[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's word you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 830 or 10:30 a.m. If you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison church, find
[email protected] dot. Be sure to also check out our Bible study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: I heard this statement this week. It said, every good and perfect gift comes from above. But moms make a lot of deliveries, don't they? And that is so true. Every blessing that we get, it comes from God. But certainly our moms are a big part of that. I heard this also, that if you're having a bad day or things are going wrong, call your grandmother and everything will be just fine. Cause, you know, even if it's not okay, she'll make you think that she believes in you and trusted you and those kinds of things. But then I heard this about great grandmothers. Great grandmothers are the kind of people that make you feel as though their whole day's worth is about seeing you at their front door. And when you do show up, that's the end of their day and it's all that matters. I'm thankful for our moms today. Happy Mother's day to all of you out there and all that you do for us. I was thinking about this message, and my title is outpouring as we talk about this continuing, this overflow idea. And I was thinking about years and years ago, the voice of my sweet Meemaw. It was a little bit of a whiny voice, and she was kind of a tough lady. But when she wanted to be tender with us, she'd place us in her lap on a rocking chair, and she would sing to us different lullabies. And I can still hear her voice. Even this morning. I can hear her singing.
I'm a little teapot, short and stout. And I remember, like, how she would slur those things together and just how. How, you know, it was very calming. And I remember just sitting on her lap and enjoying this. Tip me over and pour me out. I just remember how she said that.
And it got me thinking about this message, about the idea that God's blessings pour out for us. And it's up to us to pour out to other people. And I want you to think about this, even from just a physical. Here's a good visual for what I'm talking about.
Many of you have taken your kids out to these little splash pads and different things. And what you see above is a water source, right? And there's a bucket that's already tilted a little bit. And when that bucket reaches a certain volume of water, what does it do? It dumps all of that out. And if you're not paying attention, it'll absolutely saturate everybody, right? And I think of that as a visual of what God does for us, right. He's pouring into our lives. He's pouring into everything that we are. And once that happens, what's supposed to happen by proxy is that we are supposed to flow out to other people. So maybe this is a better image because it's one water source, but it's in all of our buckets, and each of us have the ability to overflow and to pour out to be a blessing to other people. So I think about this, and when I think about what God has done for us, it's pretty.
And while I may struggle to find the really smooth way to put this or a real beautiful language that would help you understand this, I think the psalmist did a really good job in psalm 65, obviously led by the Holy Spirit when writing these things. But think about the beautiful imagery that's given in this text about God's provisions for us. You take care of the earth and water it, making it rich and fertile. The river of God has plenty of water. It provides a bountiful harvest of grain, for you have ordered it. So you drenched the plowed ground with rain, melting the clods and leveling the ridges. You soften the earth with showers. Bless its abundant crops. You crown the year with a bountiful harvest. Even the hard pathways overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the wilderness become a lush pasture and the hillsides blossom with joy. The meadows are clothed with flocks of sheep, and the valleys are carpeted with grain. They all shout and sing for joy. And as Robin mentioned that this morning, the song about us recognizing that the rocks and the rills will lift up and they can sing their praises to God. Certainly, as we imagine this all happening, the God above all of us, who is providing for us, not just in the physical sense, but in the spiritual sense as well. The imagery here of the water coming down, maybe this is after a famine. There are a lot of people who, and especially commentaries who say that this, this was in a response to the relief that happens after a famine. And in this situation, water comes down, it softens the ground, it allows growth to take place. And from that growth, when we have grazing animals who come, and through all of these things, God is just providing for us at every single level. But then I think about from a spiritual perspective, as we consider not just the physical blessings, but what God has done for us through Christ. Titus three says this. When God our savior, revealed his kindness and love, he saved us not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth, a new life through the Holy Spirit. He generously poured out the spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our savior. What a beautiful thing that is for us to imagine that we can find ourselves, as it says, confidence that we will inherit eternal life, the strength that we get from the reality that Jesus died for us. And upon our acceptance of that, God has clothed us with Christ. And as he has done so, he's put that seal of the Holy Spirit that we can have confidence that we will inherit eternal life. That is a beautiful thing. And it's not because of anything we did, but because of everything that he did. He has poured his blessings out on us. But let's not get too caught up in what we receive from this to not recognize that we have an obligation and a responsibility. Further, if you just look a few verses later, it says, this is a faithful saying, these things. I want you to constantly affirm that those who have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable for everyone. Verse 14, just moving a few verses down, let those people who learn to devote themselves to good works so as to help cases of urgent need and not be unfruitful. I hope you're gathering what we're talking about here, and I hope that you're falling in love with the excitement of what God is calling all of us to do. And that is simply this, that he expects the blessings that he pours out on us to be extended to other people.
And that's a calling that you and I not have to do. It's an opportunity that we have, the joy of enlisting our hearts and our minds in these kinds of things. And it says that God did all this so we too would be fruitful and productive in this world. So why do we come together? I think about the assembly in Hebrews, chapter ten, verse 24 and 25. It talks about not forsaking the assembling. Right. There's importance in us coming together and receiving what we need to receive and worshiping God together as saints. But there's also the blessing of, there's a stimulation that takes place. It lights us up. It reminds us that there's good works to be done, that we need to love other people, love each other, and that that is what part of the assembly is about, is to encourage each other and to do those kinds of things. But God pours out his blessing on us so that we may overflow to others as a testimony of his goodness. I was just talking to Siegfried Bill out in the foyer between services, and he didn't know I was going to say this, but he said, I wish people could see what's happening as a result of the gospel.
You got the honor dorm out there at limestone, and then you've got the other population. And the honor dorm is where they're invited to learn more about God. They're studied together. They're challenged, they grow. They hold each other accountable. They give them blessings upon blessings that the others, they're kind of restricting them and taking everything away from them because of the danger that's involved. He said, I just wish you could see the motivation that it is of what Jesus has done for them and how it shapes their minds and how it pushes them to make better decisions. And we see this happening. The fruits of that work is beginning to bud inside of their hearts, and it's just a different environment out there. What a blessing for us to recognize that God's blessing has been a way for us to turn that into encouragement for other people.
I want to take you to two corinthians chapter eight and nine. And again, I want you to be aware. I want you to listen up for the opportunities of encouragement and joy in serving God, to give you a little bit of context. In one Corinthians chapter 16, you're going to see a passage where Paul is telling the people at Corinth that you need to lay by in store. You need to put some money aside when you come together to meet, and that collection is going to be used to help be a benefit to other people. At this current time, the church in Jerusalem, where all of it started, was under incredible persecution, I mean, really difficult persecution. And so Paul, in his missionary journeys, is going around telling people about this, and the Corinthians were encouraged to give back so they could take that money back and be a blessing to the people who were really going through a tough time. And so as he tells them. This. He rolls over into the second letter that he writes to them, and he comes back to that. And before he begins talking to the Corinthians, he shares with them the example of the Macedonians. And Jason did a good job of kind of summing that up, but the Macedonians were really good at giving. And so it says here, as he's talking to the Corinthians, he says, now, I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, what God in his kindness has done through the churches in Macedonia.
They're being tested by many afflictions. They're in deep poverty, but they also are filled with abundant joy, which has overflowed in rich generosity.
It seems like a lot of times the people who are struggling the most are the ones who want to help someone else who's struggling. And in this case, it talks about their affliction and their burdens and their deep poverty that they don't have much. But even in the midst of all that, they found joy in the ability to be invited into something pretty amazing.
So notice that there was an abundance of joy between those descriptions of affliction and deep poverty. I think we often think, hey, if things are not going well for me, if I don't have much, if I don't, if money's not flowing in or different things, we may think to ourselves, well, this is a really, really tough time, and we may sit and sulk about these things, but it's in this moment when they have the promise of the gospel and how it changes people's lives and how it blesses people, that they themselves found an eagerness to be able to jump in and to participate in that. I want to share with you just a quick illustration of how that affects us here at Madison.
This is the. What used to be the slaughter road church of Christ on the corner of Eastview and Slaughter Road. This was built in 1965, and it could not have been built had it not been. Had property not been donated. To build this building, the church in Madison was growing. There was need for another congregation, and so a man by the name of Charles Rodman donated property so this building, this structure could be built. Now, if you knew anything about Charles Rodman, you would know he was a very meek, very gentle person. And while he may have had property, he was not a man that you would look at and think he had any kind of wealth. He wore, you know, older clothes.
He was very meek and gentle. In fact, he always had this posture about him. His hands were always behind his back, head down. When you walk up and talk to him. He would go, hey, brother Brandon, how are you? And then he'd look back down. He was a very, very gentle person.
But even in that, I don't want to say poverty, I don't think his home had air conditioning. I know that he warmed his house by a stove and wood.
So I know he didn't have all the things that you and I may have thought, but he was willing to contribute that so this church building could be built.
Well, imagine, 20 years later, the church has grown there. You know that you gave the land, they built the structure. The church is growing.
And so now them and the Madison church, Christ, come together, and they decide they're going to build a new facility, and it's going to be on Hughes Road, right here in 556, where we're located right now. And so they come together for this big groundbreaking, and they're excited about that. Now, imagine you're the guy who donated property, and what you're hearing is, we're going to vacate that place to do something different. And the investment that you've poured out, the sacrifice that you gave to make sure that that was happening.
And yet, when that groundbreaking came, and I'm hoping that I can zero in on him.
There he is, Charles Rodman, right here on our property. Same posture. You see exactly what I'm talking about. The kindest, gentlest, just most humble person with not much to share, and having all that property that was now once his, now given over to the church for it to be vacated for us to join. What I want you to see is his joy and his excitement and his support of what took place here. When I came here in 2000, he would sit back in the back. He'd walk up and speak to me and hug me and tell me he loved me. He was a guy of very, very few words, but he would talk to us, and he was still a kind of guy who would give. I love the fact that he didn't harbor anything, that he didn't look at the nostalgia of the past, that he was pressing forward and looking to what could be done in the future. So imagine, as he sees this building built, that what he started out with, a seed over here on slaughter Road, became something bigger and stronger and had a bigger influence and was growing and multiplying and those kinds of things, because he was not willing to hold on to those kinds of things, but to move forward and to press onward. Well, I'm reminded of that when I read this passage in two corinthians eight. It says, these people didn't do what they could afford. They did more than that, and they did it on their own free will. And not only that, but they begged again and again for the privilege of sharing in that offering. Are you with me? The Macedonians were the kind of people that said, oh, it's tough. Yeah. But, hey, this is an opportunity for us to invest in the kingdom, right? This is a chance for us to realize that the more we give, the more we are blessed as a result of that. And so they were eager and excited to be able to do that, so much so that they stayed on it. What else can we do? And I've heard that in this audience before, this group of people saying, hey, there's something that took place. Do you all remember Jack Owens passed away recently? He would come forward sometimes, and it would always be after some kind of natural disaster. And he wanted to know. He would come forward and say, I want to know what the church is going to do to bless those people in their hardship. He would come forward and ask that question because he wanted to be a part of that process, eager to give, eager to support. And so they did this. This first action was to give themselves. It wasn't just about their money. It was about them fully committing. It wasn't about a donation. It was about their. Their presence and their purpose in the ministry.
So look at that model that they've given us. Wow. Joyful, genuine. Even in poverty, they gave the best gift. It was sacrificial. They gave freely. And what that means is without conflict. Meaning they didn't give it going, ugh, I hope that works out okay. No, they gave it with, like, without any kind of hesitation or stepping back and going, hey, maybe we should or we shouldn't do this. No, they gave it free. They gave sincerely, and they gave of themselves even more so than the money.
So as we continue on in two corinthians eight, what I want you to do is now Paul is shifting his attention over to the church at Corinth, and he's saying, hey, I've seen that you guys are growing. I mean, your faith is growing, your ability to share the message. You're speaking out on the Lord's behalf. You're growing in all kinds of things, in your love for one another and your love for the people around you. You're doing these things. But this macedonian church has showed us an example of what it means to fully commit ourselves and to be actively giving as a part of that. And so he says, while I see your knowledge growing, I see all these things, your enthusiasm, your love and all those things. I still want you to be aware that there's something else that we can do to be of help to other people. And I want you to also grow in this act. So he tells them, there's evidence of your spiritual growth, but I want to see that in even greater way.
But he says, I'm not commanding you to do this, but I'm testing how genuine your love is in comparison to what other people are doing. In other words, I just want you to see the example of the Macedonians, and I want you to understand how to follow that.
And he says, you know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor so that by his poverty he could make you rich. What he's saying is, take this to the next level. Recognize what God has done for you, and that Jesus left all the comforts and the joys of heaven. He came down, he put on flesh, he became a man, lived among us. We crucified him. And as a result of that, in that poverty, in that stricken state, he gave his life for you so that blessing could be enjoyed and so you would find the wealth of that spiritual value of salvation.
So he says, here's my advice.
I want you to finish what you started. And he goes on to say, let eagerness be showed in the beginning. Be matched by your giving. Give in proportion to what you have. In other words, going back to first Corinthians 16, they had started to talk about giving, but they had not necessarily completed what he had asked them to do. So he was saying, hey, I've seen your growth. I've seen your, your enthusiasm for starting. But let's get to this point where now we are finishing this and recognizing what has to be done next. And so he says, give in proportion to what you have.
So he says, whatever you give is acceptable if you give it eagerly. One of the things that I love about what we're doing in this overflow campaign, as we consider how we can expand our facilities to meet the needs of our growing community and reach out in ways that maybe we haven't before, one of the things that was said was, well, what if we could just get all that money at one time? Maybe some people who were just really benevolent and they want to just give that money, and let's say four people gave the total amount of that.
And one of our elders says, well, then we would not have met our goal, because our goal is not just to have a building or just to have that money. The goal is for every one of us to invest ourselves in the mission of the church here. And so he says this, you know, whatever you give is acceptable, but do so with eagerness. And so I'm saying to all of us, you know, God is inviting us into something special here. He was inviting them in those days, but now, even much more so, even today, he says, right now you have plenty, can help those who are in need, and later they will have plenty and can share with you when you need it. In this way, things will be equal. I love how he reminds us that there are going to be times where you're going to have more, that you're going to have that overflow. And he says, in that situation, make sure that that's something that you provide for others, because there could come a time where you might need those things, and then that blessing would be returned back to you. So look at the case. He's built for generosity through the Macedonians, and he's talking to the Corinthians here. He's talking about all of these things and about how we're. The motivation is not so much about the amount, but the motivation is that we all enlist ourselves in this mission together.
So a lot of times we'll take these things and we'll apply them to modern, you know, we'll say this is kind of the same thing as tithing. And while there are some similarities in that we present these things to God for his use and his purposes, I want us to be clear, and I've simplified this quite a bit. But if you look at these passages in Leviticus, numbers and deuteronomy, giving of the tithe meant payment of a 10th.
And it was everything, okay? Whether it was the things that you produced or whether it was your. Your herds or your flocks or whatever, everything that you had. That's why when you see in the New Testament, sometimes Jesus got onto the Pharisees because they were so legalistic about this. It's like you're tithing the dill and the mint and the cummin, which is what they were told to do. But you have neglected weightier matters of the law. Okay, you're doing these things legalistically, but you're missing out on the whole point behind all of this. So tithes were dedicated. They were brought in. That 10th was given to God. But part of that was meant to be for the Levites, so they could one take care of themselves. You remember going into the promised land, they were not given any property. So what was gathered as a tithe was meant to help take care of the Levites and their families, but then also take care of what took place within the tabernacle and worship. And so those things were brought into the storehouses to provide.
So I look at this situation, and I want to remind myself that the tithing became sort of not a burden, but it became something that was sort of difficult to always do. And so over time, people not understanding their submission to God, but more about the do this or be punished type thing, that kind of mentality crept in. And so what happens is they didn't always bring in the tithe. So that's why you get to this passage in Malachi where they're not bringing in. And so he says to them, bring the entire tithe into the storehouses. And why is that? Well, he goes on to tell them to see if I will not open up for you the windows of heaven and pour out blessing for you until there is no room for it at all. What he's saying is, I need your trust, like you're doing it in the sense of duty. But what I need you is to actually recognize the one who provides those things. And so the tithe was like evidence, right? It was a ten. If I could take everything that I'm giving to God, multiply that by ten, that's all that I've got. That was a very visual representation of it, right? So tithes were required to teach them to see God's outpouring.
But now in the New Testament, our willingness and the things that we choose to give of our own volition and our own desire and our own eagerness, those things today acknowledge our trust in his overflow.
Right? And so that's what we're being encouraged to do, is to recognize that we can have confidence that God is going to continue to take care of us. As we talked last week, I remember my dad not necessarily quoting this passage, but living this principle out. I've shared this story before, and I won't get into all the details, but our family was struggling with money. We didn't have it except for we had a check that was written out to the church for our Sunday contribution. My dad said, we're not spending any more money. We're giving that to church on Sunday. And I'm thinking, well, why can't we just hold onto that money, use it for what we wanted to use it for, and then we'll pick up later and do that. And my dad said, well, that violates a principle of firstfruits. And this is the passage he was talking about. Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything that you produce. The idea is the first fruits, meaning the very best of the best. Like, we don't go to the market and go through the produce and grab an apple and go, man, I hope this has got bruises and nasty all over. And I'm gonna throw that into my bag. No. What do we do? We look at it and see if it's good. And if it's good, we put it in our bag. If we don't, we leave it there. Well, God's saying, don't give me the leftovers. Don't give me the things that you don't want. Like, give me the very best that you've got. And in doing so, look what it says he'll do. He'll fill your barns with grain and your vats with overflow with fresh wine. What's he saying? Is, I need your trust. So the question for all of us is, are we giving God what is right, or are we giving him what is left over? My dad was trying to teach us a principle, that God comes first, that the things that we have are ours, because God has blessed us with them, and they're not actually ours anyway. So return it back as he has asked for those things.
So he continues on in chapter nine, a farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop, but the one who plants generously will get a generous crop. He says, you must decide in your heart. And I love this because God gives us the ability to make this choice. Right.
Decide in your heart how much to give, and don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure. Capture this, for God loves a cheerful giver. What I want us to see is often we think of giving over our money as something that's gonna hurt a little bit, right? That it's gonna be painful for us to do that. But what he's inviting you into here is the idea of the cheerfulness, the joy in which you get in being a part of something very special, the thing that can change the lives of other people, the thing that can change the whole world, not just in your home, but in your schools, in your workplace, and in your community environment. Just imagine if all of us were focused on this completely and gave what we could to be a blessing to other people, and we began to perpetuate those things in even greater ways than we have right now. See, God is inviting us into the harvest.
He's encouraging us to give things over to plant the seed and let him continue to grow it.
I saw this quote I thought was pretty good and appropriate for this. Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant. I don't know how many Bible studies I've had over the years, and I don't know how many of them have ended up with someone leaving my office saying, I'm gonna think about it a little bit more, only for me to never hear back from them again.
I don't know how many of those times it's happened. I try not to keep a record of that, because if I felt like that was a defeat, I would. I would be beating myself up, right? But all I can do is continue to study, continue to offer, continue to sit down with people, continue to encourage, continue to call and check up on people. That's all I can do. I don't have to worry about what happens as a result of that. God will make that happen, but I do have an obligation to do the things that I can control.
Two corinthians nine, eight, nine. Listen to what is promised to those of us who give, and God will generously provide all that you need, and then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. And he quotes a passage from psalm 112 that says, their good deeds will be remembered forever. And I don't know where Anne Frank got this, but she says, no one has ever become poor by giving. And I can't help but think that it came from this passage here.
For God is the God who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. And in the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a harvest. Great. A great harvest of generosity in you. You ever known people that? It just seemed like they were always looking for a way to bless other people. When we were in Colton, we had an elder by the name of Del Brock.
Del Brock was a very benevolent person. He just wanted to give. Dale had a lot of money. He had a lot of resources. He had good properties. He had a business. He had all kinds of things. But every time someone came with a problem that the church couldn't fund, he would empty his pockets himself in order to be a blessing to other people. Why am I saying all this?
I remember Dale telling me, I pray that God will give me more so that I can give more.
And I remember saying, you know what? I'm praying God, give him more because of the way he thought about things. These things are meant to be a blessing to other people.
It isn't interesting. God has always given us choice. I think from the very beginning of time, you know, we were given the opportunity to do what he said or to not do what he said. We have his word. We have his principles in front of us. We have, you know, the understanding of what the consequences are when we turn our back on God, or when we follow him and receive the blessings of that, we have that, and then we have the opportunity to choose. And he's given us the choice. Even in this matter, when we talk about our giving, and the choice is always the same, and he is saying the same thing to us today that he said in all these other things. And that's simply this. Just trust me.
Winston Churchill said, this way, we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
Perhaps that came from this passage. You will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. Goes on to say, there's two things that are going to result in this. The believers who are in need are going to have their blessing, and then also as a part of that, there's going to be joyful expression to God in Thanksgiving as a result. So when I look at this passage and when I think about what God is inviting us to and the excitement of us joining into this process, you know, it tells us we're going to be enriched in every way. It tells us that we're going to be able to meet others real needs. That's an exciting thing, isn't it, for us to recognize that, and then also that we're going to experience joy and gratitude. We're going to see God at work in all of those things. I mean, that's an exciting thing for us to be brought into. It's kind of like this idea of overflowing, right? God blesses us so we can, in turn bless other people.
So he finishes this text up by saying, as a result of your ministry, they'll give glory to God for your generosity to them and to all the believers will prove that you're obedient to the good news of Christ. Capture that. Obedient to the good news of Christ.
The gospel is what the idea of us dying to ourselves, being buried in Christ, being raised to walk a new life, a group of people zealous for good works, he says, and they will pray for you with deep affection because of the overflowing grace that God has given to you.
I guess the overriding message of all of this is simply this. And it's where we began and where we'll finish up here.
Imagine that blessing coming down from God so you can in turn be a blessing to other people. God's grace is poured out for us so that our blessings overflow in ministry to others. I hope that you'll want to be a part of that and that you'll see the joy and the excitement of being a part of something special that reaches other people and is a blessing to those who do not know God. And this church has always been outreaching and always been trying to advance the gospel. We have an opportunity with the enthusiasm and the pooled resources of this group to do something more amazing than we've ever done before.
But it won't be because we do it. It's because we surrender to God and he brings the increase.
So this morning, if there's anyone here who needs encouragement, anyone who needs support, anyone who needs to come and confess a thing that they're going through in their life, if a person wants to surrender at all and become a baptized believer, trusting in God, cleansed of your sins, receiving the Holy Spirit and that promise of eternal life. If you have a need this morning, please come. While together we stand and sing.
