Les offrandes promises par la foi

You cannot please God if all of your life is lived for your own benefit.Faith Promise Giving is a biblical concept of giving found in 2 Corinthians 8-9. The principle is this: we make a promise to God that we will give a particular amount, and that we are trusting Him to supply that.In 2 Corinthians 8-9, the offering was being taken for the church at Jerusalem. Today, we don’t need to give to the church at Jerusalem. The Macedonians also gave to Paul, to support him as a missionary. We see this in verse 5 and also in the book of Philippians.Today, faith promise giving, also called grace giving, is a promise that we make to God to give a certain amount in order to send the Gospel to the world through missionaries that we support.We make a promise to give, and we trust God that He will supply the funds.Today we are going to see that this is an amazing opportunity that God gives!

I. Faith promise giving is a God-given opportunity. v. 1, 7

Praise the Lord that He saves us! Without the free forgvieness of sins in Jesus Christ, I would be lost; you would be lost; we would be lost!Yet, when God saves us, He also gives us opportunities to do something

Illustration: Coaching soccer last summer, one of the boys was always happy sitting on the grass. If you put him on the field, he was not focused. But that is not normal behaviour; when we are on a team, we want to be given opportunities! In God’s team, we are given opportunities.

Notice the word “grace” in verse 1. Grace means God’s working in our life, a working that we do not deserve.Paul is saying: these people in Macedonia…God did something there that they did not deserve. He did something AFTER salvation that they did not deserve. He gave them the opportunity to give...which they did not deserve.In verse 7, Paul repeats the fact that faith-promise giving is an undeserved opoportunity that God gives. Faith - we don’t deserve to have that relationship with God! It’s grace.Utterance - we don’t deserve to be God’s messengers! It’s grace.Knowledge - we don’t deserve to know God or God’s plan! It’s grace.Diligence - we don’t deserve to serve God! It’s grace.Love to us - we don’t deserve Christian relationships. It’s grace.This grace - we don’t deserve to be able to give faith promise offerings! It’s grace.

II. Faith promise giving is an opportunity in poverty. v. 2-3

Every time that I file my taxes, I am considered poor. I don’t think of myself as poor, but compared to other people in the world, I guess I am not considered rich!We serve a wonderful God. He even says, I am going to give you the opportunity to do something that you cannot afford.

Illustration: There are things that I cannot afford. If I came home driving a Tesla car, my wife would be upset with me, because we cannot afford that. There are hotels that I cannot afford, restaurants that I cannot afford, vacations that I cannot afford…and that is okay! Now, suppose that a trusted friend came to me and said Bro. Eric, I want you to have a Tesla car. I would reply, I cannot afford to drive a Tesla car. Now, if they said, just get a Tesla car, and I will make sure that you can pay for it. That would change everything.

God allowed the Macedonians to promise to give; and then he allowed them to give what they had promised…even though they had very little money. They weren’t just poor; they were deeply poor. Poor is when you only have one pair of shoes; deeply poor is when those shoes are broken. Poor is when you have very little food; deeply poor is when that food is no longer fresh.Clearly terrible circumstances had come upon these churches; maybe an earthquake; maybe war; maybe famine, I don’t know, but things were not going well.Praise the Lord that my circumstances do not keep God from using me to give.Nobody who has Christ in their life is too poor to give.You know, the flesh and the devil often keep the rich from giving; but Christ helps even the poor to give.There have been moments in my life where I was literally living hand to mouth; there was no money left over; but my wife and I have always given our faith promise commitments and we have never skipped a meal, a rent payment, and the car has always had gas.There are a lot of things that we can’t afford to do when we are poor; but giving a faith promise gift is not one of those things! God gives us that opportunity of grace no matter our circumstances.

III. Faith promise giving is an opportunity to give oneself to God. v. 5

I don’t know all the songs that you sing, but I am sure that you sing songs about the fact that you belong to Jesus. In English we sing, “Take my life and let it be consecrated Lord to thee” and other songs too.However, giving ourself to God is not just a state; it must be an action.Sometimes, we kneel at an altar and pray words like these: Lord I give myself to you. But that is not giving yourself - that is saying that you are giving yourself. That is making a promise, and it is very good! But you really give yourself when you act on what you said.Words do not impress God; deeds or actions do.

​ KJV 1900My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

To be able to say that you have really given yourself to God, you have to have done something about it. Some action must show and prove that you have given yourself to God.For the Macedonians, one of those actions was financial giving. (verse 4)

A. We give ourself to God when we give ourselves to others.

We serve God by serving others. That is how God created us; that is His will for us.

What would you think if I only preached sermons to an empty room, and said, Well I don’t want to do it for men, just for God, so I don’t want to preach to people. Or if we built a church building, but never let anybody in, and yet kept cleaning and saying, “I don’t want anybody to come in, I just want to it for God alone.” You would say that is ridiculous, because you understand that we serve God in large part by serving people.

The Macedonian Christians gave themselves to God, and the way they showed that was by sacrificing themselves for others.

B.Giving ourselves in this way (financially) is the will of God. v. 5

Notice the words “by the will of God”. It was God’s will for them to give. They were poor. They could not afford to do it. But God wanted them to. And they did! It was His will to do this in them and through them.Some months are difficult. Yet, it is God’s will that I give. It is God’s will that my family give. If I give myself to God, I will give financially. Nobody who does not give can say that they have given themselves to God.

IV. Faith promise giving is an opportunity to show that you love God. v. 8

I do not claim to be the best and greatest husband in the world, but I do look for opportunities to show my wife that I love her. My children often look for opportunities to show me that they love me.

You should be looking for ways to show God that you love Him. That is normal in a healthy relationship.Better yet: you should be looking in the Bible for ways that God likes us to show love to Him.

Illustration: Some people teach “love languages” - ways in which people feel loved: gifts, time, acts of service, words, etc.

One way that God likes to be shown love is through our giving. He gave to us; He wants us to give to Him.

V. Faith promise giving is an opportunity to imitate Jesus Christ. v. 9-10

Paul continues with a reminder: Jesus made you rich spiritually. In order for that to happen he had to make himself poor.You would not be saved today if Jesus had not been willing to make himself poor. And now, others will not be saved if you and I are not willing to impoverish ourselves financially so that they also can be made rich in Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

Illustration: The believers in Malawi who saw the Christians in India cooking over fires of cow manure. The poorest people in the world sacrificed to be a blessing to people richer than they.