Grace for Your Day September 13

According to a recent Barna Survey, ninety-one percent of Christians say that they have given money to the church. Seventy-five percent also say that they have given to missions and other charitable organizations which means that Christians are generous. Despite what you may hear, they are not stingy with their money but they give with an open hand.

This is good because Paul gives us the following exhortation in Second Corinthians 9:6-7:

Paul gives us several principles for Christian giving in this passage but the main one is generosity because “the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly” which means that you will not get much in return. If you are stingy with your money, God will not use it in any significant way. Paul is not teaching Health and Wealth Theology here where you give money to the church and God blesses you for it by making you rich. Rather, he is stating the obvious fact that the more you give, the more God will use it for His glory. On the other hand, the less you give, the less He will use.

I mention this because it is time for us to start a Building Fund here at Grace Fellowship Church. As many of you know, we do not own our own facility yet. We have been renting one and meeting in a tent this summer which has been very encouraging for us. We have seen a lot of growth during this time but the weather is turning colder so we need to look for something warmer for the fall and winter months.

Our current plan is to move back into the building that we used previously on 46024 Riverside Drive on Sunday morning, September 26. We will give you more information about that in the days to come but all of this is a reminder that we need something more permanent for our church. Rather than bounce around from one setting to the next, we need to find a more fixed location where we can assemble.

So before we get back into the series on Ecclesiastes, we are going to set aside one week to talk about that. It will take some planning to purchase our own facility because we do not want to do it haphazardly. It needs to be thought out as well as communicated to you well in advance. You need to know how the money is being allocated and what the timeframe is for finding something which is what we will discuss in our time together. The sermon will be entitled “A Christian View of Tithing & Giving” from Second Corinthians 9. Afterwards, one of our elders will explain how you can give to the fund specifically as well as address any concerns.

This is an exciting time for our church because you have always been a very generous congregation. We have never had a need that you have not met so I look forward to presenting this new idea to you. I know that the Lord will do “far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20) through your giving and I look forward to preaching on that subject this Sunday. Have a great week and I look forward to seeing you then! - Jeremy Cagle