Grace Works | Pastor Jake Sweetman

And why don't you open up your Bibles with me to the book of 2 Corinthians chapter

8. 2 Corinthians chapter 8 is where we're going to be hanging out today as we dive into the Word. How's everyone doing? Yeah? You good? Wonderful? Excellent? How many actual Dodgers fans are there? Nashville, I'm looking at you. We expect your solidarity. 2 -0 in the World Series

so far. I don't really like baseball, but it's a joy to watch. It's great. So we're in a series right now called Good Work, where we're talking about our work lives, talking about why God made labor to be an act of love. And the last three weeks, we've spoken about God's perspective of our work and what our motive should be in our work. And one of the things that I've been really clear about from the start of this series

is my hope that this time, in this subject, would ready us for our annual end -of -year offering, our house offering, as we come together to bring an offering to the Lord. And over the last several weeks, we've heard these stories as we've watched on video. How incredibly inspiring have those stories been? And we have more to come to share with you as well. And ultimately, the aim of us bringing this kind of offering, I guess you could just

say, is to help ensure that there are many, many, many more stories like that in our future to come, that we would continue to be a church that for people to come in whose lives are changed, and that we would follow the Lamb as He leads us into further effectiveness and growth in ministry. And so Paul's going to help us out with that today in 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9. We'll kind of jump around in those two chapters, because these two chapters in your Bible, they're about the subject of giving. And what's going on in these chapters is Paul wants the Corinthians. The Corinthians

were a group of believers in the ancient Roman city of Corinth. And they were going to be a group of Corinthians. He wants them to give in this offering that Paul is collecting to take to the church in Jerusalem, the Jewish Christians that were there in Jerusalem. And they were going through a financially difficult time because they were being ostracized as a result of their faith in Christ. And so this offering is something that the Corinthian believers were previously passionate

about. They were excited to participate in this, but then they kind of had lost sight of it. And some things were going on in their church that were pretty dysfunctional that got them off track from following through with what they said. And so they were going to give in this offering that they said they were going to do. And so Paul writes these two chapters exhorting them to finish what they started. And exhorting

really is the right word. If you go read 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 all the way through, you'll see that to say that Paul is encouraging them to give is too soft of a word to really describe what Paul writes. But at the same time, Paul's also not commanding them. In fact, he expressly says that he's not commanding them. And the reason for that is because Paul wants the Corinthians to give not on the basis of a command.

Paul wants the Corinthians to give on the basis of desire. Okay, so guys, it's a little bit like when you get into an argument with your wife about pitching in more around the house. And you're like, do you want me to do the dishes more? Is that what you want? And she's like, I want you to want to do the dishes more, right? Like, that's what Paul is saying to the Corinthians. Like, I want you to want to give. I want you to actually desire this. And so really because of that, Paul pulls out all of the stops in trying to fan that desire into full

-fledged flame. And he's like, I want you to in them. And basically, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 is the offering message to end all offering messages. It really is. It's fire. If you're offended by churches talking about giving, then please do go read 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 because you will be offended pretty well at every verse. I mean, there's literally a moment where Paul says to them, hey, if you don't have your offering ready

by the time I come to you bringing some of these believers from the area of Macedonia with me, you're going to be really embarrassed because they've been killing it in the area of giving. And it's going to make you look really bad if you're not ready. I mean, that's a modern day paraphrase, but that's basically what Paul says to them. So he's really going for it. But here's what makes Paul's appeal for the Corinthians to give so unique is that he doesn't ground his

exhortation to give in this being their Christian duty or their responsibility as though giving were ultimately about them. Furthermore, although he mentions the needs of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem a couple of times, he doesn't ground his exhortation to give in this being their He doesn't ultimately ground his exhortation to give in their need as though giving were ultimately about them. Rather, Paul grounds his exhortation to give as being a right response to the grace of God because ultimately our giving is about him. And so though these two chapters are about giving, really the main character of 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 is

the grace of God. And that's why in the first seven verses, which we'll endeavor by the grace of God to get through, we're going to today. That's why in those first seven verses, Paul mentions God's grace four times because grace is what's on Paul's mind. And grace is what he wants to be on our minds because he knows that if grace is on our hearts and minds, then that's ultimately what's going to prepare us to give because any adequate understanding of God's grace will lead us to give in every sense. That's how grace works. And that's the title of the message today, grace works. Grace is meant to work in

such a way that begets radical generosity. In the lives of its recipients. And of course, my hope is to get grace on your mind because that's what's ultimately going to ready us and prepare us to bring a generous offering to the Lord as we come together to do that on November 10th here in LA and the 17th in Nashville. Grace prepares us to give. That was true for the Corinthians and it's true also for cathedral. So we can learn a lot from this text because ultimately our giving isn't about fulfilling our Christian duty.

Our giving isn't about meeting our annual budget. We plan for those kinds of things on the basis of just our regular giving. House offering is about going over and above in response to the goodness of God. And our aim in that is just to be prepared, honestly, for whatever doors God wants to open for us, whether that's facilities or planting future locations. We want to be ready to just go, yep, God, we can do it because we prepared in advance for the doors that we believed in faith that you were going to open. So we give an offering not because we have to or even ultimately because we need to. We give because the grace

of God calls us to give. In fact, it's even deeper than that. If you guys can pop this first slide up. See, grace doesn't make us give. Grace makes us givers. It changes who we are. That's how grace works in our lives. And responding to that is part of living a life of good work, to see the fruit of our labor as connected to our labor itself. Make sense? So let's dive into this text in 2 Corinthians 8, beginning in verse 1. The apostle Paul says this, and now, brothers

and sisters, we want you to know about the, say this word with me, about the, yeah, the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. The churches in Macedonia include the Philippians, the Thessalonians, you have letters to them in your New Testament, and the church in Berea as well. In fact, we spent some time with the Thessalonians a couple of weeks ago when we looked at what Paul had to say about the church in Berea. The motive for our work being grounded in love and generosity in first Thessalonians. And it turns out that that group of Christians had taken what Paul said to heart, because they are the shining stars

in this letter to the church in Corinth. And Paul says that there's a work of grace that's happening amongst those Macedonian churches. Now, grace is one of those words that can be a little bit hard to pin down in terms of what we mean by it. It's kind of like a catch -all Christian word for just like God's goodness, right? The Greek word for grace is charis, and it literally means gift, gift. And so whenever we speak of God's grace, really fundamentally what we're talking about is God's gifts to us. And of

course, the supreme gift, the greatest gift that God has given to us is the gift that we've been singing about all morning, the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, and the salvation that comes through His life, through His death, and through His resurrection. So that's God's greatest gift to us. There are other grace gifts, other charises that the Bible speaks about that are like a derivative of the gift of Jesus. And these gifts are also the presence of God's grace in our lives. And what these gifts have to do with is empowering us for the life that God calls us to live. And so a great example

of this would be what the Bible calls spiritual gifts. You can read all about those in multiple places, really, in the New Testament. 1 Corinthians chapters 12 to 14 are a great place to read about spiritual gifts. And that's that same Greek word, the word charis, and we're talking about gifts like teaching, or gifts of healing, or the working of miracles, or leadership, things like that, that God gives to us as gifts to empower us in living the life that God has called us to live, okay? Grace doesn't come for you just the forgiveness of your sins and then leave you to do the rest according to your own

devices. No, God's grace continues to come to you to carry you all the way through every step of the way of God's life, God's plan for you. You remember, we spent time in the book of Ephesians, we spent time in the book of Ephesians, we spent time in the book of Ephesians a few weeks ago, and the whole message of Ephesians is that God has restored you and I back into our ultimate purpose. You and I have been redeemed back into our original mission of what? Of overcoming evil and filling the world with the goodness and the glory of God, and it's His grace that empowers us in that endeavor. And there was something happening in Macedonia, a gift of God's grace, that was so extraordinary that Paul considered

it necessary to write to the Corinthians about it. In fact, that phrase, the grace that God has given them, that Paul says, is actually in the the ongoing sense. Paul's not talking about a past event, he's talking about something that was like still currently happening in Macedonia, even at the time of him writing this letter. If Macedonia and Corinth were neighbors, Paul wouldn't have written the Corinthians a letter. He would have ran down to their house and said, you guys have to come and see what God is doing in Macedonia. There's an amazing work of God's grace that's taking place there. You remember a few years ago, there was that move of God that happened in that small little seminary called Asbury in

that tiny little town in Kentucky? Maybe you didn't know about that, but there was like three weeks of 24 -7, seven days a week, prayer and worship and repentance, and thousands of people from around the world flocked to this tiny town in Kentucky that they'd never heard of before this, just to see the grace of God that was being poured out in this place. That's kind of like what was happening in Macedonia. Paul's like, this is really noteworthy, and I want you guys to know about it. Now, I really love that, and it speaks to the way that you and I can expect God's grace to work in our own lives, that

as long as we still have breath in our lungs, God has grace for our journey, that God just doesn't have a plan for your good works. God's got power for your good works as well, and we need to be reminded of that because sometimes we can feel weak and weary, and like we can't carry on in the plan of God, and we want to give up and go our own way, and it's precisely in those moments of weakness where the power of God and the love of God, the combination of which, by the way, is the comes flooding into your life to help you carry on in God's great plan for your existence. And so we need to live with expectation that God has got freshly baked bread called grace for you to eat and consume and

receive energy from to keep going. And he absolutely does. God's not out of grace for you and I, not for you as a person, not for us as a community called cathedral. And that's what the Macedonians were experiencing, was the fresh grace of God. Empowering them in their mission in a deeper way. So the question is, what did that look like? Well, Paul goes on in verse 2, and he says, well, it looked a little bit like

this. In the midst of a very severe trial, overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. That has to be the most unexpected verse in the whole Bible. Like, it just gets progressively more surprising. As it goes, right? That a severe trial equaled overflowing joy and extreme poverty equaled a welling up of rich generosity. It's brilliant. And it's supernatural. That's the point. That's the only way that equation makes sense. For affliction plus poverty to equal generosity, the only X factor there is grace. That's the only way that that can actually

happen in our lives. And so Paul is saying that the grace of God is being manifested among, among Macedonians, and that is equaling their, their act of giving. Now, I don't want you to get the wrong idea at this point about God's grace. Grace doesn't simply come upon us for the sake of temporarily improving or modifying our behavior, just so we can go back to the way we were before. No, grace comes upon us to permanently transform who we are as people, right? The gift of Jesus doesn't equal slightly improved behavior. The gift of Jesus equals a new heart. It changes your motives entirely, which is a really big deal. And it's something that our world can't quite seem to grapple with. Richard Dawkins and the new atheists try to explain human

behavior, including good behavior as ultimately being motivated by our selfish genes and their pursuit of survival. The postmodern critical theorists want to explain good human behavior as a maintenance of power. So it's no wonder the world is caught up in selfishness and cynicism and stupidity. And the answer to that is to you and I understand that the, the grace of God comes into our lives to transform not just our outside, but our inside and to renew us in the sense of why we do what we do. Grace doesn't just make us give. Grace makes us givers. It's not behavior modification. It's identity transformation. The ultimate

aim of God's grace in your life is not to make you do good things. The ultimate aim of God's grace in your life is to make you like Jesus. And Jesus is a giver. So when the grace of Jesus comes into your life, you become a giver. And as we start to live out that identity, God continues to give us more grace to empower us in this mission. That's what's happening in Macedonia. They'd been transformed. Their previous culture as Romans had taught them that giving was always to be heavily calculated and always reciprocated. But now here they are in the midst of severe poverty, freely giving to people who cannot pay them back. Like you'd have to be fundamentally transformed into a giver in order to be a giver. To give in those kinds of circumstances. And so

this is the first thing for us to note today about how grace works is grace is transformative. Grace of God comes into your life to transform. It has an effect on us. Maybe you used to be stingy. Maybe you used to be really tight -fisted. Maybe you used to live in fear of not having enough. When the grace of God comes into your life, you become a generous person because that's part of what it means to be a giver. It means to be a spiritual person. One commentator said that if a church is not spiritual, they are not generous. Our generosity or our lack of generosity is symptomatic

of a weak spirituality. And one of the things that I just love about Cathedral is that we are a spiritual people. In fact, you can ask our staff, that's actually language that I use to describe what God is doing here because I don't have another word for it. This is a spiritual community where God is doing it. And I think that's what we need to do. And I think that's what we need to do. I think that's what we need to do. And I think that's what we need to do. And I think that's what we need to do. I think that's what we need to do. And I think that's what we need to do. And I think that's what we need to do. It's the only explanation I have for what's happening in our midst and in our lives. Every Monday morning we come together. We stand right

down here at this altar and we recount stories of the previous day that took place in

our locations of God's grace at work in people's lives. Stories of beauty and transformation and blessing and breakthrough. Really stories of success. And you know, the thing about success is success comes with pressure. And as we recount those stories of success, I feel the anxiety. I feel the pressure begin to come upon me because you have that feeling that you need to somehow in your own strength make something even more significant happen. And so what I've come into the habit of doing is after we share those stories, I begin to pray. And the first thing I pray is I pray, God, remind us that these are spiritual works and that this is all your hand at work in our community. That's where this amazing fruit is coming from is the work of your Holy Spirit. Well, friends and family, our generosity is exactly the same. It's a work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. When the grace of God gets a grip of us and he inhabits us, makes us his home for the Holy Spirit, that overflows in the spiritual work of being a generous people. And so the key for us is not to resist the grace of God. Now, sometimes the grace of God can't be resisted. Sometimes you're Paul and you're on the road to Damascus and you're intent on persecuting Christians and Jesus literally appears to you, knocks you on your butt and says, you're with me now. But sometimes the grace of God can be resisted. Apologies to all of my wonderful Calvinist friends. That was a theological joke. I'm sorry you didn't get that. I won't make any more of those, I promise. Sometimes you feel the grace of God to give a prophetic encouragement to somebody, but you chicken out and so you opt out. Sometimes the grace of God is leading you to be generous, but you're feeling the grace of God to give a prophetic encouragement to somebody, but you are fearful and so you decline. And those are moments when we resist the transformative work of grace in our lives. Choosing to live out of our old identity as fearful slaves rather than living out of our new identity as blessed children. And sometimes we feel justified in that, don't we? If anybody had an excuse to feel justified in that, it would have been the Macedonians. They're in severe poverty. Like they could have excused themselves, resisted the grace of God to give because they really were suffering. Of course, the biggest justification that Christians feel in terms of not giving is the belief that our money belongs to us. But it really doesn't. Remember what we've been saying throughout this series is that our work is worship. That it's something we do unto the glory of God. But don't separate the fruit from the labor. Don't do your labor unto God's glory, but then make the fruit all about you. Don't go eating all your seed and forgetting that God gives you the seed to be a blessing. One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the story of the man who was a man of God. He was a man of God. He was a man of God. He was a man of God. It's a story of Israel being set free from Egypt in the Exodus story, right? And in that Exodus from Egyptian slavery, it says that God basically coerced the Egyptians to give the Israelites all of their gold. And so Israel, they don't only come out free, they come out rich. It's a crazy story. Like it's pretty amazing. And then, you know, they go through the Red Sea and they're in the wilderness. And then Moses is told by God to build this tabernacle. And I don't know if you've read the description of the building of the tabernacle, but it was fancy stuff, friends and family. Like it was really luxury. And there's just like, overlay everything in gold, and there's all this wealth and riches that goes into it. Now, these guys were slaves just a few days prior. Now they've got to build this really fancy house for God. Where did they get the gold for that?

See, you thought you were getting out of slavery that God was going to bless you just so you could be all about you. But God says, no, I gave you that so that you could build me a house for my glory.

And so don't go disconnecting the fruit from your labor. He provides so that you can continue to advance his kingdom. Anybody can sow and reap for the sake of themselves. To do that is to short -circuit the process. It's not just supposed to be sowing and reaping. It's sowing and reaping and sharing. It's working and earning and giving. And somehow in that, God multiplies the seed that we have. Look at the next couple of verses, verses three and four, the apostle Paul says, for I testify that they, that's the Macedonians. He's still talking to the Corinthians. He's talking about the Macedonians. He says like, this is some holy gossip that's happening right here in this letter. I testify that they, the Macedonians, they gave as much as they could. They gave beyond what they were able and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in the service to the Lord's people. So the picture just keeps getting more wild. Not only did they give what they were able, they gave beyond what they were able. It's a little bit like that story of the widow in the gospel of Mark who comes into the temple and she drops her two coins into the treasury and Jesus gets the attention of the disciples and says, hey, she gave more than everybody else who brought in their large sums because she gave more than everybody else. She gave all that she had to live on. That's kind of like what was happening amongst the Macedonian Christians. And we might scratch our heads at that and go, wow, that's a really unusual thing to do. The key to understanding these couple of verses right here is that word that we highlighted a moment ago, that word privilege. The Macedonians pleaded with Paul for the opportunity to give because they counted it a privilege. Maybe your translation says favor. It was like Paul was doing them a favor by letting them give. In the Greek, the word is charis, grace. gift. It's like, Paul, you're doing us a favor. You're giving us a gift to let us give. How transformed by the grace of God do you have to be to see giving as a gift in itself? Of course, that's exactly what Jesus said when he said that we are more blessed to give than we are to receive. I started thinking a little bit about what it would have been like to be in Paul's shoes as he's receiving this offering from the Macedonians. I mean, it really would feel quite awkward to accept such a generous gift from people who are struggling so deeply. Our translation called it extreme poverty. It is literally bottom of the ocean poor, utterly poor, dirt poor. And some people might perhaps consider it a bit scandalous to receive an offering, such a generous, costly offering from people who are in such a condition. I mean, imagine for a moment, if we were going through a hard time as a church and an underground church in Afghanistan or China reached out to us and said, hey, we took up an offering to give you. We'd feel a little bit awkward receiving that. Some of you would question my integrity if I received it. Like, Pastor Jake, are you really gonna take that money from them? But Paul does it. Apparently it took some pleading, but he did it. Why is that?

And how can Paul feel good about that?

I think it probably has something to do with the fact that Paul really believed and had personally experienced what he goes on to teach about giving in 2 Corinthians chapter 9. Let's look at verse 6. Remember this. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Paul's talking about giving. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion. In other words, don't give begrudgingly. Why? Because God, He loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, literally make all grace abound to you. The word charis is there as well. So that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. He makes it all the more plain in verse 11. Goes on to say this. In Jesus' name. There it is. You will be, this is crazy, you will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion. And through us, your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. So Paul really did believe that God was the Macedonians' provider and that one way or another, God would fulfill these promises in response to their giving. And evidently, the Macedonians, they believed that too. Now note something really important here that what Paul is not talking about is some generic message or teaching of karma or putting good things out into the universe in order to get good things back. Those are impersonal forces that don't know your name, they don't love you, they don't care about you. What Paul is talking about here is the intimate involvement of a loving God whose name is Father who cares about the well -being of His children. And so when we give, we're signaling that we understand who God is. We're signaling that we understand that God is ultimately our provider. He's the source of our abundance. We might be the delivery system, but God is the supply. Some of us, we have an unhealthy fear around finances and how we think about the fruit of our labor because we have a misplaced dependence. We call upon the name of Jesus. We call upon the name of Yahweh on Sunday, but Monday to Saturday, our dependence really isn't on God. Our dependence is on other things. We depend upon the invisible hand of the market or upon interest rates or supply and demand or virality. And so we're not really a generous people because we're not actually dependent upon God. We're dependent upon the unpredictable systems of the world. If we really were dependent upon the Lord to provide for us, then we would be a generous people. But when we, misplace our dependence, we forget who we are. Moses says in Deuteronomy 8, remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth. And so confirms His covenant, which He swore to your ancestors as it is today. That is to say, when it comes to your money, do things God's way. Even if that means setting aside the practical concerns of the world and trusting in the Lord, even in the midst of something crazy like giving an offering. You see, ultimately, you should be a giver because God is a giver. And His ability to give supersedes the systems of the world. I don't care what's happening in the world's systems. My God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. I will be a giver no matter what's going on in the economy because God is the one who supplies my needs, who enriches us in every way so that we can abound in good works. Paul really believed that. And so in his mind, I suppose it would have been unfair to keep the message. To keep the message from the Macedonians from giving.

For in giving the way that they did, they would have been sowing generously. And so God would see that they'd have all they needed to abound in every good work. He would enrich them in every way so that they could continue to be generous on every occasion. God's words, not mine.

In fact, when you think about the overflowing joy that the Macedonians had as they give, it's very clear that they are exactly who Paul has in mind when he says God loves a cheerful giver.

He's thinking of people who respond to the grace of God, who plead for the opportunity to give and follow through with joy. Now, of course, the kind of understanding you'd have to have of grace in order to do such a thing is you'd have to understand that grace is abundant. That God never runs out of gifts.

That his grace abounds to you as you become a conduit of grace. And based upon the context of the verses that we're reading, I would say that that abounding grace results in both an internal prospering and an eternal life. And an external prospering. Internally, our character is further transformed to be made like Christ so that we become motivated by his glory and the good of other people. And externally, God supplies our material needs so that we can be givers to others. But what's happening in that is that we give and we receive and we give again and it's all the grace of God at every step. His grace at work to us and his grace at work through us. But if you don't know what grace is, if you don't understand that reality that God's grace is abundant, then you will stop short that process and just be someone who's a recipient of God's grace, not a giver of God's grace. And the fruitful work of your hand will go back to just being about your own personal success and your own personal fulfillment, not generosity and mission grounded in love.

And you will become detached from the mission of God. And I think that God was doing some deep heart work in the Macedonians and that's what was happening as they were bringing this offering. Look at verse five. It says that they exceeded our expectations. They gave themselves first of all to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. What Paul's talking about there in that verse is what was happening beneath the surface. They weren't just giving an offering. God was doing something in their heart. It was a personal renewal of commitment to God. They were literally rededicating themselves to the Lord and to the mission of the church. And that's why they gave. And that actually happens quite often. I've been in the Bible. It turns out that revival and generosity do often go hand in hand. I think Jesus had something to say about that, about the connection between our hearts and our money. They do tend to go together. Generosity signifies that something has happened in our hearts. And so the question for us today we approach this house offering is what's happening in your heart?

Are you warm?

Is there love for God, for his church, for the lost? I've been feeling the last couple of weeks that this is a time for us as a cathedral to embrace deeper consecration and devotion to the Lord. And one of the ways that we express that is in our generous giving. Now, of course, when you read this account of the Macedonians, one of the questions you should ask yourself as a good Bible student is, Paul, why are you telling this to the Corinthians?

And the answer to that question is actually quite simple, albeit still a bit surprising. It's because Paul thinks that the same grace the Macedonians are experiencing is available to the Corinthians. That if they'll do like what the Macedonians did, if they'll rededicate themselves to the Lord, especially because there was a lot of turmoil happening in their church, if they'll get their hearts right and re -consecrate themselves to God, then in response to that consecration, in response to that rededication, the fresh grace that God is pouring out upon the Macedonians, God will also pour out upon the Corinthians. And that's why he says, here's my point, verse six. Here's why I'm telling you this, Corinthians. Just as you earlier had made a beginning, just as you started in this offering, I'm sending Titus to you to see that you complete this act of grace on your...

Corinthians, finish what you started. And I would say the same to us as Cathedral. Let's finish what we started. We're almost 10 years in to building this amazing community called Cathedral. And so I guess what we could take, take from what Paul's saying to the Corinthians today is, how about we double down for another 10?

How about we finish the good work that God has begun in this church? How about we keep putting one foot in front of another? And the way that you do that is you use the grace that God has given you. You don't look to your right and your left and compare what you have with what somebody else has and go, God, well, I can't do anything. No, that you rededicate your heart to the Lord and you start trading with the grace that you have because as you become accustomed, conduit of grace, evidently God pours fresh grace out. As you sow, evidently you reap. As you share, evidently God supplies. And it just takes you and I stepping out in faith and going, God, you've been so good to us this last decade. You've been so good to me over the course of my life. Sure, there's been trials. Sure, there's been valley seasons. But God, I can see your hand of grace, your hand of faithfulness on my life. And so I wanna act upon the grace that I have, believing you, God, that you've got grace further. To give.

Ultimately, what Paul is saying to the Corinthians is something like this. And this is what I think we should take with us as we approach our house offering. If you guys could go to the last slide for me, I just wanna jump to that. Our generous giving is all a response to the grace that we have received. It's an expression of the grace that we give away. And it's a belief that there is infinitely more grace to come. That's the mentality that the church of Jesus Christ is called to. That's the mentality that the church is called to live with. That's how a cathedral is called to think and live in the cities that God has called us to as we continue to make a difference for the glory of Christ, the beauty of the bride, and the good of the city. If you received the word, give God praise.

Let's all stand.

Close your eyes with me.

And just internally, I just want you to just pray right now and thank the Lord for the necessary challenge of his word

for coming to speak to us about issues of faith, issues of life that can be difficult at times because we all carry baggage into this subject, prior experiences, reasons to fear.

And what God is calling you to do is not to trust in a process.

He's calling you to trust in his personhood, who he is, his faithfulness.