. You died for us on the cross, Jesus, and we are saved, in fact. But, Lord, save us from the practice, we pray. In Jesus’ name, amen.

The Church's Use of Offerings

Tue, 13 May 2025 05:30:13 GMT

The Church's Use of Offerings | Sun, Sept 29/24 AM | Logan Seibert | Selected Scriptures

Introduction

Well, good morning. Those of you who are of good health, or at least you’re willing to share what you have. That’s okay. It’s good to come and worship. It’s inescapable. It’s the season. So I’m glad that you’re here.

For this morning, we’re not going to be continuing through the Book of Acts as we normally do. We’re not going to be going through Exodus, as we do in the evenings, as I’m preaching right now. But we want to just take a Sunday to address a certain topic, and that is in anticipation of more conversations this fall as we head into 2025 regarding the Church’s budget, the handling of finances. Really, I want to address the question, why should we give into that offering box back there, behind Howard there, or those of you who would send an e-transfer to the church, why should you click those buttons and send money to the church? And how should the church together plan to use the money that is received?

We want to address those questions because we are continually seeking to strengthen the ministry of our financial stewardship in the church. We want to be biblical about that. We’re aware that we’re always needing to be reforming and testing our practices and assumptions against the scriptures. And so I want to bring a topical message this morning to look at how the church is to use offerings. Do I sound really echoey? Okay, thank you. Because if I’m hearing it, you’re probably hearing it more. And my windpipe can project, so I don’t want to pierce your ears.

So it is always necessary to test our assumptions—our practices against the Word of God. We inherit traditions from our spiritual forefathers. Baptists have not always liked the word tradition, but Baptists have traditions. We may not speak of traditions as sacred and as authoritative as the Word of God, and rightly so. We recognize the Word of God is uniquely authoritative. It’s the supreme rule for our faith and our practice. But we still do things and even believe things in large part because of what our spiritual forefathers have taught, how they’ve interpreted Scripture, how a constitution has been put together. And that can range denomination by denomination. And that’s not inherently wrong. That’s just the nature of life and who we are as people in the Church.

Reflecting on Tradition Versus Scripture

But we need to make sure we’re not guilty of what the Pharisees became guilty of, as Jesus addressed in Mark chapter 7 (Mark 7:13), where he looked at them and he said, by the traditions that you have handed down, you make void the word of God. That is when tradition becomes a serious problem, when it competes with, contradicts the word of God, scripture.

And the church in this area of financial stewardship has sadly had a lot of blind spots and a lot of deceit of the heart in our history. Not just Lighthouse, I’m speaking of the universal church. You can trace that through from the beginning of the church’s history, where voluntary giving was the expectation. But over time, greater expectations evolved. And Christianity became more and more institutional and dependent on these traditions. When tithes turned into taxes, as the church merged with the state, we saw real problems, particularly in European Christianity, what we’re familiar with in our own culture, and where the church and the state enforced, compelled people to give as part of the taxation of Christendom, of the land. This led to very fat and plump church leaders. This led to very costly buildings and a lot of money off of people to keep those buildings going. The church wanted to create large programs, systems of welfare for the poor. But as we know, when big government wants their hands in all kinds of things, financial mismanagement, waste, abuse, it characterized the church as well. And people suffered under this, but most importantly, the name of Jesus suffered by this.

Historical Problems With Church Finances

Now in the Reformation in the 1500s, the Reformers were looking at all the mess that had accumulated up to that point through the medieval church, the Roman Catholic church, and finances or taxation was a part of that. Going back to the scripture and re-examining what is going on with all the purposes of the money, how we collect it, why we collect it. And it can be easy to now think as children of the Reformers, as Protestants, as Baptists, Yes, look at the Pope and his Nikes and his fancy little vehicle, and look at these Orthodox churches with their gold and ornate buildings, and look at all the greed and avarice there. It can be easy for us to point the finger, but sadly, Protestants have been guilty of mismanagement of offerings as well.

Taxation of the people was not immediately abolished as Protestants. Baptists had a large hand in helping remove that kind of church and state tithing that was so dominant for so long, and I praise God for that. But sadly, financial stewardship and Protestantism has also been against the word of God. Church leaders may not have fancy robes, but Protestant leaders can have very expensive suits or designer clothes, preachers in sneakers. Is that the social media? A fella who follows famous evangelical pastors and he will take the pastor’s picture and he’ll show you those sneakers he’s wearing, the v-neck shirt, the skinny jeans. How much do those things cost? And you would be astounded. But as well, I mean, even in more conservative circles, suits that would be designer level suits, not suit you can get at Goodwill or Value Village, but things that are very ornate. Protestants can fall into that.

Or we can have an unhealthy occupation with buildings ourselves. And really, buildings that aren’t nearly as beautiful as those buildings that the medieval church would build. Really bland kind of auditorium buildings. But nonetheless, an occupation with buildings that you would be hard-pressed to find in the Bible, which we’re going to consider. Now, we don’t have monastic orders, monasteries. But we have charities, we have not-for-profits. Lighthouse Baptist Church of Edmonton is a not-for-profit, officially, under the Canadian government, under the CRA. And so we don’t have spiritual people doing all kinds of things that the rest of the culture doesn’t really know what’s going on there as a monastic order. But we as a church are under those charitable organizations and the world, the unbelievers around us, might think of us like this. They seem so busy doing spiritual things, Christian things, but where is that money really going? How many loopholes are they really cutting? They’re not paying any taxes on so much of this stuff. What’s really going on there?

And that same sentiment of distrust against the church can bubble up in the lives of unbelievers in our society too. So Protestants aren’t building Christendom, but pastors can seek a big name for themselves. They don’t want just to serve their local church, they want a campus church, a satellite church, they want a mini kingdom of their own. This issue of power in the heart is still present with Protestants. And we’re not compelling people under a taxation system to give to the church. But there can still be a bit of a mentality of that, that you have your 10% to give, that’s what the church demands. You write your check, and then you’ve done your giving. Maybe year end, you assess, what have I given, what have I not? You send it away. What are your church leaders proposing to do with that? You don’t really know. You weren’t at the meeting. You didn’t look at the budget. You’re not part of the discussions. You’re just kind of paying your tax, and you carry on. Many Christians can function like that in Protestant churches. And so we’re not immune to the same kinds of problems that have plagued church history.

And sadly, we hear of financial scandals in Protestant churches every single week. I don’t know if it’s happening more necessarily. It’s just that with news so readily available, in a matter of seconds, I can find out what so-and-so First Baptist Church of Timbuktu has done, and it’s right there for me to see and to grieve over. Money and power are seductive. That has been true of every generation, and that’s why Augur, Proverbs 30, verse 8 (Proverbs 30:8), what is the prayer of Augur to the Lord? Give me neither poverty nor riches. He doesn’t want to be tempted to steal by being poor, but he also doesn’t want to forget the Lord, as Psalm 50 warns us about, forgetting the Lord because of prosperity. It’s why the Puritan Thomas Brooks said, adversity has slain her thousands, prosperity her tens of thousands. It is true.

The Need for Biblical Stewardship

Now it’s not in the scope of this sermon to address all the causes and all the answers to these kinds of problems. But one important question to ask is what I opened up with. What are we responsible to do with our money as God’s people? What does Jesus want us to do as stewards of his money? What is the reason for offerings at all? And what do you have a responsibility before the Lord to do with your money? So if we answer this biblically, we set a direction, a certain kind of compass, a north, by which then we can understand when are we going into a ditch? Where are we trailing off away from the direction that we are to be faithful to? And this is very important. Biblical direction helps us be faithful stewards not only of money, but of the gospel message itself. His glory, our witness, because there’s no more foul estench among unbelievers and even fellow Christians than lust for power, lust for money, lust for carnal pleasures, and sex, power, and money. Those are the things that bring down so many Christians, so many people, so many churches. And so it’s the gospel that’s really at stake.

Now, Dunlop, Jamie Dunlop, Budgeting for a Healthy Church, in his book, he writes, a budget should reveal what a church truly values. A budget is a reflection of the values of the members who create and agree to that budget. It’s a spiritual tool for spiritual aims. That’s what it’s meant for. And of course, those aims should be aligned with God’s aims. And so then, what are God’s aims, according to his word? How should the church use offerings?

Two Propositions for Church Offerings

Well, I want to make two propositions here, and then we’re going to unpack those. I am going to start to touch on a number of scriptures, as this is a topical message, which I want to make exceptional. We would not typically do these kinds of messages, but I won’t be able to go as deep in all these passages as I would like to, unless you’re ready for a three-hour sermon. But you can ask us later. That’s just the nature of a topical message. So lots of introduction here, but we are going to get into the scriptures themselves shortly. But I want to put two propositions out about the use of church offerings.

First, the church must materially support those called to labour in the proclamation of the gospel, supporting and partnering with gospel labourers, both elders serving in a local church and missionaries sent out in ministry partnerships. And secondly, the church must help address the needs of their poor and needy brethren, both those within their local church and those in other churches they are in fellowship with.

So you notice, hopefully, there’s a local and then a broader sense to both of those two propositions on laborers and the poor. There is an internality, something internal to a local church of supporting such people, but then something external to the local church. And the local gospel laborers are the pastors of a church. Regional or global laborers are missionaries. We call them missionaries. They may be pastors of another church. You might call them a church planter. They may be engaged in some kind of work related to that. But they have given themselves to the proclamation of the gospel. And then the poor may be found within your local church, or be found in churches connected to your local church somehow. In our context, could be through pastoral fellowships, like the Western Canada Baptist Fellowship, WCBF, you hear that acronym every once in a while. Churches that are in the city, but also throughout the province, maybe the churches that are under the missionaries your church supports. So there’s already a partnership there. But there’s already some existing fellowship. You are connected in some relational way. And there is a sense of responsibility with how you help such churches and the poor and the laborers in those churches. And so gospel laborers near and far, and the poor near and far, these are the explicit objects of our financial support.

Addressing the Question of Buildings and Other Expenses

Now, Craig Blomberg, he writes an excellent book on biblical theology of stewardship, Give Me Neither Poverty Nor Riches. That’s the title of the book, based off Proverbs 30, verse 8 (Proverbs 30:8). I’d recommend that book. It’s a little thick. It’s a little technical. Christians in an Age of Wealth is his more simple book, a little bit less technical. He’s not getting into Hebrew or Greek as much. But he writes this. These are the purposes of the offerings: helping the poor, supporting local ministers, and funding evangelism and missions. He emphasizes those same three kinds of things, and you’ll find this in many good authors. And so I want to cover the scripture that proves this, but I want to address the elephant in the room first. Because as I laid those propositions out, you may be wondering, What about our building? What about the other laborers in the church, wages for a financial secretary or an office secretary or a cleaner? What about maintaining our printer or our website? That’s a valid thing that you would think about.

There’s no explicit references to offerings going to a building in the New Testament, however. There’s no explicit references to money being used for promoting manuscripts that would then be sent out. They didn’t have printers and copiers back then, paying Bob the scribe in your church to copy those letters, to make some tracks, to get evangelism work going, we don’t see any explicit commands or examples of that in the New Testament. Now, we can answer this. Why are we then budgeting for a building? Why do we have these other line items? But first, we do need to lay that foundation. We need to start with what’s explicit. What are we going to answer to the Lord explicitly for? He has commanded, He has laid out very clearly that our money is to go into these kinds of things. We need to start there. And then we can recognize that there are other things that our money as a church can go toward. We can infer them. Things that are still important because they’re inferred from the scriptures, they’re not wrong. There are some things which are a natural consequence of what is commanded. In order to fulfill this command, the best way to do that is X, Y, and Z. And as a church, we agree, let’s put our resources toward that end. That’s not wrong. But those things should never overshadow, and especially not contradict, the explicit things Jesus has charged us to put our money toward. There is a priority, there is an order of importance in that sense.

So, let’s talk about a building. A building is a good example. There’s nothing explicit for New Testament churches to own a building, to purchase and maintain a church building, a church as it’s been called, but that’s not the church. The people are the church, the ecclesia. That has gotten so deep in our thinking that even the use of word can be confusing there a little bit. But what are we commanded to do as the church? We must meet together regularly. Gathering together is commanded (Hebrews 10:24-25; 1 Corinthians 11). Paul assumes when you meet, you’re going to be doing this. When you meet, when you meet, when you meet. It’s just the warp and woof of fellowship for New Testament churches. Zoom ultimately doesn’t cut it. Livestream ultimately doesn’t cut it. It could be helpful when you’re not feeling well, but that is not going to be feeding your soul and helping you fulfill what it means to gather with your brothers and sisters.

And so if we must meet together for worship, well then, giving toward this end seems good. Supporting one another with a place to gather is a good thing. It helps us fulfill that command. But we have to be careful. Is doing it through a purchased building necessary? Will we not be a faithful church if we don’t own a building? We see in the scriptures that the early church met in public in the Book of Acts. They met in Solomon’s portico in the temple. Just was a natural place for so many people to meet. There’s a lot of religious activity going on there. That’s what the apostles did. We later see house churches throughout the Book of Acts and the New Testament letters. There’s references to this. There are churches that would rent something. Paul himself, Pastor Bud recently preached through Acts, when he was in Ephesus, he rented the hall of Tyrannus, which was next to the synagogue. They got kicked out of there, so they rent something. So you see that by example, you know, Christians meeting publicly, Christians meeting in a house, Christians renting a property to meet in. There is flexibility there. There is some freedom and use of wisdom there.

God’s house is not a church building. The New Testament scriptures speak of God’s temple, but what do they speak of? What do the apostles call God’s temple? Point at each other, that’s right. We as the church are the dwelling place of God. And under the new covenant, this is how Jesus has designed this. When he commanded us to go out and make disciples of all nations, he knew that in various different nations, some would get to own a building, others would have to rent something. Others would have to meet kind of quietly in one another’s houses. Some could meet publicly, others couldn’t. Some are going to have enough money in order to purchase a building, some simply won’t. And yet they’re all New Testament churches. All of those fellowships can be faithful together, though it would look different in how they do that in terms of physical space. And so we can put our money into a building to help us gather together, but money toward a building should not overshadow what we are explicitly commanded to put our money toward. It’s the priorities.

And we could keep doing this with examples. Printing and printers. You know, you have to buy a printer. You pay for paper. You need to maintain it with ink. If it gets broken, you need to maintain it. Okay, that all costs money. Why do we have all these papers? You know, I have a piece of paper here for the sermon. It’s helpful for teaching, for the prayer sheet. Every single week, prayer sheet is going out. Are we supposed to pray? Yes. Is there supposed to be teaching? Yes. But if we lost our printer, can we still be faithful to do those things? Yes, we can. There’s churches far flung from us who they don’t even have the money for a printer. They’re not able to do that. But they themselves are the sheets. They are the tracks. They go out and they teach and they pray. Now I’m sure some of those brethren would really wish they could have a prayer sheet. They would praise God for a piece of paper to remember what to pray for.

So these are helpful things. But if we lost our printer tomorrow, it doesn’t mean that we would be unfaithful with what the Lord’s called us to do. Same with our website. It’s helpful for outreach. Many people find our church website, people I meet at the door, visitors, I ask, how’d you hear about us? They Googled us. Our church website is useful for those things. But can a church do outreach without a church website? Of course they can. It’s a pretty novel and new thing, a church website. You know, again, churches can have a logo, they can have a website, they can have these things. I’m not trying to rail against all these things. But it is about the priorities that we need to have in our minds. We’re not a business. We don’t need a logo like Pepsi or Cola and people think of us with this logo. Churches have been doing very well for a long time before they ever even thought of having a logo. So these are helpful things, but secondary things.

And so the separation has to be in our mind. And the danger is if we find that we are neglecting what our master has actually required of us because we’re too focused on what is not required, well, then we may be guilty of making God’s word void because of our traditions, because of the cultural assumptions that we’ve just been swimming in and just unaware of, blind to. So we need to test all things by the scriptures, go back to the scriptures. There is a place for what we could call ministry operations, or general expenses, or things that would help the building, help the printing and so forth, but it is a certain place. What is necessary, what is biblically mandated are the supporting of gospel laborers near and far, and the poor near and far. And that’s what I want us to have our attention on for the remainder of our time. I want us to consider those two groups of people and what the scripture says about supporting them.

The Church’s Role in Caring for the Poor

Now, the poor. We just had a series on benevolence earlier this year. I know some of you were not maybe even attending the church at that time, but I will not spend a great length of time on the topic of benevolence because we took a month and a half to really cover that topic. Hopefully you went away from that sermon series recognizing, wow, the scripture puts a lot of emphasis on helping the poor, on supporting the needy. I’ll just blast through some of those examples, but I encourage you to go back on Sermon Audio, go back on YouTube. What your offerings have helped you support, go listen to those sermons again if you want.

But in 1 Corinthians 16:1–4, you have the command week by week to collect money and lay it aside. This is where we get our practice of weekly offerings, which is what our church does. But Paul has a particular purpose for it, and what is that? It was a collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem. It was to help the poor. 2 Corinthians 8–9, two whole chapters where we get so much wisdom on giving (2 Corinthians 8–9). What is the context of that? It wasn’t just for general ministry. It was a collection for those same poor Jerusalem saints. Again, we can apply a lot of the wisdom of those two chapters—2 Corinthians 8 and 9 helps us in all of our giving. But the context there, the thrust of that really is about helping the poor. And note, these aren’t even the poor in their own assembly. It was of another church across the Roman Empire, which is why we say near and far there is a responsibility for us to help each other.

The Book of Acts continually touches on this. Just read through the Book of Acts and you’re gonna see a concern for the poor, a concern for those who are in crisis, famine, persecution. These things repeatedly come up. And by the time we get to 1 Timothy, one of the last letters Paul writes to Timothy and writes all together, you see in 1 Timothy 5 there is a structure of ongoing support for some of the most vulnerable in the church, the widows of the church. By this time, they’ve established some criteria and how they can give regularly to those who are in great need. And that gives us a model for caring for those in genuine poverty among us. And so near and far, the poor is a great emphasis. Again, in our short time this morning, I’m not going to go through all that, but it is a big part of our offerings.

Supporting Gospel Proclaimers (Local and Global)

What I want to focus on, and what’s not been talked about as much from this pulpit of recent, is that support to those who are called to labour in the proclamation of the gospel. How offerings are to help elders serving in a local church, as well as missionaries serving outside one’s local church. That is worth us considering. And so, finally, you get to open up your Bibles. I know it’s been too long, these topical messages, I tell you, but it’s an exception and not a norm. If it ever becomes a norm, you let us know.

Jesus’ Command: The Laborer Deserves His Food

Matthew 10:10. I want you to turn to Matthew 10:10. This is a key verse from our Lord Jesus. The context, and we don’t have time to go through it all so deeply, but this is the chapter where Jesus sends out the 12, the 12 apostles, and he gives a number of instructions to the apostles as they go out, to preach, to serve. Some of these things are harder to apply in our context, but there are definitely things that are still applicable to us. And there’s a phrase in verse 10, that very much so is. It’s right at the end of verse 10 where he says, the laborer deserves his food (Matthew 10:10). Luke 10:7 (Luke 10:7), a parallel, the laborer deserves his wages. So the same idea, the things of the physical life, money to purchase food or food itself, the laborer, the workman, is worthy of that.

Now Jesus is saying here as he sends them out, he’s going to supply—God will supply—what those servants need. They were not to charge people for their ministry. Look at verse eight. There’s a phrase in verse eight there where he says near the end, you received without paying, give without pay. Freely you have received, freely give. I’ve been struck, as Pastor Bud preaches through the Book of Acts, how financially motivated people are, whether it has been Simon the Magi wanting the Holy Spirit, whether it has been the idol worshipers, the idol manufacturers who seem concerned more about their money than really the honour of their gods. The owners of the slave girl in Philippi, they were only cared about what Paul did after they recognized, hey, we’re not making any more money out of her. The traveling exorcists, the sons of Sceva, this was very common and sadly today it still is very common. You want ministry from me, you need to pay first. And it’s become very sophisticated. There’s paywalls behind everything. You want my teachings? You want to read my blog? Subscribe for such and such a month, and you’ll gain access to this and that. It’s become very, very sophisticated, and sadly, among churches, among pastors.

But Jesus said, no, that’s not how you’re supposed to be doing ministry. God will supply what you need. You’re not to acquire for yourself everything that you’ve needed beforehand. Verses 9 through 10, Jesus is there saying, don’t collect all your things, everything that you think you need, a money bag and two tunics, extra clothing and all this stuff, and you’re walking around with all your briefcases. He’s saying, I don’t want to send you out like that. But they would receive their wages. Verse 10 is very clear about that. Well, how are they supposed to do that? Well, verse 11, look at verse 11 there. There will be houses that the apostles were to enter. People that would hear them, see them, and say, I like what you’re doing. I support what you’re doing. Here, let me give you a meal. Let me give you a place to stay. And verses 12 through 13, he goes on and says, well, if those people turn against you, don’t feel inclined to stick around. You leave. But if they’re a worthy house, accept their partnership, accept their support. And this is what we see the Apostle Paul doing as well. He would go to places, he would preach, people would be interested, people would believe, and from there, there would also be a kind of support that was gained. It wasn’t the money that came first, it came in response to ministry, not for ministry, and that’s very important.

Biblical Basis for Supporting Local Elders

1 Corinthians 9

So this does speak to various issues we have today, again, outside the scope of our purpose this morning, but it is necessary we would understand that passage, that phrase, the laborer deserves his wages or his food, because it’s going to be used by Paul a number of times in his letters. So flip over now to 1 Corinthians 9. 1 Corinthians chapter 9, Paul goes at length to talk about why those who proclaim the gospel ought to be supported for their ministry. Now, he’s going to say he’s not going to accept the Corinthian support. He didn’t accept the Corinthian support. He had reason to say no to that. But that’s the exception, and that’s something he chose to do. What he wanted to teach the Corinthians is, this is what should be on your hearts, O Corinthians. This is something that is due to those who proclaim the gospel because of the commandment of the Lord, and for various reasons.

But look at verses 13 to 14. This is where we’ll really focus on. It’s sufficient for our purpose.

Verse 13, he says, do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel (1 Corinthians 9:13–14). So, the Lord commanded. Where did the Lord command this? Matthew 10:10. That’s where the Lord commanded this. But as well, he ties it back to the Old Testament priests. You’d have to really get acquainted with the Levites in the Old Testament to understand, okay, what does Paul mean by this in verse 13? But the summary of this is, out of all the tribes of Israel, the Levites didn’t get their own allotment of land like the others. They were scattered within the tribes of Israel to serve the Lord as a set-apart group. And from there, they were to focus their time and their energy. If Bob, the Judean, and Simon, the Simeonite, if they wanted to have a business venture, hey, look, we got some great ideas to create a business. Let’s do this, let’s do that. Joe the Levite, I’m running out of names here, Bob, Bob, and Bob, but Joe the Levite, he’d have to say, I got enough work to do with what the Lord’s given me here. I’m stuck in this particular city. I got my rotation to go over to Shiloh and later to Jerusalem to help out over there. I already have enough work to do. I can’t, and I shouldn’t. God’s set me apart for a particular work, and I need to devote my time to that.

They were in cities with the cities of refuge, if you’re familiar with that concept. Those who accidentally killed another in order to escape the vengeance of the family could flee the manslayer, where we get the word manslaughter from, unintentional killing. The manslayer could run away to one of these cities of refuge and plead for justice and for protection. And the Levites were called to help with that. Now again, they didn’t have enough time to work with Bob over there and also do all these other things that the Lord wanted them to do. It would have burnt these guys out.

And so, these Levites were set apart for a particular work. And Paul there says in verse 14, in the same way, he makes a strong connection here now, in the same way those who are to proclaim the gospel get their living, the things of life, by the gospel, by that same work of proclaiming the gospel. And so commission to proclaim the gospel is a full-time job. If somebody is called to preach the gospel, you want to devote that person to focus on that for the good of your soul so that you’re fed, that your pastor has time for you, for the good of other souls. That’s the principle at work here. There’s supply. You need to supply what is needed so that work can be focused on. And so that puts right expectation on the church, but it puts right expectation on pastors as well, to devote ourselves to the work of the local church, the church that is partnering with you, freeing—I’m going to say me, I’m a pastor—you freeing me up to devote myself to you. That’s the idea, which I’m thankful for, which Pastor Bud is thankful for, which I know Pastor Elias is thankful for. When Brother Elias was having to throw out people, rowdy people, in a homeless shelter on night shift, and he would come dragging himself to the pastor’s meetings, I felt for him. If this brother’s called to proclaim the gospel, let’s free him up to proclaim the gospel. That’s the principle. And I know you felt for him, and you were very kind in that a few years ago when you devoted him to that.

Pastors cannot be like Micah the Levite in the Book of Judges. Do you know Micah the Levite? This isn’t Bob or Joe, this is a real man. Micah the Levite (Judges 17). And if you don’t know the story of Micah the Levite in the Book of Judges, I think it’s Judges 17. I think Judges… It’s near the end of Judges. You need to learn that story. He’s not an example. He’s not somebody to follow. But he is a Levite who wanted to do his own thing, and he didn’t want to stay where God wanted him to stay to serve as God wanted him to serve. But basically, whoever had the most money to give him, he would be their priest. And so he wandered around as a mercenary, willing to go for the highest bidder. And pastors can’t do that. That’s not what a pastor is to do.

But also as well, as Paul is modeling throughout chapter 9, there are times for pastors, for those who proclaim the gospel, for missionaries I can include under this as well, where you aren’t going to hold on to your rights or your liberties. There are times as well that men called for the gospel, they should not expect recompense. Paul goes into the wisdom of that. This is something that a pastor has to be ready for. We’re going to look at another passage where Paul says, I’ve learned the secret to be content, whether I have little or a lot. But in terms of what is God’s will for a church, those who proclaim the gospel should be supported to proclaim the gospel. That’s the principle. That’s what Paul teaches here. And so these passages establish this principle. It’s based off Jesus’ command. Paul articulates it further.

1 Timothy 5:17–18

But then we can also divide this into those who proclaim the gospel near and those who proclaim the gospel far. We’re going to have to speed through some of these passages. But for those who are near, local pastors, turn to 1 Timothy 5, verse 17 and 18 (1 Timothy 5:17–18). Paul writes to Timothy, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honour, especially those who labour in preaching and teaching. For the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the labourer deserves his wages (1 Timothy 5:17–18). What’s interesting there, Paul quotes the law. He does it in 1 Corinthians 9 as well. We just didn’t have time to look at the whole argument there. But notice he also is quoting from Luke’s gospel, and he calls it scripture. So just so you know, even by this time, they recognized the apostles’ writings as scripture. He puts it at the same level as the Old Testament. But there’s that passage again being applied here, and it’s applied toward elders, toward those who are in the Church of Ephesus.

When he says in verse 17 about honouring them, you know, respecting your pastors, that’s a kind thing, that’s a good thing. But that’s not how honour is being used here. That word can also mean honoring them by recompensing them, showing them generosity and support for the work that they’re doing. And if you go back up to verse 3 of this same chapter, you have that same word coming up. Verse 3, honour widows who are truly widows (1 Timothy 5:3). And then he’s going to go on and explain the benevolence for those widows, which is clearly financial and material support. So that’s what honour means here towards the elders. He switches from the poor, turns to the elders. And so these are gospel proclaimers getting ongoing support in that local church, just like the widows were getting ongoing support, certain widows, I should add, not every single widow, but certain widows.

Galatians 6:6

Now Galatians 6 verse 6 (Galatians 6:6) is another good passage. So turn with me to Galatians 6:6 near the end of the book of Galatians. Paul there writes, let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. Now to even get that more clear, you could translate it something like this. Let the one who is being taught the word share all good things with the one who is teaching. Those are your favorite grammatical term? Guess. Participles, right? They’re participles. So it’s an ongoing thing. Those who are being regularly taught the Word, there’s some ongoing activity that you are receiving teaching from the Word by somebody who is regularly teaching you. So this isn’t just at a conference. This isn’t a travelling preacher who comes through. That’s not really the heart of this. This is ongoing activity in receiving and giving the Word of God, proclaiming the Gospel. And Paul there is saying, share all good things with those who are teaching you like that.

Now this is a reminder that it’s not necessarily money that is always a way a church can pay a pastor. Maybe some of you have come from a background in another country where the pastors were paid in rice or some kind of food. And if that’s what that member of the church had to share to support their pastor, he doesn’t have to go and work somewhere else in order to feed his family. He’s being freed up to devote his time to the work of ministry. You’re feeding him for that. Praise God. That is great. That captures the heart of what we are to do to help those proclaiming the gospel.

Supporting Missionaries

So those are some key passages that show near laborers of the gospel, pastors, elders. These are those you want to support with your offerings. Now as well, though, those who are far, the missionaries. Turn to 3 John 5 through 8 (3 John 5–8). There’s no chapters in 3 John. I’m sending you all over the New Testament this morning. That’s all right. If you’re not familiar with your Bible, sometimes these sermons are good. You get flipping around everywhere. 3 John, verses 5–8, this is a key passage on supporting missionaries. There’s a lot packed into here. It’s a good passage.

Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God, for they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore, we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth (3 John 5–8).

Okay, these are missionaries. They are sent ones, ones sent out. That’s what’s underneath the term missionary. Because they have gone out for the sake of the name, for the sake of Jesus. Now they are strangers. Look at verse 5. John says, you didn’t know these people terribly well. So clearly these aren’t their shepherds. They’re not the pastors in the church. But they were servants who went out for the sake of Jesus. And they went out asking nothing of the Gentiles, verse 7. So they didn’t go out to these unbelievers saying, for a fee, I will serve you with X, Y, and Z. They weren’t looking to do that. And that gets at the heart of Matthew 10 verse 8, freely you have received, freely give.

So we see the pattern of Jesus there as well. But how are they to get their support? Well, verse 8. The believers, not the unbelievers, the believers are to be the ones who support those who go out for the sake of the name. And if we support such people, we are fellow workers for the truth, partners in what they’re doing. In another letter from John, he writes, not to receive false teachers, because you’ll be partnering with them in what they do, the evil that they do. If you feed them, bring them into your house, don’t do that. But those who are true servants, true proclaimers of the gospel, it’s a good thing to partner with them. Be a fellow worker for the truth.

Philippians 4:10–20

So clearly that involves your support, your financial support, but much more than that. And the Philippians are an excellent example of this. This is going to be the last passage I have you turn to. Philippians chapter 4, another word from Paul. Philippians 4:10–20 (Philippians 4:10–20). So we’re going to read a larger section of this. This is how the missionary Paul received and enjoyed the support of the Philippians.

I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:10–13)

So what does Jesus strengthen you to do? Is it to win the football match? No, not necessarily. You can’t hold on to that promise saying that you’re going to be the best bodybuilder out there. He’s going to make you so strong you could do whatever. That I would be twisting the context. How does that phrase go? I can do all things through a verse that’s out of context? There’s some kind of funny statement about that. He’s talking here about Jesus giving him strength to endure whatever hardship that he may have serving the Lord. That Jesus will strengthen him for endurance and for contentment. But notice what he says in verse 14.

Yet, it was kind of you to share my trouble. (Philippians 4:14) Or you could say, to have fellowship in my trouble. That’s a word, fellowship, that’s sharing. Verse 15, and you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, the beginning of Paul’s ministry, when I left Macedonia, a ministry among them specifically, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only. Even in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs once and again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. I have received full payment and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Philippians 4:15–20)

So here he’s gushing over at the generosity of the Philippians, that’s really what he was looking at here. Wow, you you’re loving me. This is good fruit among you to help in this kind of way out of love. But it showed up in material support. Again, we don’t know if, was it a big bag of rice for Paul? Was it money for Paul? It was a gift, but it supplied some of his physical needs. And notice in verse 15, there’s that language of partnership. You partnered with me in giving and receiving. Fellow workers. There was a relationship there. And so these passages show us that gospel proclaimers are to be supported at local and broader levels. We could go into other things in the scripture, but those are some key passages which demonstrate this. And I would encourage you on your own, study it, go through the scriptures yourself. If you see as explicit commands of what you should do with your money in the church, please tell me about that. But these are the explicit things that we see again and again in the scriptures, in the New Testament scriptures.

People Over Programs

And what is striking is this lack of emphasis on budgets for programs, budgets for buildings. We don’t even really have Paul saying, hey, make sure to recompense Chloe for all that space that she’s given you in her house. Now again, if those believers were benefiting from a richer saint’s house to gather in, what do you think they’re going to do out of love? They’re going to help out, clean out the house. They’re going to bring food to share. They’re going to show up helping out because that’s just the application of love.

Going back to what we began in this sermon, we need to lay that foundation of what is explicit in our stewardship as a church. And it makes sense that people—this people focus—is what we see again and again from the scriptures, because God ultimately doesn’t advance the Great Commission through programs. It’s through people. It’s not going to be through large facilities. It’s going to be the people who are in those facilities. You could have the best curriculum and you can have the biggest building and nicest things and all these plans, but if you don’t have labourers, if you don’t have loving, faithful workers, then what’s the point of all those things?

I considered what Jesus says about the harvest being plentiful, but the laborers being few. Right before Jesus sends out the apostles in Matthew 10, he commands them to pray that. Pray to the Lord of the harvest that he would send out laborers into his harvest. And then Matthew 10 shows up and he’s sending some out, but first he says for us to pray. And you can have a plentiful harvest. And let’s say you have the best John Deere equipment out there. You got drones, you got flashy new equipment, you got things on the computer, plans, you got strategic business plans, you got so many of those things. But then you’re gonna lack one thing. What are you lacking? Laborers. Okay? Now, even the automated stuff, you still need somebody who programmed all that, right? You know, people are absolutely necessary to bring in the harvest. And people who are capable and devoted to that work. If at harvest time, your laborers just got off a double shift at Tim Hortons, and now they’re out here to labor and harvesting your field, how well is that work gonna go? You’re burning out your laborers. So what does a farmer do? He wants laborers who are focused on that harvest and that work alone. And it works like that in Christ’s church as well.

And so using our resources to send and to keep good workers in the fields for harvest, this is key. And God does amazing things through that. The people of God can be built up, your own works of ministry strengthened by those shepherd teachers, encouraged by faithful missionaries, seeing what God is doing across this dark world. You yourselves are strengthened to serve in the ways God has called you. Relationally, in partnership, one with another. That’s the heart of this.

Practical Application: Giving as Partnership

And so, just in closing, just as one big application for us for today, I want to challenge you to consider, do you think of your giving as partnership? Does the word partnership come to your mind when you write a check or you send an e-transfer? Some of you maybe have even automated e-transfers. Maybe you’re going over what went out of your account and you see Lighthouse Baptist Church. Does a sense of relationship come to your mind, or is it just another budget item? Is it just another thing that you feel, you know, you want to love, you want to be faithful, so you give, but it kind of is just out of the way, out of sight, out of mind after that. Because our offerings are not donations to a not-for-profit. That’s not what this is. The heart of it is not getting that tax receipt at the end of the year. This isn’t a charity in that sense. And your tithe is not taxes from the pastors. It’s not that. Hopefully you hear from this pulpit things that don’t make you think that we want you to be taxed by your tithes. It’s not your membership dues to be a part of Lighthouse. Like you have, you know, your fees for the gym and fees for this organization. Oh yeah, and then my tithe goes to my place as a church member. No, that’s not the heart that we see. And that mindset, it just disconnects you from the opportunities you have to enjoy giving, to be fellow workers in the harvest. Your giving is a part of personal partnerships and acts of ministry.

And so, I mean, what does that look like? Let’s just give this example. Let’s say you have $300. That’s what you’re going to give for this month. Okay? I just picked a random number. $300. As it stands right now in the way our budget is organized, a bit over $150 of that $300 puts food on my table, on Pastor Bud’s table, and Pastor Elias’s table. Thank you. You feed our families. Now do you think about that when you send in your money? That you’re literally feeding my family, my little children. You’re helping Pastor Bud, you’re helping Pastor Elias. Now another $100, this is a rough estimate, so if you come back to me with a calculator, I’m sorry. I’m just giving a rough estimate, but this does reflect the general makeup. Look at the pie chart that got sent out a few weeks ago after our meeting. Another $100 goes towards ministry operations. You help the office secretary, you help the financial secretary, you help pay for our cleaner in the church, the cleanliness of this building, the lights that we’re enjoying right now, the heats or the air conditioning, which maybe you don’t want to pay so much in depending on the temperature you like in here, right? But all those things. When you give, you are supporting that. Our website, the live stream that some, including my family, are enjoying using right now. You have partnered to actually give to that, and without you giving to that, we wouldn’t be able to have it. And then that final $50, it goes towards our missionaries, towards those who are sent out. You are supplying their needs from across the world. And so do you think of your offering like that? Do you actually have those relationships and uses in your mind when you give?

And you could be even more intentional about this. Let’s say out of that money you’re going to keep aside some. But you’re going to say, you know what? I’m going to save up this amount for unexpected things. We had Paige Sweeney come in and present some ministry work that she’s doing. And you have an allotment that you didn’t give to the church, but you saved it to say, I know what I’m going to do with this money. There’s some missions work I can give to. I’m going to use this to give to that. The missions updates, the needs that our missionaries have. Are you aware of what they’re praying for? Are you aware of what Herb Hunter is doing, engaged in trying to build a school in South Africa, trying to bring on another elder in their church? A Bible study in Renindale that needs to get off the ground. They need a native to be pastoring there. Are you aware of those things and how you can take some of what you would give and allocate it to say, I want to give to this specific purpose? And same with benevolence opportunities. Do you save some money aside so that when there’s a need in the church, you actually can go to that person or go to a friend because you want to stay anonymous, and you say, I’ve been saving this money for such a purpose as this. Here you go. Be blessed by that.

Or a crisis happens among a family or connections in our church. Look at the help that we were able to give to brethren in Haiti, as a family in our church has connections to Haiti. And some of you gave to that, and praise God for that. Or what our missionaries go through. Are you aware of the earthquake last year that one of our missionaries had to face in an area I can’t name over the live stream? But many lives lost, families shattered, and this brother and sister in their church are doing a lot of work to help with that. Or the cults, a few years back now, when war broke out in Ukraine, how they had a flood of Ukrainian refugees come in and their church building was filled with pregnant women who lost their homes. Were you aware of that? Did you give to that? I mean, were you even aware of that? And that awareness and that intentionality and taking something of what you would normally give and saying, either above that or a part of that, no, I’m going to be specific about this. That gives you a sense of partnership in ministry, a sense of relationship that you’re building to help those in need. And that’s a joy. And that’s what God wants us to do with our offerings.

Conclusion and Final Prayer

Now just in closing, one of the books that I know our brother Ken and others in the church have used to help straighten out some finances in our church, Money Matters in the Church, the authors of that book say, some people lack the motivation to give away their hard-earned money because the church has failed to provide a compelling vision for how the money will make a difference in the world. And we’ve curbed a lot of gratuitous spending, unnecessary spending. The pastors, we don’t get reimbursed anything for our ministry, and we’re happy for that. Come to our budget meetings, there’s no reimbursements towards us, and we’re happy with that. So while we’ve kind of stopped doing bad things, we haven’t really gotten off the ground in doing what we could together as a church. And that’s why I’m preaching this today.

That’s why I’m encouraging you, as you’d consider what are offerings even for, to get a biblical view of it and have a heart in it. As we would be meeting this fall and preparing for plans for next year and a budget, pray about these things. Bring your ideas. Talk with the leadership about these things. But be motivated because you want to partner for the glory of God. You want to be a fellow worker for the truth and have joy in touching lives through the gospel.

So you have that opportunity in front of us and we want to glorify you in it. Please give us wisdom and please use what we’ve looked at in your word today to that end. We thank you in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.