The Open Door

As I write this article, it is the end of a glorious day of worship at our church, North Metro First Baptist where Frank Cox is pastor. First of all, as I have the privilege and joy of preaching in Georgia Baptist churches across our state, I have only rare opportunities to be with my family at our home church. So anytime I can be at home it is a special occasion.

Today was a very special day at our church as we held our first worship services in a brand new and beautiful 2500-seat worship center that has just been completed following a long planning and construction phase. The church rejoiced as we filled the Lord’s House for worship this morning and brought in more chairs to accommodate the crowd. The choir and orchestra were absolutely incredible as they gave the glory to God through music. Frank’s sermon was both historic and powerful. Many came forward to make decisions for Christ at the invitation.

The joy continued in the Sunday evening worship service as the pastor baptized about 25 new believers. Once again the choir filled the choir loft and they and the orchestra led our worship service in glorious praise to the Father. Frank preached a wonderful evangelistic message and once again, the front of the worship center was filled with those coming to make decisions for Christ. I feel this evening as if I have been in the midst of a great spiritual revival.

As I reflected on the beautiful worship center and the joy of the congregation today, I was reminded of the faithfulness of God. As I spoke a word of greeting to the congregation from Georgia Baptists this morning, I reminded them that God always blesses the faithfulness of His people.

Every now and then I will encounter a pastor who will explain to me that their church cut their gifts to missions in order to meet the immediate physical plant needs of their church. I have observed that no church grows significantly that cuts its gifts to missions. The greatest churches I know are strong supporters of missions through the Cooperative Program.

Our church has consistently given about 13% of its unrestricted offerings to reach the world with the Gospel through the Cooperative Program. I am thankful that North Metro has not attempted to complete this expansion of the church’s facilities by cutting its gifts to missions.

By the way, I have never encountered a church throughout my ministry experience that grew by reducing their support to missions. Why is that? Simply put, God blesses the faithfulness of His children. Malachi 3:10 says that if we are faithful in bringing our tithes to the church, God will open up the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing upon us that is so great we will not be able to receive it! Then in Luke 6:38 Jesus said, “Give, and it shall be given you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over….” In other words, you cannot out give the Lord.

It is impossible for you to out give God. God blesses our faithfulness. As I looked around at the new facilities, I encouraged our congregation today to realize that what we were looking at was a clear evidence of the faithfulness of God in response to our church’s faithfulness to Him.

My experience in Kentucky as pastor at First Baptist Paducah certainly gave evidence of this same spiritual reality. Our church gave 20% of unrestricted offerings through the Cooperative Program. During the eleven years that I was there we paid off a million dollar debt from earlier years and then built and furnished two new buildings debt-free. I am firmly convinced that the concept of cutting gifts to missions in order to grow is a disastrous error. God blesses the faithfulness of His people. Don’t ever forget or compromise that great spiritual principle.