Investing God's Treasure in God's Kingdom: 2 Corinthians 8:1-15

Second Corinthians chapter 8.

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

No, we are not in Mark this morning.

We're taking a break from the Gospel of Mark to address in this Vision 2026 journey what it means to invest God's treasure in God's kingdom.

Say more about that, but hear the word of God.

The Apostle Paul writing to the church at Corinth.

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia.

For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.

For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in relief of the saints, and this not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord, and then by the will of God to us.

Accordingly, we urged Titus that at last that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace.

But as you excel in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in your love, our love for you, see that you excel in this act of grace also.

I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine.

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

And in this matter I give my judgment.

This benefits you, who a year ago started not only to do this work, but also to desire to do it.

So now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have.

For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what you do not have.

For I do not mean that others should be eased in you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness, your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness.

As it is written, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.

This is the reading of God's holy, majestic, powerful word.

Let's pray and ask the Spirit's help.

Father, we thank you for your love for your church all over the world.

Father, as testified here in this passage.

Father, would you by your spirit now open our minds, our hearts?

Lord, may we understand, may we believe, may we respond according to your grace in our lives.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Investing God's treasure in God's kingdom.

In our church, in our city, in our world, we are in the middle of this Vision 2026 in the month of March.

Last Lord's Day, we focused on what it means to invest our time and our talent in the Lord's work.

This morning we're going to consider what does it look like to invest our treasure?

We are getting lots of questions.

I'm getting lots of questions about what is Vision 2026.

Some people have asked me or said, it's mostly about planting a church in Mount Vernon, right?

I say, well, yes and no.

Yes, we believe the Lord's called us to plant a church in Mount Vernon, Lord willing, in a couple of years.

But it's more than that.

Others have said, well, it's about paying off that first mortgage.

Well, yes, but it's more than that.

By paying off that first note, we will open up another$100,000 a year that we can put into money.

Uh, excuse me, the kingdom of God.

We're not going to pay interest on that anymore.

Others have said, well, is it about more staffing?

Is it about more missions programs?

And yes, yes, yes, but it's more than that.

What is it?

Well, as our subtitle says, to catalyze a culture of radical missional living.

That's what we've been saying for the last four months.

What said another way is this is about discipleship.

We are asking the Lord to deepen our discipleship, to deepen our understanding and our commitment as disciples.

What does it mean to follow the Lord Jesus Christ?

Jesus said before he ascended into heaven, he gave the command to his disciples to teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.

Do you know what Jesus talked about almost more than anything?

Money.

Why did Jesus talk so much about money in the Gospels?

Much more than he did heaven and hell, much more than he did on other subjects.

Why did he do that?

Because he knew, as he said, where your treasure is, that's where you're going to find your heart.

We are asking God to give us the privilege of going deeper and broader and helping to build the kingdom of God right here in this church, in this city, in this world.

That's what this vision is about.

These two chapters, 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and 9, are the fullest, most thorough teaching in the New Testament on the subject of generosity.

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

They just drip with all kinds of teaching and references about that.

And the Apostle Paul is writing to the church at Corinth, the church that he planted on a missionary journey, and he's appealing to them to join him and the other churches in addressing a problem.

The sermon the outline this morning, we're just going to look at the problem, we're going to look at the solution, and we're going to look at the results.

What was the problem?

The problem was that the mother church back in Jerusalem was going through extreme trials, extreme poverty.

There's reasons why.

As we read from the Book of Hebrews as well as the Book of Acts, many of these early Christians, right after Jesus' ascension, faced severe challenges.

Many of them lost their jobs because of their Christian faith.

They were excluded from the temple because of their Christian faith.

They lost so much.

And property was confiscated because of the coming of Christ.

This helps give explanation if you know the book of Acts, chapter 2, and Acts chapter 4, where we read this radical generosity by the early Christians in Jerusalem because their brothers and sisters had lots of pressing needs.

Acts 2 · chapter mention Acts 4 · chapter mention

Well, Paul, going around in his missionary journeys, has a heart to relieve the trials of the Christians in Jerusalem.

And so he's raising money to send back to Jerusalem.

He's addressing Corinth, and Corinth was relatively well off.

Corinth was like Alexandria, Washington, D.C.

It was a cosmopolitan area, doing pretty well financially, better than many parts of the world.

And Paul wants to take an offering from these churches that were doing pretty well and send it back to Jerusalem.

Because these people were in dire need.

Well, you're saying, well, what does this have to do with Corinth?

Well, he appeals to the Corinthians to take and follow the example of the Macedonians.

Now, what were the Macedonian churches?

Philippi, Berea, Thessalonica, these cities that Paul planted, they were going through extreme poverty themselves.

That's what we're reading about.

Those words are about.

And Paul is appealing to them, and he's saying, look, please, you Corinthians, join us and join the churches in Macedonia, because there's a real need in Jerusalem.

And so what we find here is this appeal by the Apostle Paul, concerned about the needs of the brothers and sisters in Jerusalem.

And now he's on his second missionary journey, taking up the collection.

He'd been in Corinth a year before when he was teaching them, planting the church, and when he told them about that need, they were very interested to be part of meeting the need.

And yet apparently something was getting in the way.

Commentators differ.

Was it the false teachers that were siphoning the money off for their own wants and desires?

We don't know exactly why, but their good intentions were starting to come to a stop.

They weren't following through on that.

This is why you have this passage that we looked at this morning.

Paul is appealing to their generosity to minister to the body of Christ.

Paul understood that the gospel always goes out in word and deed.

We talk about that a lot at APC.

We proclaim the gospel with words, yes, but also with tangible deeds, kindness, mercy.

It's always been that way.

It was said of Jesus in Luke chapter 24 after his resurrection that he was a prophet mighty in word and deed.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

You see, it's not just one or the other, it's both.

Tim Keller once said the world doesn't notice God's generosity just because we say that God is generous and just because we say that we've been changed ourselves.

Until they see us modeling God's generosity, until they see us radically generous with our money, that's when the world pays attention.

Word and deed.

You know, in the first century there was a Roman emperor named Julian.

Listen to what he said as he observed what the Christians were doing.

Not a Christian himself by any means.

Their success lies in their charity to strangers.

These pious Christians support both their own poor and our poor as well.

Now that'll get the world's attention.

That'll get the city's attention when they see Christians taking care of those in need, whether they are Christians or not.

This is the problem that Paul's addressing.

What about the solution?

Well, he gets into that in chapter 8, verse 6.

First of all, begins with intentional giving.

This is what he's appealing to the Corinthians.

This is what we would be as well.

This is our appeal.

He says, bring to completion this act of grace.

What's he doing?

He's exhorting the Corinthians to follow through on their good intentions, to contribute to the church in Jerusalem.

They've apparently many of them have stalled out.

They thought it was a good idea then, but now they're not so sure.

Paul appeals then to the Macedonian church.

These people are in extreme poverty.

That verse we read, their abundance, he's talking about the Macedonians, their abundance of joy in extreme poverty overflowed in a wealth of generosity.

How do all those things fit in one sentence?

Okay?

Their extreme trials, severe trials, their overflowing joy, their extreme poverty, and their rich generosity.

I just had a conversation between the services with one of our men about that.

How do you put joy and poverty together?

Well, it's been that way since the beginning of Christianity, where the gospel goes deep into the hearts of God's people.

This is what these Macedonians did.

They gave beyond their ability.

One way to say it that kind of fits with Matt's testimony this morning, they gave beyond where the figures added up.

That's really kind of a paraphrase of what Paul's saying.

If you put it down on paper, what can I afford to give?

They gave above and beyond that.

And yet God provided for them.

And God gave them generous hearts.

But first of all, let me put it like this: the joy always comes before the generosity.

The joy of knowing Christ, the joy of being touched by the love of God.

That comes before the generosity.

It comes with the generosity as well.

Giving generously is not a luxury of the rich, it's the joyful privilege of the poor.

Study after study that's done on Christians giving in the United States.

People who make$30,000 a year in this country give far more generously than people who make over$100,000 a year.

Isn't that sad?

What explains that?

Well, if you make more, you spend more.

Apparently.

Why do poor people generally tend to be so much more generous?

I don't profess to know everything about it, but I suppose that they have learned how to trust God day by day.

They're not living for this world.

They live with what they have, they live with what God gives them.

But they've learned how to do that, many of them.

This is what Paul is saying to the Corinthians, the relatively wealthy Corinthians, following the example of the Macedonians.

Why did they do so?

Tim Keller called this a chemical reaction.

Their joy for their salvation came into direct contact with the great needs, and an explosion of sacrificial giving followed.

I think he nailed that.

That's what's going on here.

Poverty plus gospel joy produced riches.

Some gave out of their poverty, as we see, some give away their wealth.

Man by the name of William Borden.

Randy Alcorn short shares the story in the book that Treasure Principle that Matt mentioned.

Of the Borden family, a very wealthy family.

He was a graduate from Yale University, heir to great wealth.

A man, a young man who rejected a life of ease to bring the gospel to Muslims in Egypt, refusing to even buy himself a car, gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars in his young life to missions.

After four months in Egypt of ministry, he contracted spinal meningitis and died at the age of 25.

Many people would say, what a shame, what a loss.

I don't think he would say that.

On his tombstone in Cairo are these words, apart from faith in Christ, there is no explanation for such a life.

Does that ring true?

Apart from faith in Christ, there is no explanation for such a life.

The Apostle Paul says in chapter 8, verse 7, we read it to the Corinthians, but as you excel in everything, this is a very gifted congregation in many ways.

And he spells it out.

They were gifted in faith in many ways, in speech, in knowledge, in earnestness, in love in many ways.

But then he says, But there's one thing that you're lagging behind.

And I want you to learn how to excel in this as well, in the act of giving, the act of grace.

But as you excel in everything, see that you excel in the grace of giving.

You see, friends, this sermon needs to be part of this vision, just like last week.

What does it mean to serve God with our time and our talent?

That's very important.

But it's never enough.

Why is it that?

Because God knows where our hearts are.

Jesus said, for where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be.

And sometimes we have a hard time believing that.

Sometimes we are too quick to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt.

Another survey that I've read in the past, most Christians think that they give much more than they give.

When they follow up the surveys and they say, Well, what do you think you give to the church?

They follow it up.

Why is that?

Who knows?

But we can deceive ourselves.

Jesus says, Don't deceive yourself.

Yes, God wants my time.

He wants my talents, but he also wants my treasure.

Especially because that's where my heart seems to follow.

You know, our money follows our heart.

That's just true.

And let's not give ourselves the benefit of the doubt.

Where is our heart going?

This is what Jesus is saying.

We talked about intentional giving, but secondly, the sacrificial giving.

And so the two examples that Paul points to, first of all, the Macedonians, everybody would have looked at the Macedonians and said, Well, you can't take an offering there.

They're not in a position to be able to give.

Paul says, Oh no, you don't know these people.

They insist on giving.

Well, what's the well, he says also in verse 4, they gave themselves first to the Lord.

Generous giving is one of the clearest ways that we know that the grace of God has captured us.

When God's grace touches us, we give freely.

He said to the people of the day, you earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it.

Have you ever experienced that?

Does it feel like you just can't keep your money?

It just kind of goes as quick as it comes, it just goes.

If you're gonna hold on to your money, you can put it in what you think is a safe place, and it's not a safe place.

Many, many Christians have testified that trust God with your money.

He'll make the little go far.

And he can also make that which is a lot shrink quickly.

This is the sacrificial giving is throughout the scriptures.

We read about it, Pastor Josh read earlier, King David's testimony in Chronicles.

It's just all through the scriptures.

And yet we have to we have to face facts.

Relatively few Christians today are trusting God with their money.

Relatively few.

Relatively few Christians are saying, wait a minute, God, I'm gonna I'm gonna trust you to provide for my needs.

Those are what all the surveys indicate.

Charles Spurgeon put it like this the one way that you know that Jesus is precious to you is that nothing else is as precious to you as Jesus, including your possessions.

I think Spurgeon's right.

That's what Jesus was saying.

Tom, wherever your treasure is, that's where you're gonna find your heart.

And it's true for you.

Sacrificial, intentional giving.

I read the story years ago of a little girl in a church.

I believe she was an orphan.

Her mother had given her a precious ring, and she wore that ring, and one day she was in church and they were talking about trusting Jesus, trusting God with your money, your resources.

And they asked people to come up to the front and to give their offering.

This little girl came up and took off her mother's ring and put it in the offering plate.

After the service, one of the deacons came to her and said, Honey, thank you so much.

That was so inspiring that you would do that, but you keep it.

You know what she said?

I didn't give it to you.

I gave it to God.

When you give it to God, I mean you're giving it to God.

And God can use a little, He can use your little or my little to do much good.

He's done it forever and ever.

He's still doing it today.

This is a very important truth, friends.

We need to push back against in our very materialistic culture.

God prospers us not to raise our standard of living, but to raise our standard of giving.

That is certainly one of the cardinal sins of Washington, D.C.

That is one of the biggest sins in Alexandria, Virginia, just like the rest of our relatively wealthy nation.

We get raises.

We advance in our careers.

The most natural thing in the world is to raise our standard of living.

I remember one of my elders of my first church told me, he was a certified financial planner.

He was one of the best in the country, did seminars.

He told me, Tom, you just wouldn't, you wouldn't even understand or believe how many of how many people.

He said, you know who's most in debt?

Doctors.

The doctors have the highest level of debt that he worked with in his his time, his career.

It's not how much we make.

It just really never is about that.

It's how much we give.

We don't just keep taking our lifestyle up because we can.

This is throughout the Bible.

What a testimony a lot of us men heard yesterday at the men's breakfast that touched on this.

It's just God's way of meeting his people's needs through his people.

But the the uh the Macedonians were not the biggest example of sacrificial intentional giving.

Who was it?

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that through his poverty we might become rich.

There's no example like the example of Jesus to inspire us to trust God.

Our example, Jesus didn't give out of his riches, Jesus gave away his riches.

How can we accept this kind of generosity and not pass it on to others?

But Paul's not done.

We didn't print it in the bulletin, we didn't have space.

But the next chapter, chapter 9, verse 15, at the conclusion of all this, what does the Apostle Paul say?

Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift.

At the end of it, Paul doesn't congratulate the Corinthians for their generous giving.

Nobody's taken a bow.

He says, thanks be to God for giving us the greatest gift of all, his son Jesus Christ.

Can you say that this morning?

Can you say that from your heart?

Father, thank you.

What more could you give me?

If he gave us our greatest treasure in Jesus, and if Jesus is our greatest treasure, we have to pass it on, friends.

You say, but I can't.

I don't think I have enough money left over.

Trust him.

We have to step out in faith.

That's what the Bible teaches.

Jesus Himself gave it all.

That word in the Greek, inexpressible, indescribable, what it means literally is unable to recount, unable to tell fully.

I like the way the message put it.

No language can praise it enough.

The gift.

No language can praise that gift enough.

Sacrificial living, sacrificial giving.

That's God's mission to Alexandria Presbyterian Church.

It really is.

That's his mission to me.

That's his mission to you.

Are we going to learn how to live by faith?

Are we going to take God at His Word?

Are we going to step out?

You say, Well, I need a safety net.

You know your safety net, Jesus.

You live by faith.

You step out in faith, and he's not going to let you, he's not going to abandon you.

Oh, friends, let's step up to the challenge.

It's not because of it's a vision.

It's because it's a biblical truth.

It's a promise that God makes to his people.

What about the results at the end?

What it does for us, secondly, what it does for others, thirdly, what it does for God.

What does it do for you?

You will grow spiritually like you have not grown if you do that.

I promise you.

We can't grow, not to maturity, if we aren't going to trust Him with our money.

It just doesn't work that way.

One commentator, Philip Hughes, put it like this: there is no way to grow to spiritual maturity without committing your finances to the Lord.

Jesus can have your money and not have your heart, but he cannot have your heart and not your money.

That's true.

It's so true.

I mentioned George Mueller last week.

He started the orphanage in England at one time.

He fed and took care of over 10,000 orphans, never making public appeals.

He prayed and he prayed and he prayed that God would provide.

And God never let him down.

He talks about that in his journal, in his biography.

I would strongly recommend reading his biography.

The one, the best one, in my opinion, is Delighted in God by Roger Steer.

Listen to what he says.

People often tell me that this way of living brings must bring the Lord.

I'm sorry.

He says this way of living must bring the Lord remarkably near to me.

God is every morning inspecting our stores what we have need of.

Greater and more manifest nearness of the Lord's presence I've never had than when after breakfast there was no food for dinner.

And then the Lord provided the dinner for more than 100 children.

When after the dinner there was no means for the tea, and yet God would always provide the tea.

All of this, depending on God, it has been more than once observed that such a way of living must lead the mind to be very anxious.

Not so.

I've learned to trust my father.

Now, in the first place, I answer that our minds are very little tried about the necessities in this orphanage, just because the care respecting them is placed upon my father.

I put it on my father's needs.

This not only allows us to do this, but we also have to do this.

Secondly, it must be remembered that even if our minds were anxious about the supplies for the children, yet because we look to the Lord Jesus alone for these things, we should only be brought by our sense of need into the presence of God.

This is such a blessing.

This is no injury to the soul.

Thirdly, our souls realize that for the glory of God and for the benefit of the church at large, God uses these trials to grow our faith.

It's true.

May the church of Jesus Christ, may the church of Jesus Christ take God at his word.

You'll never know until you do.

If you haven't.

Take God at His Word and see if He will not be your provider.

The results, it grows us.

Secondly, it certainly benefits the receivers.

I mentioned last week the people that have been that have been saved, converted to Christ through the transportation ministry of this church.

Those of you that go to the Senior Living Center and bring people to worship.

You know people have been saved in the last year through that ministry.

What it does for other people when we serve with our time and our talent and our treasure.

I think of the people that we're going to meet in heaven one day.

People that are going to, God's going to use the means to his ends, and he's going to use our giving.

He's going to use our trusting him with our money.

We're going to meet people in heaven who are going to have a story.

I believe that.

Don't hold on to it, friends.

It's only going to make your life more anxious.

Trust him with it.

Say, God, you know what to do with this.

I'm going to give it to you by faith.

And you take it and you use it and you bless it.

And see what he does.

Lastly, what is our giving due for God?

Paul tells us in chapter 9, verse 11.

I didn't read it, but I'm going to read it now.

He said, You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.

For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.

By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel and the generosity of your contributions for them.

God is blessed.

God is praised.

God is glorified when we trust Him with our money.

That's what He's saying.

And that's true.

God says He loves a cheerful giver.

Oh, friends, may the gospel capture our hearts in new ways.

When he gets our heart, he does get our money.

When he gets our heart, he does get our time.

He does get our talents.

He gets all of us.

When he gets our heart.

May he get more and more of my heart.

May he get more of your heart.

So that he will be praised and he will be glorified.

And many people around us will be blessed.

Would you pray with me?

Father, thank you.

Thank you for being such a generous giver.

Jesus, through your prop poverty, we are rich.

Lord, it doesn't matter what's in our bank accounts.

If we have Christ, we have everything.

We are rich indeed.

And we're going to know that better one day than we know it now.

Oh, Father, help us to see our true riches today, right now, in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Help us to live by faith.

Help us to be generous givers.

Lord, take all this and use this for your glory.

In the good of many, we pray.

In Christ's name, amen.