Generosity
This past Sunday was an awesome day to me. I was so proud of you and the way you helped that I could hardly contain myself. As most of you know, we had a Christian Student Center group from Ruston Church of Christ in Ruston, LA with us Sunday morning. Nick White, the director of the Center made a presentation to the combined adult Bible classes and then spoke briefly during the singing time of the assembly. This group of young men and young women, about twenty-three all together, are going on a mission trip to Honduras. They needed some financial help and so we all listened. When it was all said and done, they went away with a sizable amount to go toward their trip. Your response was fantastic.
This group will go there and minister in a number of different ways to the people there who have specific needs. They will conduct Bible studies and teaching times and physically work on facilities that will assist the people long after they leave. This is a marvelous work and you have to appreciate the willingness of a college age group who are willing to give up their Spring Break and go to a mission field instead of going somewhere for fun and frolic.
What I want you to see, as many of you already do, is that everything they do while they are in that country, you are doing too. Our fellowship in the support of this work is as though we are there right beside them doing the work God has called us to do. We are actually participating in the work though we are not physically there. Awesome!
We have experienced this through the Internet Ministry of this church. Different ones, throughout the time we have been involved in it, have contributed, physically participated, prayed for it and supported it in any way you could. When the message goes out, it is not the speaker who is teaching. It is all of us. We are in this together. We are partners in the work of God and God is pleased.
Body life of a congregation is more than something that happens in an assembly. Certainly it should be there, but it is in every aspect of that which we do as a congregation. In Jesus Christ, we are one. We are one body with many parts all moving and working toward satisfying the Head, Jesus Christ.
I have never seen a time in the eighteen years I have been with you that you did not respond in this manner when a work of God was presented to you. Your generosity has always been something I felt was pleasing to Him. We are not a church with money and to take that much money out of the general fund would have broken the bank. It is just not there. It is not there because it has been used with good stewardship over the years. Who needs to sit on a pile of money in a church? But every time a need arises, you, yourselves rise up and meet the challenge. You are to be commended.
I am looking forward to the reports of the ministry in Honduras when the mission team returns. As a matter of fact, I personally, would like to have the team return and tell us all about their experiences. I think that would be awesome. I would like to touch the work they did by sight and sound and see what my partnership and yours did while they were there. It would be exciting and thrilling to see and hear.
Whatever we do in the future, anytime we participate financially, with physical support, with prayer or with concern, we are all part of the working of God in the matter. True fellowship runs deeply when His people band together to accomplish or help someone else accomplish a mission. God is proud when His people unite and support one another. And I say, if someone is willing to do something for God, some of us ought to be willing to help them do it.
I believe that what happened here last Sunday arose to God on the altar of sacrifice as an odor of a sweet smell. I believe that God sniffed the air of your generosity, smiled and was content that His people on this little hill are in full partnership with the work of other believers willing to physically make the trip and do His will in that place. I believe God was proud that we are His children and it makes me even more proud that He is our Father.