To The Glory Of God

TO THE GLORY OF GOD – COMMITMENT SUNDAY

1 Corinthians 10:31

INTRODUCTION:

A. This is a wonderful day in the life of First Baptist Church of Mascoutah.

1. We sit here this morning having paid off the 48 acres of land the Lord provided for us

2. He did it though us in a memorable fashion: $288,000 plus the interest of $27,381.58 came to a total of 315,381.58 in just three years!

3. Praise the Lord!

B. But this is just the beginning – he did not provide this land so we could rent it out to a farmer, indefinitely.

1. There is a greater purpose

2. It gives us the ability to expand our efforts for the kingdom of God.

3. One day we will erect a building that will be used to further God’s kingdom and bring glory to Him

4. Right this moment we do not know what that will look like but it is time to start gathering the means to build it.

C. I don’t know all of what David had in mind when he said See now, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains. 2 Samuel 7:2

1. But I do know David felt the Lord deserved better – for His glory!

2. He felt God’s house ought to be something whereby He would get glory.

3. And in this particular instance David felt that God should not dwell in a tent – when he had a house of cedar.

4. So David wanted something better for God’s glory.

D. So as we consider this day of commitment, we need to consider it as an opportunity to

1. Be committed to the Lord’s House

2. And as a greater opportunity to be committed to the glory of God!

E. Let me stop right here and ask God to give us a desire to glorify Him and then we will look at

1. The Need

2. The Means

3. The Glory

PRAY

We will begin with

I. THE NEED

A. As we look at the enormous task of building a new facility there are a multitude of arguments that could be put forward for not doing so:

1. It will cost to much, is probably the first one that comes to mind

2. Another could be, we don’t need a new building, we can fix this one up – that would be cheaper

3. And a third could be, I don’t want to go somewhere else

4. But are these good reasons for not building?

B. Let’s check it out, we have been blessed to have this building for a little over 50 years.

1. It has served well, but there is much that is needed

2. To stay in it, long term, we would need to do quite a bit of refurbishment and upgrades, cheaper than building a new facility? Yes

3. But that would not fix the major problems we have to growth and ministry, of which there are mainly three:

a. We are out of room - no real room to expand – we are out of room to significantly expand our ministry capabilities on site and this limits our ability to minister to our community.

b. If we were to expand on what little space we have, we would incur astronomical cost, considering we would have to upgrade the rest of the facility to code, which would amount to almost having to tear down the existing structure to do so (ex. building a new worship facility on this empty space would increase our value by more than 50% requiring the necessary code up grades in this building)

- This would not be cost effective nor would it solve our space problem

c. And even if we did that, we would be lacking the required on site parking space. (One paved spot for every 3 people, requiring about 1 acre of land)

4. So we are left with only one real option – build anew.

C. So how big a task are we looking at?

1. Well, it really hard to tell

2. But I can tell you this the $315,000 we spent on the land is a drop in the bucket compared to this next task.

3. Realistically we are looking at between 1.5 million for the first stage to about 3 million for completion (all depending on what we build)

- Now don’t faint or die on me, this will be done in phases, but as you can see it is going to be a God sized task.

4. This is why it will be a glorious thing in the name of the Lord! He will get the glory, not us!

5. And it is to that end we want to commit ourselves today.