A Pattern that Matters: How the Collection Is Used (1 Timothy 3:15)

Introduction

I need to start tonight by a brief review of what we talked about last Sunday night. I see a lot of people that were not here last Sunday night, and I don’t do series very often, but this just happens to be at least a two-part series. If there’s going to be another part, it’s going to be down the road of peace. And so I want to review for that reason and because about all that anyone remembers from last Sunday night is me spiking the remote. Thanks to Jacob. And the fact that he posted it as a meme on Facebook. And the mishap of that. So to get your attention tonight to go back to what we talked about last week, and some of these things that I put on the slides were coming up so rapidly, I even reduced one of our young people to tears who could not keep up.

So this is what was on the beginning slide last week as we talked about the importance of patterns, that we obviously need to pattern our lives after the text and the kind of instruction that’s given to us about how we’re to live. But there are also patterns that relate to corporate activity, and that is how the church is to function. We need to have a clearly defined membership. There needs to be expectations of the members in regard to their conduct. It even relates to how we’re going to approach God in worship, how we do leadership in the local church, and no greater sphere than that. And highlighted the topic of our two lesson discussion on how pooled funds are used. And while there might be deviations in all five of these areas, and even has been suggested to me that perhaps we need a sermon series on all of these things, but I sort of talk about some of these a lot, two, three, four, not as much, but we’re studying 1 Timothy soon.

So I’ll be covering that, Lord willing. But this last issue is huge in terms of the amount of misunderstanding that exists even among God’s people. And so we established in the very beginning a truth that we all should understand, and that is that Christ is the head of his church. We see that in Ephesians 1 and Colossians chapter 1 and verse 18. And I raise the idea that you can pretty much declare with your lips whatever you would like and claim to be his church, and this is all well and good and wonderful. But if he is not allowed to dictate what we do and why we do it, then he is not the head of this, and we are not his. Okay, so that’s why I was making that point last week, probably made it just better now than I did last week, about the fact that we need to respect our Savior’s authority in how we do Christianity in all respects.

And so we talked about following the Lord, and we looked at a text, and really I got into this, and a lot of the lesson was about this text, more so than where I was going with it. Talking to Aaron, he pretty much insisted that I add chapter 41 to chapter 42 and 43. And so I’m going to do that because I’m going to preach a version of last Sunday’s sermon in a meeting without spiking the remote when I do so. But the backdrop of all that we talked about last week, we didn’t even discuss. And that is that what has taken place after the Babylonian destruction is the man that has been appointed by Babylon to run the country has been murdered by, as I say, murderous Ishmael and his men.

And not only have they killed Gedaliah, but they have killed some Chaldeans, which Nebuchadnezzar is not going to like when he hears about it. And eighty men of Shechem and Silo and Samaria are also killed, and they take captive the remnant in Mitzvah. That’s the short version of chapter 41. And that’s where Johannan comes in because he actually takes control. Ishmael flees with a few of his merry men. But now Johannan is concerned about Babylonian reprisal. What are they going to do when they find out that Gedaliah has been murdered, including some Galdeans? And that leads us to the part we did talk about, and that’s chapter 42. When they come to Jeremiah, here’s the prophet who has survived, as they have survived Babylonian destruction. And they say, May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with the whole message with which the Lord your God will send you to us.

So Jeremiah, whatever the Lord wants us to do, whatever he instructs you, that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to follow the Lord. And so we’ll just wait and see what we hear. And for some reason, God responds to Jeremiah in ten days. And that just gets my mind to thinking about all the reasons why God waited ten days to respond. Finally, he comes and says, Don’t go to Egypt. And that’s when Johannan says, Well, we’re going to go to Egypt anyway. And they drag Jeremiah with them. And they should not have done this. And the awful legacy of Johannan, they wouldn’t have had to fear Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah tells them if they had just stayed put. But because they went to Egypt, they are going to suffer, and it’s not going to go well.

But remember where all of this started with their affirmation. The whole message. Whatever it is, we’ll do it. Until it didn’t coincide with what they wanted to do. And that’s precisely the problem that many people have. And so we talked about some lessons that could be learned from this Old Testament story, and that is the lips of a person may not profess what is truly in the heart. And again, we can declare, oh, we’re faithful to the Lord, we’re the Lord’s people, I love the Lord. And yet then our behavior reflects that we don’t really love the Lord, that we’re more in love with ourselves and what we want to do, rather than being truly submissive and being disciples of Jesus. And then the second point, and I tried to emphasize this even more than the first point.

And I want to emphasize this again tonight. And that is, oh, it was already there. Let me go back. God knows things that we don’t. And that’s what’s illustrating the story in Jeremiah 41 through 43. One of the reasons why he says, no, don’t go to Egypt is he knows what’s going to happen if they do go. God knows things that we don’t. God sits at a vantage point where he can see things that we cannot see. And so that’s important when we start considering whether we’re going to listen to God’s instruction and patterns, or if we see things just a whole lot better as to what we could do, what we should do, because you know we’re so brilliant and all. And we always need to remember about God’s instruction that God knows things that we don’t.

Now get to this. Following the Lord. And I’m going to preach this in meetings, and I didn’t do this last week, but I’m going to go with a different conclusion when I do that. I’m going to talk about following the Lord at the very beginning when we choose to obey the Lord, and then we continue to follow the Lord as Christians as we model his love, submission, and unity. And that following the Lord culminates in glory. Christ in you, the hope of glory. I’m still working on that. If you’ve got some other ideas as to how I can wrap this up in a one sermon deal and go a little different direction, let me know. But let’s go back to our point. Paul talked about patterns in a number of areas, a number of passages, and we need to respect the apostolic patterns that have been provided.

This is really a larger discussion as to how God communicates with us, the New Testament epistles, the role the apostles played in laying the foundation of all that would follow in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 20, so that we can be a habitation of God in the Spirit. But this is the short version of Paul saying, you need to do the things that I modeled among you as an apostle of Christ. And he said similar things about sound doctrine and following personal patterns in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 and verse 6. And so we said this last week. Following apostolic patterns, acknowledges God’s sovereignty, again, he knows things we don’t, acknowledges God’s sovereignty, wisdom, and displays submission. And those are important points. And so we concluded with these thoughts.

Following God’s arrangement, and I said this was important. This is still important this week. Following God’s arrangement will yield the results that he desires. We don’t need to improve upon it. We certainly don’t need to act without authority and improvise. Because what God wants us to do, whether we’re talking about worship or local organization, the leadership of the church, or what we’re going to do with the pooled funds, it’s going to do what God wants it to do. If we’ll just listen, he didn’t leave it so that we have to make it all up on our own. I mean, just think about that. If he would have just left things like, well, you know, you can sort of do it however you want to. What would the church look like in our world?

Well, look around. Look around. And so we talked about this matter of surrendering funds in the example of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter 5, and that the money laid at the apostles’ feet was dedicated to God’s special purposes while it was unsold, did it, was it not your own? And before it was even laid at the apostles’ feet, it was under their control. But as they continued in their pretension, as they laid at the apostles’ feet, giving the impression that they had given it all, but they had kept back part of the price. So they were struck dead for their hypocrisy. But the point that I wanted to make, and the first part of this was the point Peter makes about the surrender or the relinquishing of control of the funds when they are laid at the apostles’ feet to, by implication, the purposes of God.

1. The Need to Accept God's Limits

And so now tonight, I want to talk about the need to accept God’s limits. And I’ve already made this point, and I’m making it right here and telling you, this is where I’m going. This is the important instruction. This is what I want you to wrap your mind around tonight. Because everything I say from this point forward is going to be about this. If God’s limits don’t matter, if the patterns and the parameters that God has set for how the church is to function, if we can just ignore that, if we can just make things up and do what we will, if they don’t matter, the sky is the limit in regard to what we can do and how we can do it. On whatever we deem good.

And see, that’s really the argument. Well, this is a good thing. This is a good thing. And everybody’s saying about what they’re doing. This is a good thing. Well, who has declared it good? Where in Scripture has it been declared good? Where is it authorized? You see, the sky is the limit if that’s our umbrella. I think it’s good. And that’s how a lot of people assess their relationship with God. I think it’s good. I feel good. But does it match biblical instruction and patterns? So as we talk about the treasury specifically tonight, those funds that are designated, given to the work of the Lord. What do we see going on in Scripture about pooled funds and the exclusive specific purposes unto which they are yielded?

2. Funds Used in Just Two Areas

I would make two observations from Scripture, and that is funds that were dedicated to the local church to be used by her, primarily related to just two areas. And those are longer words that summarize the two areas that the scriptures speak extensively about. The support of the proclamation of the gospel, the heralding of the gospel, evangelism, that’s what the term means. Funds were used to advance the message of salvation throughout the world. Funds were used to meet material needs, benevolence, but under a limited scope. As we will talk about. That’s what we see those funds being used for in biblical times. The church is the pillar and support of truth. We read that in 1 Timothy 3, verse 15. That’s a very powerful passage to speak to our purpose and mission.

And one of the points that we made last week that I want to re-emphasize this week is nobody else is doing this. Nobody else is doing what we are doing. We are God’s special people with a special purpose. And if we do not advance this message of truth to the world, then it’s not going to be done. Now, those of you who’ve been taught these things in the past might already be thinking, I think there were three things, not two. And that’s okay if you want to see three. In fact, I made this font pretty big in case you wanted to see it as the third point. But the way I look at it is that this area of edification is really just a subpoint of the church being the herald of the message of salvation to the world.

And that what we provide here from the funds that are collected is simply an arena by which we can communicate this message and share in this message as God’s people, and to learn from this message. So really I see it as a part of evangelism, but if you want to see it as a third area, all I will say is that I believe this is authorized in what we read in the New Testament. Provision for the instruction, worship, and spiritual equipping of God’s people. All of the provisions for the church and her worship facilities, for example, are provided for the purpose of propagating and publicizing this saving message. And I think a lot of us see that and don’t need to spend a lot of time there.

3. Benevolence Is a Ministry to the Saints

It’s this latter issue that becomes a concern. So, what has God authorized in regard to taking care of material needs of people? All I can say is we don’t have enough time tonight to read all of chapter 8 and chapter 9 of 2 Corinthians, but we have a lengthy discourse about a collection that was taken from churches in Macedonia that Paul wants to take from the church at Corinth and to transport by trustworthy disciples to the area or region of Judea and specifically the church in Jerusalem to alleviate a financial destitution situation that was existing there. There were famine that was a part of this, according to Acts chapter 11, and a prophet by the name of Agabas who spoke about this famine that was to come.

And just the material wherewithal of the saints in Judea was challenged. We read that in regard to the taking care of widows in Acts chapter 6. And so we have this large church in Jerusalem, a lot of saints in that area who need benevolence, and Paul is calling upon these churches and other places to assist this financial need. But what I would turn to in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 is this. There is a key word that runs throughout these two chapters, and it’s the word fellowship. Sometimes it’s translated sharing, participation, contribution. And you’ll see those terms, and you don’t realize it’s the same Greek word flowing through this context. And so, because of our union in Christ, our fellowship, and on a universal scale, believers here, believers there.

Because of this common fellowship, we should have concern about needs of brethren in other places. And what he talks about is if you step up to the plate here and give generously, as the churches in Macedonia have done, let me tell you what happens. If you sow bountifully, you reap bountifully. Oh, you’ve heard that before, right? God loves a cheerful giver. Tell you what else happens. You meet their need, and they are going to pray for you. There’s going to be a spiritual result. You’re going to receive spiritually from this material contribution as you share with it. They are going to overflow with thanksgiving and prayers and yearning on your behalf. They are going to be immensely grateful. They’re going to pray for you. You’re going to receive spiritual benefit in this sharing.

Now, who are they helping? Is it all the needy in Judea? You think the Christians were the only needy ones in Judea? Really? The only needy people in Jerusalem? No. And that’s why we see in chapter 9 this limit in the pattern. For it is superfluous for me to write to you about this ministry for the saints. Okay, so this limit of benevolence is for other sanctified ones in Christ. It is a ministry to the saints. And if you miss that the first time, he’s going to call it that again in verse 12. Mark these verses. For the ministry of this service is not only fully supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing, as I said earlier, through many thanksgivings to God. Now, the controversy has revolved around verse 13 when he talks about this fellowship or sharing, but remember it is the word fellowship that’s being used in verse 13.

When he says, because of the proof given by this ministry, this ministry to the saints, they will glorify God for your obedience. Here’s one yielding factor in why you should give.

Said about how they’re going to glorify God for your obedience, and that this is fellowship, contribution is the word fellowship. And it says, verse 14, while they also, now whoever the to them and to all are, it says, while they also by prayer on your behalf. Wait a minute. Are they Christians? Are they saints? Notice how the to them and to all are going to pray on your behalf and yearn for you because of the surpassing grace of God in you. There’s several ideas about who the to them and to all could include. I think there is the meeting of a specific need in Jerusalem and a need among Christians, perhaps in the surrounding areas. Whoever might be assisted financially from this contribution or sharing. But one thing I know for sure is that they’re saints, because it’s this ministry that he’s talking about.

It’s a ministry to saints, and it’s going to result in them glorifying God and praying. And so, what a stretch it is to take a verse like this and say, I’ve got a pattern for using these funds to take care of the needy of the world. And think about this. Do we realize how large of a scope that is to take care of the needy of the world? And even this, just another point in this regard, in regard to the widows in 1 Timothy chapter 5, Paul first talks about families stepping up to the plate first to take care of needy fellow family members, so that the church may not be burdened. First Timothy chapter 5, verse 16. So, one thing that we learn even about this area of benevolence, this ministry to the saints, it is not the idea of the pattern to just automatically supply the physical need of a needy saint without first family stepping up and trying to meet that need, and that to do so would burden the church to just automatically take from these designated funds to help every possible member.

4. Doing Something Without Authority, We Need to Stop

Now, that’s the short of the pattern. I don’t see anything beyond this in regard to the use of these designated funds. I don’t see anything beyond this in the scripture. Now, before I get to some other concluding points, and you’ve listened well to this point, but this is an important instruction. You will often hear, well, we spend a lot of money on things that aren’t authorized. We spend a lot of money in areas where there is no authority.

Not as bad as spiking the remote, but I will knock them over probably eventually. It’s inevitable. And it’d be time to replace them then. So you hear this. Well, but we do a lot of things that don’t have Bible authority. How many times have I heard that? You want to guess? Too many to count. Whenever there’s objection to what I’ve just taught, that’s what you’ll hear. Now I want to say this. If we’re doing something without authority, we need to stop that immediately. Okay? That’s my answer to that. If that’s the case, if you’re right about that, we need to stop it. Here’s the second thing I’d say. Are you admitting that these practices that are not authorized by these patterns that we’ve looked at, are you admitting that they’re unauthorized practices?

And if so, you need to stop them because they are unauthorized. Oh, but you have a church building. Who says that’s unauthorized? The command to assemble requires the securing of a location, and of course, prudence. And people would be judged for extravagance. Requires prudence when it comes to the expenditure of these special funds to meet our obligations. But what’s the authority for a water fountain? I hear that one a lot. And I would say the provision of running water, electricity, a water fountain for hydration purposes, which we’re here for several hours for perhaps meeting an emergency need, such as even the purchase of a defibrillator. That’s a hard word to say. Maybe I should ask Ted back there to tell us how to say that exactly.

He probably has one with him right now. To provide a first aid kit. Those things are all expedient to the carrying out of this command. It is a far cry to provide something like that. And suggest, well, if we can have a water fountain, we can have a coffee bar. I want to tell you, there’s a big step that takes place between the provision of a water fountain and the provision of a coffee bar. And I’m going to even further suggest that if you’re going to go with the coffee bar, let’s do it right and have a food court. And churches have done that very thing. And I would just say, while something may be a small departure from the pattern, once you depart, you have opened the door to even larger departures from the pattern.

Or any other recreational pursuit. If not, why not? Well, but there’s a small refrigerator back here. I know what I’ve been back there. I’ve made the Lord’s Supper. So what did we buy that for? The provision of a small refrigerator for cooling of the juice of the fruit of the vine so that we can carry out a command efficiently is a far cry also from providing a full-blown kitchen for providing meals. Once you justify spending in areas that do not pertain to the accomplishment of commands, then you have opened the door to the funding of anything that we might call fellowship or that we might call a good thing. And that’s where 1 Corinthians 11 comes into play. I would not argue for a second that it is wrong to consume a morsel of food in the building.

Instead, I would say it is wrong to build a building for the purpose of eating.

The accomplishment of a command to assemble to worship our God, evangelism, edification. There’s a far cry between one and the other. 11 comes in when he says, look, you have turned the Lord’s Supper into a lavish meal, and you’re mistreating one another at that. You despise the church of God. He said, Have you not houses to eat and drink in? Again, the point of that is not. If you eat a morsel of food in this building, you have sinned. That’s not the point. The point is you need to recognize spiritual activity and keep it separate from social activity. And the church is not authorized to support from the designated funds, the latter. Again, these funds are used to the accomplishment of God’s commands. So in the last point that I want to make, and I’ve already intimated at some of this.

5. Patterns We Don't See in Scripture

What are some patterns we don’t see in Scripture to help us understand these limits that I talked about in the very beginning? Number one, we do not see anywhere, and I challenge you to find it, a pattern of ministry to non saints from these special funds that are collected. There is no charge to meet the needs of all who are financially distressed. Now we can talk about Galatians 6.10 and James 127, the passages that are often used as the pattern passages for this. But Galatians 6.10 is not spoken of in relation to something we do corporately as a church, though the term we is used. It’s speaking of we in the distributive sense. That is, come on, guys, let’s do this. Let us not grow weary in well doing.

We don’t do that as a church. Oh, somebody got weary. We’re all weary. That’s that’s not how it works. Hey, we, you guys, don’t grow weary. We can’t grow weary. And we ought to do good, especially to those of the household of faith. That’s that’s not justifying church activity. That’s church in the distributive sense. And furthermore, if you’re going to use Galatians chapter 6 and verse 10, you have authorized not just local church activity, but region of church activity because Galatians was written to a number of churches in an entire region, which leads to point number two, though I’m not done with this point. The pooling of funds with other churches for evangelistic works. We don’t see that anywhere in the New Testament. But back to point number one, James 127.

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this to visit the fatherless and the widows and their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. There it is. We need to take care of widows and orphans. But again, he’s speaking in regard to individual responsibility as he talks about keeping oneself unspotted from the world. You look contextually, he’s not talking about corporate activity. He’s talking about your individual responsibility. And there’s a lot more that could be said about that. Local churches were not commissioned with the care of orphans abroad, nor placing them in a sterile institution. That’s the fulfillment of James 1.27. We were not commissioned with that. They were instead commissioned to broadcast a message of salvation throughout the world. Again, a work that no one else is doing but her.

Now we do see in the second point a pooling of funds for benevolence to meet a need in another city. We see funds being sent from various churches to one church, but that was not so that church could then become a superchurch and to do a great work of evangelism because now they have more funds. It was so that there may be equality. 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and verse 14. That was the purpose of this pooling of funds in the area of benevolence. There’s no such thing that we read about in scripture of a superchurch where all the churches sent their money to the Jerusalem church. Then the Jerusalem church took care of evangelism. In fact, Paul said at one point only the Philippians were sharing and giving with him financially.

Philippians chapter 4 and verse 15. We do not see the establishment of a missionary society or some adjunct or institution or a superchurch to carry out the work of evangelism. Nor do we see expenditures for recreation and other social activities. Again, once you go down this path, how far can you go? How far can you go? Sky’s the limit. We could take trips. It starts with going to the movies, but various activities that are good and healthy. And I don’t know, going to the movies that healthy anymore, but some movies are okay, I guess. But once you start going down this path again, how far are you? Let’s take a trip to the Holy Lands. Let’s pay for everybody to go. Well, what’s the limit to all of this?

So he said, now, where are your passages for all these assertions that you’ve just made here? That’s just my point. There aren’t any passages. The New Testament does not give this as a pattern. Respect God’s limits. Because once you decide that the pattern doesn’t matter, and you can do whatever it is that you think is good, it’s going to go places you never dreamed. Because someone will dream it. Someone will imagine it. And they will go there, and we’ll call them progressives. But you know where they got the idea. It was from these smaller compromises where the pattern wasn’t observed. Well, you’re just a bunch of spiritual fuddy dutties. That’s what you are. Tony, you’re just holding a traditional party line. I don’t know what that is.

And it really doesn’t matter to me what a generation ago believed. What matters is the pattern that I read in the New Testament and my faithfulness and loyalty to this pattern. That’s what I have to teach. I don’t see this in the New Testament. If you see this, let’s talk about it. Let’s have a study. I don’t see this in the New Testament. The previous screen I see. I don’t see this. And I need to be content with the pattern. It’ll do what God wants done. It may not be huge in terms of the scope that maybe what could be done if we if we sent all of our money. Which church do you want to pick out? I don’t know. Kleinwood. Big church, they have some resources.

Everybody in Houston, send all your money to climbwood. Let Climwood do a super work in evangelism. How are we going to follow up with people? That was my problem with one nation under God, that campaign, and then one world under God. You know, how are we going to actually sit down with sending out one publication? We think that’s going to save the world. It’s funny how that sort of fell through after a time. This super work of evangelism, it’s about you teaching your neighbor. It’s about us influencing where we can, sending out preachers, sending funds, sending funds to a fellow who’s going to preach in another place. We have fellowship with him and his work, just like they did the Apostle Paul. That’s the pattern. Respect the pattern.

Conclusion

And God will be glorified. And it will do what he once done. And so let’s conclude by emphasizing what you already know I have emphasized. Respect his patterns. Appreciate our high, our noble and obedient calling, and be steadfast. Immable. Always abounding in the work of the Lord. The practice of our faith and the commitment to his pattern to follow the Lord fully will yield the results that he desires and will yield glory for us. And listen to service while there’s time and opportunity. And be saved from your sins. If you need to respond, come now as we stand and say.