Grace Abounding

The Christian life is a life of giving or it becomes a miserable life.
Jesus came from Heavens splendor to Earth’s poverty as a gift to a lost and dying world.
Jesus came not to be ministered to, but to minister.
The root word from which we get Deacon and Pator means to serve.
“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

I: To live or not to live a life of Grace.
1. Grace appears in chpt. 8 seven times.
a. Early meaning: Beauty, order, health, love, contrasted with ugliness, chaos, and sickness.
b. Later meaning: To impart these to others.
2. Grace will abound in giving freely.
3. He that soweth sparingly reaps sparingly.
4. He that looseth his life shall find it.

II: The Church of Macedonia.
1. Moved by the grace of God.
2. “Gave themselves” one must give self to God 1st or all giving soon becomes a burden.
3. “To the glory of the Lord!”
4. “In heavy trials which proved their steadfastness.”
5. “The fullness of their joy was overflowed, out of the depth of their poverty, in the richness of their liberality.”
6. “Beyond their means, and that of their own free will.”

III: “That this grace may not be wanting in you.”
1. A year previous they had pledged themselves to this gift.
2. The time to do was at hand.
3. The Church at Corinth was falling because:
a. Divisions concerning preachers.
b. Open sin condoned.
c. A slackness of doctrinal teaching.
d. They demanded little from its members.
4. Sin keeps an individual or a church from the grace of giving.
5. Strife and sin had dried up the Fountain of Giving.

IV: Abounding Grace.
1. No individual or church will abound in giving until the vision of a lost world and a seeking Saviour becomes real.
2. No Christian will grow to the full stature in Christ who has not learned the art of giving.
3. The Christian that lives to get lives on a milk diet and is dwarfed in his Christian experiences.
4. The abounding grace is found only in the lives of those who have learned to discipline themselves to accept responsibilities.