Am I Asserting Myself In My Giving?

Father, thank you for your word.

Thank you, Father, that your word is a letter directed to us,

that you want to speak to us and tell us your heart.

Tell us who we really are.

Tell us the hope that we have in you.

Father, we thank you that you speak, that you speak in a powerful way.

And we ask that your Holy Spirit would move mightily within us

so that your word might enter into us

and that in our day-to-day lives, in our dealings with people,

we will bear fruit that brings you glory.

And this we ask in Jesus' name, your Son and our Savior. Amen.

Please be seated.

So, money and God and you and me.

Now that I've got your attention.

You know, one of the great fears in our culture is that churches just go on and on and on and on and on about money.

And the fact of the matter is that there are some churches that go on and on and on and on about money.

I can just tell you from experience that most pastors are terrified about talking about money.

And in fact, I would say that in general, Anglicans are amongst the most terrified to talk about money.

And I have to confess, I have...

I'm not afraid of talking about money.

I'm getting old and grumpy and cranky and all that type of stuff.

So, I don't know.

You just talk about money and people unhappy.

There you go.

That's life.

You know.

Anyway, why am I a bit shy about talking about money?

Because I'm a Canadian, eh?

And originally, how we pick sermon topics here, if you're a guest this morning, what we do is we preach through books of the Bible.

That's what we do.

I'll often ask the congregation to pray as I try to pick the next book that we're going to study together.

And so I pick that we're going to do 2 Corinthians.

And I divide it up into 19 bits.

And I look at the different weeks.

And I know that chapter 8 and 9 of 2 Corinthians is going to talk about money.

But the way it was originally divided up, because next Sunday and the Sunday after and then Christmas, I do sort of Christmassy Advent sermons.

So originally, I was actually going to be talking about money in the first three Sundays of January.

I mean, the 8th and on.

And I was actually pretty happy about that, because I thought, you know, this is a nice, shy, self-effacing way of talking about money.

You're not obviously just trying to talk about money to get the money in at the end of the year.

But then, the bishop didn't want to preach.

So I preached.

And this is the first fall in about five years we haven't had a guest speaker in the fall.

So last week, I talked about money.

It got moved forward.

And this week, I talked about money as well.

Because 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and 9 is the longest sustained treatment of money in the Bible.

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

And so, we're going to talk about money.

And so here, if you're a guest here this morning, and especially if you, mainly, especially if you haven't given your life to Jesus,

this is my opportunity to tell you that if you read 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, what God wants to say to you,

as you're trying to figure out, I mean, maybe you got dragged here with a friend, maybe you're a seeker,

maybe you've been here for quite a few weeks just trying to figure out what you believe.

But the Bible is pretty clear that if you haven't given your life to Jesus, God is actually pretty happy if you don't put any money in the plate

or make any donation to this or any other church.

So, what we're going to do today then, if you're here in that state, this is a perfect chance to pretend the year is 1886.

And unlike 1886, where it would have just been a men's club, you've gone back to some adventurers club and you're an anthropologist.

And, you know, the sherry is out, the cigars are out, and an anthropologist is going to report on this strange tribe,

smoke the cigar, and how they think about money.

And you're that anthropologist, you're getting to sit back there with your sherry and your cigar,

listening to how this strange tribe called Christians talk about money.

That's the attitude you can have this morning, because we're just going to listen to not what churches do, but what the Bible says.

So, if you have your Bibles, turn in them to 2 Corinthians chapter 8, beginning at verse 9.

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible with you, you can go get one here, or you can use the YouVersion app on your phone.

And if you go to events, you actually have the sermon notes there now with events this Sunday as well.

So, let's read the Bible together.

2 Corinthians chapter 8, verses 9.

2 Corinthians 8:9

We'll start reading at verse 9.

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.

And so just want to pause here for a second.

And it's very, very interesting that this long section, as I said, it's the longest section in the Bible that talks about money.

And it's really interesting.

Most of the other places in the Bible, not all of them, but most of the other places that talk about money in the Bible,

it's often done, it's not maybe always obvious immediately if you just read it superficially,

but it's often done within the context of discussing idolatry.

And the great problem that money can have in many of our lives of becoming a type of idol that justifies us,

that gives our lives meaning, that just guides, directs, grounds, gives the narrative by which we understand our lives.

And money has this great power to do that.

And usually in the Bible, when it talks about money, it's dealing with that power of money as an idol.

But chapter 8 and 9, it doesn't mention idolatry at all.

It's all a discussion around money, all connected to the grace of God.

It's very, very interesting.

In fact, from a literary level, verse 9, the first verse that I read,

that actually casts its light of understanding to the eight verses prior,

and to the, I don't know what it is, like 25 verses or something like that,

or 35 verses that come afterwards.

It's all sort of understood from this perspective of verse 9.

So if you could put verse 9 up, could you just all say this with me together?

Because if nothing else, this is such a beautiful verse.

I'm going to explain it a little bit more in a moment.

Such a beautiful verse.

It's a really good verse to memorize.

Can you say it with me?

So just before I explain that, here's the first point.

If you could put it up.

God's grace is real and shapes me to accomplish things in the real world.

God's grace is real and shapes me to accomplish things in the real world.

One of the things which is very powerful in our culture is that spirituality and religion should just be private.

It's about, you know, that's why in our culture, if somebody was to tell me they have this particular belief in native spirituality,

like at a party or something like that,

or some type of spells or something that they do or some little type of ritual,

if I was to start to actually go after them on that and say,

well, how on earth can you believe that stuff?

Like what, you actually believe the earth is like on a turtle or something like that?

Or that, I don't know, like a fish spit you out and that's how the entire universe came to be?

Or like, how on earth can you believe in spells?

Like if I was to go after somebody at a party like that in Canada, everybody would hate me.

Right?

Because in Canada, spirituality and religion is supposed to be private.

And, you know, and it's just something, if it gives you a sense of hope and gives you a sense of meaning,

and if it doesn't bother anybody, then it's fine.

That is a good thing, you know?

And people don't actually want to ask the question about things like spirituality and religion.

They don't want to ask the truth question.

They don't want to say, is this possibly true?

In the same way that mathematics is true?

Or in the same way that you would say Sir John A. MacDonald was the first prime minister of Canada being true?

In the way that lawyers try to explain and try to understand what really happened in the case.

And that whole question of truth is a very, Canadians don't like to ask that question whatsoever.

And so religion and spirituality is to be very, very private.

It's just to be very, very personal.

And we get frightened.

Canadians get very frightened with the idea that religion might have some type of public impact.

Sharia law.

It's very frightening to a lot of Canadians that there might be a way of understanding religion and spirituality

that has such a bad impact on how we live.

And it's in that context, it's very hard for us to grasp that the Christian faith is at the very, very center making a truth claim.

Like when we hear,

It's not just that the Bible is giving us an interesting story or an interesting idea.

It's not telling us that we should try to feel something.

It's actually making it a very big truth claim.

And if that big truth claim is true, if it's false, then you shouldn't have anything to do with Christianity.

Paul actually says that in his first letter to Corinth in 1 Corinthians 15,

where he connects the Christian faith as being all rising and falling on the death and resurrection of Jesus.

And he says,

If Jesus didn't really die on the cross and really taste all there is to taste of death,

and didn't really, on the third day, defeat death and that which causes death,

and rise so that death no longer has a hold of him.

If that didn't really happen, then you guys are really wasting your time.

And in fact, you know what?

We should just go and have some good food and some good wine and have a good time

and just don't bother with all this stuff.

So at the heart of this wonderful sounding verse is this very, very big truth claim

that if it's not true, you should ignore it.

We should all leave.

We should all leave.

And Tim Hortons fans and McDonald's fans and Starbucks fans,

we all divide into our different tribes and just go have a good time and move on.

But if it's true, it affects how we understand economics.

It affects how we understand politics.

It affects how we understand literature and communication and social work

and even physics and biology and geology.

It's something that if this is true, it has to affect the real world

and how we think about the real world and how we live in the real world.

Because when it says,

For the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

that though he was rich, what it's saying is that God, the Son of God,

the second purse of Trinity, that before there was Jesus, that God, the Son of God,

not reincarnation, but that God, the Son of God,

lived in heaven with heaven's glory and heaven's splendor

and his unbroken relationship and fellowship with the Father.

And that he looked down at the earth and human beings were in rebellion against God.

Human beings weren't all organizing petitions saying,

God, please come and save us.

No, human beings, we loved our idols.

We loved having God at a distance.

We loved doing what we wanted to do.

We loved that our king was a God or our queen was a God.

We loved these things.

But God, the Son of God, looking down at human need

and seeing that even though we seem to be both happy and sad,

we were in effect deeply poor and that we were going to die

and we were separate from God and we would be eternally separate from God

and we could not save or help ourselves.

And God, the Son of God, in his honor, in his glory,

in the riches and splendor and protection and safety of heaven,

out of love for us, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.

And the text is saying that God, the Son of God,

takes upon, without stopping being God,

he sets aside his appearance as God,

his powers as God, his prerogatives as God,

his environment as God.

He sets all of these things aside, but he doesn't stop being God.

He, in a sense, empties himself of all of that,

strips himself of all of that,

and takes into himself our human nature.

And he's born in the womb of a poor Jewish,

low-income Jewish girl in an unimportant part of a large empire,

not ruled by Jews but by Romans.

And Mary was neither Roman, the powerful group,

nor did she even part of the linguistic group,

which was Greek, which was how most people spoke.

And Jesus goes through, I mean, his conception is miraculous,

an act of creation by God.

But he lives a lower working class life in obscurity.

He lives a normal life.

And then he has a three-year teaching ministry

where many start to think very highly of him,

and many hate him.

And eventually, the political and educational and legal

and cultural and religious and spiritual establishments

combine to have him put to death for their good.

And many people agreed with it.

And you can't be poorer than dead.

And so this Bible text is saying this,

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.

That God does this spectacular, powerful act.

And that's why miracles are so important to the Christian faith.

It's the miracles.

You know, Jesus says,

Is it easy?

Is it easy?

You know, only God can forgive sins.

I've just forgiven that person's sins.

Well, to show you that I have the authority to give you people sins,

I'm going to heal this guy.

And he heals them.

And he tells people time and time and time again,

I came to die upon the cross.

I'm going to go to Jerusalem.

There's going to be a time I go to Jerusalem.

They're going to capture me.

I'm going to let that all happen.

I came for this very purpose.

I'm going to be denied by people.

I came for this very purpose.

I'm going to become even poorer.

I came for this very purpose.

I am going to die upon the cross.

I came for this purpose.

I'm going to die upon the cross,

bearing all human rebellion and sin

and all the punishment that that deserves.

And I came to die upon the cross for that very purpose.

And I will die as the Lamb of God

who takes away the sin of the world.

And then on the third day,

I will rise triumphant over sin and death.

And the resurrection of Jesus,

all of that's in history.

His teaching in history.

His words recorded in history.

His miracles in history.

His death in history.

The empty tomb in history.

The resurrection appearances in history.

It's real in the real world.

And now, for those of you who know the first law of thermodynamics,

when it says that there's basically,

there's no energy created or whatever,

there's always,

the amount of energy in a closed system is always the same.

You have to remember that it says a closed system.

Creation is not a closed system.

God acts.

When you're looking at human origins,

when you're looking at about gender,

about sexuality,

all of a sudden now,

God who has acted in real time,

in real history,

it's real.

And it's going to affect how we think about men and women.

And how we think about science.

And that's what God's intended.

And so what the text is saying here

is that God's grace is real

and it shapes me to accomplish things in the real world.

That's why there's going to be,

it's going to have an impact

on my financial generosity,

on money.

Because money is real.

For some of us,

it's way too real.

It's way too big.

But the text isn't talking about that.

It's saying,

I just want,

Paul is saying,

be gripped by this truth.

Think about this.

God himself does something in the real world.

And as grace comes into your life,

it's going to mean you do things in the real world

that are shaped and pulled and molded and grounded by grace.

And that's why in the text,

if you go back to the text

and look at what it says in verse 10.

And in this matter,

this is the matter of giving money

to help Jewish Christians in Jerusalem.

And he's writing to a group of non-Jews,

primarily in Greece.

And he's saying in verse 10,

and in this matter,

I give my judgment.

This benefits you.

That's a hard thing for us to understand.

It's not part of this sermon.

But Jesus says it's better,

it's more blessed to give than to receive.

And if that's true,

then giving is actually,

if this is true,

if Jesus,

if it's true

that generosity benefits us,

then bumper stickers that say,

he who dies with the most toys wins

is the dumbest possible bumper sticker.

It's even dumber,

it's not dumber,

the bumper sticker that says,

I stop for elves and fairies

and, you know,

a whole pile of other imaginary creatures

that nobody sees except myself,

that's cute.

And it's sort of humorous.

But it's not humorous when it says,

the person who dies with the most toys wins.

It's about the generosity,

giving is the highest form of living.

Anyway,

but here it is,

verse 10,

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.

So that's the first big thing here,

that God's grace is real

and shapes me

to accomplish things

in the real world.

And that's going to affect our money.

Now, for some people,

what I've just described

is deeply frightening.

And if we're honest,

there have been times in our lives,

maybe for us right now,

that it's a deeply frightening thing.

It's a very, very different thing

to think that basically

at the end of the day,

fundamentally,

that religion and spirituality

is about having a sense of peace,

having a sense of order,

having a sense of wholeness,

having a bit of a sense of purpose,

and maybe helping you

do a little bit of good things

for other people,

and it helps you to be more calm.

And all of these things

are very, very good.

But it's really still

all primarily about me, right?

And now all of a sudden

to talk about a real God

who really, in a sense,

invades, without human permission,

invades our world,

and acts on his own terms

in our world,

a real God

who really comes

and really acts

is very frightening.

It's very, very frightening.

He's really big.

He demands,

He can demand

all things.

And there can be

a loss of my freedom

and a loss of my identity.

And there's a deep fear

that many Canadians have

that such a real God

will threaten their freedom

and their identity.

Could you put

the verse 9 up?

Could you all say this

with me again, please?

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 then just continuing on,

listen again

to verses 10

and following

just after this.

And in this matter,

that's a financial generosity,

not benefiting themselves,

but in fact,

Jewish Christians

living in a different continent.

And in this matter,

I give my judgment.

This benefits you.

And notice it says,

I give you my judgment.

It's not a command.

It's encouragement.

Right?

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.

Here's the big verse

for if the readiness

is there,

it is acceptable

according to what

a person has,

not according

to what he does not have.

The readiness,

the desire,

has to be there first.

That's what God's saying.

That's what the gospel does.

That's what this text does.

Like,

in a sense,

the text is saying,

you know,

listen,

how does salvation work here?

God is trying to say,

listen,

human beings,

just try to understand

here first.

How do you fundamentally

know me?

I want you to fundamentally

know me.

I want you to fundamentally

understand my word

by understanding verses

like chapter,

2 Corinthians 8,

2 Corinthians 8:9

verse 9.

First of all,

that it is grace,

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.

I,

the Father,

the Son,

and the Holy Spirit,

we do this for you

willingly.

We do this

voluntarily.

We do this

freely,

out of our freedom.

You know,

a couple of months ago

I had a long,

long half an hour talk

in my favorite Starbucks

with two Jehovah Witnesses,

one who had just come back

from the mission field.

And I began

as we got into

the differences,

you know,

between me and me.

And I said,

one of the things,

one of the things

I'm not a reason,

you can't be a Jehovah,

I don't think you can,

I would never be

a Jehovah Witnesses,

it doesn't understand love.

It can't account for love.

I said,

only the Christian faith

really accounts for love.

They denied it,

of course.

They said,

because we believe

the Bible.

But I said,

no,

no,

no.

You see,

the thing is

that you just believe

there's a single God.

And so,

why on earth

does God create?

Is it because

he needs to have

human beings

so he will love?

How can,

if there's just

a single God,

how can God be love

if there's just

a single God?

But the Bible reveals

that there's the Father

and the Son

and the Holy Spirit

and from all eternity

the Father has poured out

his love to the Son.

And from all eternity

the Son has poured out

his love to the Father.

And there's even

Bible passages

that sometimes describe

the nature of the Holy Spirit

is that very

interchange,

interchange,

this constant

back and forward

and flow of love

that that's what

the Holy Spirit is.

And so,

God does not have

to create human beings

because he needs us.

He doesn't relate to us

out of need love.

He relates to us

out of this

because he is love.

And it is of the nature

of love to create.

And it's of the nature

of love to be generous

and to pour yourself out

and to go out.

And that's who God is.

And so,

on one hand,

it can be very,

very frightening

to think that God

relates to us

not out of need love

but out of just

pure love.

Pure,

unadulterated,

bottomless,

unstoppable love.

That's how he relates

to us.

And it's free.

It desires.

It just,

that's how God is.

And so,

when God's grace

comes into our lives,

it starts to break down

those things,

those fortresses

and the selfishness

in our lives,

in our real lives,

in how we really live.

That's how God's grace

is going to work

because God wants us

to be free,

to be voluntary,

to be willing.

If you could put it up,

that's the next point.

God's grace is real

and shapes me

to freely

and willingly

desire to give.

God's grace is real

and shapes me

to freely

and willingly

desire to give.

God does not need

our money.

He doesn't need

you and me.

He loves you and me.

That's why

he became poor

so that you and I

through his poverty

might become rich.

It's an act of freedom.

And especially,

here's the thing

about true freedom.

Okay,

I'm not putting

anybody down.

It doesn't take

much freedom

freedom

to just say,

you know what,

I don't care about

my responsibilities

as a husband

or as a dad

or a child.

You know what,

I'm just going to

sit on my butt

this afternoon

and I'm going to

down a 12-pack

and eat a whole pile

of potato chips

and watch football.

Well,

that's,

I mean,

you're free to do that,

but that's not

exactly the high-water

mark of human freedom.

Like,

going out on a

Friday night

and getting plastered

is not the high-water

mark of human freedom.

The high-water mark

of human freedom

is to do hard things.

The more free you are,

you are free

to do hard things.

You are free

to start to try

to forgive.

You are free

to start to be

more generous.

You are free

to keep your promises

even to your hurt.

You are free

to give of your time

or to go

where you don't

by your very nature

and flesh want to go.

That's the mark

of human freedom.

And that's what grace

brings into our lives.

And that's why,

in a sense,

this text is saying,

you know what,

when it comes time

to pass the plate

or when you're thinking

about the financial needs

of this church,

you know,

in a sense,

God is saying to you,

you know what,

if you don't want to give,

don't give.

I don't want your money.

That's what God's saying.

I don't want your money.

You know,

quite a few years ago,

I got invited

into another province

to go speak

at a variety of things

over the weekend.

And these two couples,

because they wanted

to honor me,

they wanted to take me

out for supper.

And I said,

okay,

you don't have to take me

out for supper.

You know,

I'm a simple guy.

I'm quite happy.

No, no,

we want to take you out.

I said,

well,

okay,

listen,

you know,

there's these sports bars

in town.

Like,

I'm quite happy

just going to a sports bar

or just like a,

you know,

a local place

where local,

but no,

they had this,

this community

had to drive

about 20 minutes,

half an hour,

but there was something

the equivalent

of the Chateau Laurier

for that area.

And they had to take me there.

And I said,

you know,

really,

I'm,

I'm actually,

you know,

I have nine kids,

you know,

we don't eat in places

like the Chateau Laurier

when you have nine kids,

you know,

we,

if you even eat it out at all,

it's McDonald's,

okay,

I'm quite happy at McDonald's

or Subway

or something like that.

I'm quite happy

with the pizza deal

from the local pizza place.

And,

you know,

just pick up the beer

yourselves

and save a lot of money.

No,

no,

it had to be the Chateau Laurier,

the equivalent of the Chateau Laurier.

So they go there

and it's just like,

I maybe had,

you know,

I don't go to these places

very often,

but I've been

and you look at it

and in today's dollars,

I don't know,

like the entrees were,

the cheapest entree

was like 14 bucks.

I mean,

not appetizer,

okay,

and it goes up from there,

like,

you know,

lots of money

and they literally,

they look at the menu

and I can hear them gasp.

And I say to them again,

you know what,

we haven't ordered anything,

let's just sleep out.

You know,

there was some real,

all these sports bars along here.

I'm actually quite,

no,

they had to do it.

Both couples

only ordered one main dish,

no entrees

and shared it

and you could just tell,

you could just,

I mean,

God love them,

but you could just tell

that when it came time

to get the money

out of their fingers,

it was just like this

and in a sense,

the owner of the restaurant

had to sort of pull

every single penny.

You know what,

that was a miserable meal

for me.

It was really miserable.

I didn't enjoy a bite,

I didn't enjoy my time

because,

and God knows your heart

and you know,

frankly,

God is saying here

in this text,

if you're not interested,

you know,

it's a grace issue

and it's not being judgmental,

it's a grace issue,

it's being gripped

with the gospel,

that's what it is

and you know,

frankly,

if you're giving

out of some sense

of obligation,

some sense

that you have to do this,

if it's some type

of manipulation,

God's saying in a sense,

you know,

I'm just,

you don't have to give,

I don't want it.

That's why this willingness

is so important

in the text.

Now,

here's another thing

that's,

here's another big,

you know,

some people say,

George,

here's the problem

with this

and here's the problem

with grace,

here's the problem,

you know,

I think religious people

are very impractical,

doesn't Jesus say somewhere

whenever anybody asks,

you have to give

and George,

do you realize

just there's this

black hole,

there's this sucking

black hole

of human need

and George,

if you start me

down this path

of the sucking

black hole,

bottomless pit

of human need,

it's going to consume me,

grace doesn't make

any sense.

Well,

the Bible here

is addressing this

particular fear.

Let's,

could we all say

verse 9 again?

Could you put it up?

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 then continue

reading on

from verse 11.

So now finish

doing it as well

so that your readiness

in desiring it,

that's in being

financially generous,

may be matched

by your completing it

out of what

you have.

Notice that?

Out of what you have.

for if the readiness

is there,

it is acceptable

according to

what a person

has,

not according to

what he does not have.

And then it's very interesting,

I do not mean that

others should be eased

and you burdened,

but that is a matter

of fairness.

And some of your Bibles

say equality.

Both words are good.

I'll explain it in a moment.

Your abundance

at the present time

should supply their need

so that their abundance

may supply your need,

that there may be fairness

or equality

or interdependence.

As it is written,

and here he quotes

a text about the manna

in the wilderness,

whoever gathered much

had nothing left over

and whoever gathered little

had no lack.

If you could put up

the point,

God's grace is real

and shapes me

to understand

that nothing I have

is mine,

it is manna.

Whatever my IQ is,

whatever my health is,

whatever my time is,

whatever my bank balance is,

whatever my educational

achievement is,

whatever my EQ is,

emotional quotient,

whatever my AQ is,

my attitude quotient,

whatever I'm blessed with

because I was born in Canada

and not in another country,

all of these things

at the end of the day

it's manna.

It's not mine.

It doesn't mean when I say

it's not mine

that it's the government's.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Kathleen Wynne

and Justin Trudeau

and Donald Trump,

just to cover the whole

political spectrum.

When it says

it's not mine,

it doesn't mean

therefore, ha ha,

it's Ontario's,

Canada's or Trump's.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

It's manna

under my care,

not the government's

under my care.

It's manna.

And this is a very,

very powerful thing.

You see, once again,

how does grace work, right?

For the grace of our,

if we 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.

Our deepest human need

is our alienation

from our creator

and because we are alienated

from our creator

from the entire created order.

And how is that solved?

It's solved by God.

How much of it,

is it like solved

99% by God

and 1% by me?

No, it's actually solved

110% by God,

200% by God,

0% by me.

All by God.

And it's this sense

of the God's grace

coming into our lives

and that we're rooted in grace,

that that's become

the story of our life,

that it becomes

what shapes us

and what grounds us.

We start to realize

that everything we have

is ultimately something

that God has given us.

And I don't know

why God gave some people

a lot of resources

and others very little resources,

but whatever it is,

the story of the manna

is very, very interesting.

And by the way,

the story of the manna

doesn't show that it's all equal,

that it all comes by provision

because in the nation of Israel,

as in the wilderness

and there's no food,

every day God,

as his provision,

for six days of the week

he provides this substance

on the ground

that people could gather.

And people who gathered a lot

they could gather a lot,

they could gather a little.

The implication is

that at the end of the day,

that at the end,

the next day it was all,

it would rot overnight.

You had to pick it up every day.

And as a miracle,

on the sixth day,

it wouldn't rot on the seventh day.

It would last for two days

to show that it came from God.

And so it would create

within this community,

not only do you

take a lot or a little,

but if at the end of the day,

you know,

you picked up not enough,

that the community

would have enough as a whole

so that you could go

to your neighbor and say,

I forgot to pick up

enough manna for supper.

And, you know,

my cousin Abe

has come to visit

with his, you know,

his 18 kids.

And, you know,

he can go around

and there'd always be

enough manna.

And so this text

isn't teaching,

it's teaching us,

it's helping the people

in Corinth to say,

no, no,

you're thinking

as if, okay,

you're Greeks,

you're in Corinth,

and it's all yours.

No, no,

God's community,

it now involves people

in Philippi and Berea

and involves Romans

and it involves Samaritans

and it involves Jewish people

and it involves people

who are culturally

different than you

and God only has one people.

And God is ultimately

giving you manna.

And the image here,

it's another time

that I went out for supper

and this was when I was building

and helping to build

an organization

and a donor was there

and he wanted me

and this other minister

to go with a couple

of other people

who had pretty good

financial means

and we were going to be doing

a whole series of things.

In fact,

we'd been doing some things

the other day

and he said,

let's all go out for supper

and so we all go out

for supper

and we go to this place

and to my horror,

it's even more expensive

than places like

the Chateau Laurier.

Like,

I look at it

and I think,

I'm going to maybe have

a half salad

in this meal

because that's probably

all I can afford.

But I happen to be

sitting beside the guy

who'd invited me

and the other minister

and then there's about,

I think there's about

four or five other people

and just as the menu comes,

he just whispers to me,

he said,

listen,

this is on me.

And then I noticed him

go to the other minister

on the other side,

another young,

I was young at the time,

a long,

long time ago

and he whispers

to the other guy,

this is on me.

He doesn't make it

for everybody.

This is on me.

Order what you want.

It's on me.

That's the image

here in the text.

Okay?

That's the image.

He didn't pick up

the bill for everybody.

He didn't pick up

the bill,

all of my bills

for the rest of my life.

He picked up the bill

for that particular thing.

And that's the significance

you see of this

particular text as well.

Is that the text is saying

as grace comes

into our lives,

it means that we start

to look across

cultural lines

and ethnic lines

and race lines

to other believers

who are all part

of this one family.

God only has

this one family

of people.

He only has

this one body.

And that's how grace

is supposed to work.

The grace is supposed

to be the great destroyer

of racism

and the great destroyer

of hating women

or hating men

or hating anybody.

It's to be this great destroyer

and to change the way

we look

and to change our understanding

of the resources

that it's manna

that comes to our hand.

And you know what?

You know,

Shirley can tell you

we get a constant stream

of requests for money

from the church

and you can't,

you only can deal

with what you have

but the fact of the matter

is that a church

has to always be thinking

of what it can do

beyond its borders.

A church that only thinks

about using the money

for itself

isn't a church

rooted in grace.

But just because

you're looking

beyond your borders

it's, you know,

it's why I'm so glad

that we have a missionary

from our family,

you know,

people from our church family

in Nigeria

and we have somebody

in Egypt

and we have somebody

in Zambia

and we have,

you know,

we have somebody

in a country

that I can't say in public

because it's closed

to religion

and another country

that's sort of closed

and it's so good

and we give to that

and we give to other

types of things

and that's,

but we only can give

what we have

but we can all,

we would have

a very,

very generous heart

and always ask God

can we give more?

Can we give more?

Not,

not,

it's not,

Lord,

everything is just

falling apart

and we have to be

really tight.

No,

can we give more?

Can we give more?

That's the grace question.

Can we give more?

Now here,

just one final thing

we have to sort of

wrap it up.

You know,

so normally I have

these but George moments

I shared it with last week.

I start to walk like this,

but George,

I start,

but here's now

a but Canada question,

not a but George question,

but a Canada question,

human being question.

Here's the problem.

Not only do human beings

are we grudging

and giving,

but a lot of times

when human beings give,

they have a whole pile

of agendas.

People give

to assert

their self

in giving.

People give

to justify themselves.

People give

to show off.

People give

in some way

so they get a pass

and having to deal

with other things.

People give

to put God

in their debt.

I know there were people,

those of you

who haven't been going

here very long,

when we walked away

from our building

because we wanted

to honor God

and we felt

we had to honor God

by walking away

from our building.

I know there were

many people

who thought that God

would give us a building

within two years.

Why?

Because they believed

that we had put God

in our debt.

And we human beings,

let's read that

verse 9 again.

Can we read it again?

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.

I can never put God

in my debt.

The gospel

is all about

the fact that

God does

everything for me.

He is the one

who complete,

Jesus is the one

who by his work

upon the cross

has redeemed me.

He is the one

who gives me grace today.

He is the one

who will give me

grace tomorrow.

That I'm to be

responsive to grace

but I can never

put God in my debt.

And it's not about

me asserting myself

in giving.

You know,

in the early days

in this church

there was a couple

of people

when I came to this church

you know,

there was a couple

of people

who they'd had

a,

prior to me coming

the rector would go

to them at the end

of the year

to help make up

the financial need

and I didn't do that.

I've never done that.

And I know that it

sort of bothered

this one person.

You know,

because at the end

of the day

he liked to assert

himself in giving.

But here's the text.

If you read

not only verse 9

but just listen

to how it goes on

from verse 16.

But thanks be to God

who put into

the heart of Titus

the same earnest care

I have for you

for he not only

accepted our appeal

but being himself

very earnest

he is going to you

of his own accord.

With him we are

sending the brother

who is famous

among all the churches

for his preaching

of the gospel.

And not only that

but he has been

appointed by the churches

to travel with us

as we carry out

this act of grace

that is being

ministered by us.

Grace means

it's ultimately

from God.

It's just being

ministered by us.

Why is it being done?

For the glory

of the Lord himself.

For the glory

of the Lord himself.

And to show

our goodwill.

That's why

if you could put up

the final point

God's grace

is real

and shapes me

to give

so people are blessed

and the Lord

gets all the glory.

It's a profound

challenge

for us to think

that

we put God

in our debt.

It's a profound

challenge

to think

that we assert

ourselves

with our giving.

It's a profound

challenge

to thinking

that giving

somehow justifies

ourselves.

It's a profound

challenge

to think

that giving

is somehow

a matter of us

showing off.

That the grace

comes into our life.

It comes into

our life

to shape us

so that we start

to die

to these things

and have a desire

and have a desire

to give

in such a way

that we don't care

if we get a plaque

on it at the end

or get our paper

in the National Post

or the Citizen

or the Globe and Mail

because we went

to a fundraiser.

Some of us have been

in those pictures

but that's not the goal.

If they take your picture

they take your picture

right?

But it's not the goal.

So just in closing here

just to wrap it up

I just want to share

a couple of little things

about being generous.

The first one

is once again

about tithing.

I don't think

the Bible teaches

the New Testament

teaches that Christians

have to tithe.

I think tithing

is a rule of thumb.

I'll give you

an illustration.

The last summer job

I had before

I got ordained

a friend of mine

hired me to do

he had a small

construction company

hired me to work for him

and if some of you

have heard before

when it comes

to being competent

with a hammer

I have two left feet.

I don't have

two left hands

I have two left feet

I'm so incompetent

with hammers.

But he had to do

a lot of work

in some rural areas

or just outside of Ottawa

where he had to have

digging done

around septic systems

and he knew

George can dig

and George can take

shingles up on roofs

and George can lug wood

and George can do

all this simple meat

and that was fine

I was very happy.

But there came a time

he said

I want you to nail

in these boards

I think it was part

of a deck

and I want them

to be close together.

Okay?

So I said

I don't know

what that means.

He said

well I want them

to be close together.

And I said

I don't know

what that means.

He said

close together

just like you normally

do on a deck.

I said

okay time out

Rex

like I really

literally don't know

what you mean.

like a 32nd

of an inch apart

16th of an inch

an 8th of an inch

a quarter of an inch

half an inch

I don't know

what you mean.

I have no rule

of I don't know

what you mean.

Then he realized

oh yeah yeah yeah

George is completely

clueless.

Like when it comes

to carpentry

George is dumber

than a bag of rocks.

Okay so he took

pity on me

and he laid them out

so I had a rule of thumb.

And I think

that's the same

with tithing

in the Bible

for the New Testament.

You can see here

this grace thing

some people grace

is going to so affect

their lives

become like

Mother Teresa.

God doesn't call

all of us

to be like

Mother Teresa

where you literally

have nothing

everything that comes

in just goes out

for the poor.

Most of us

aren't called to that

but the Bible

gives us a bit

of rule of thumb

as terms of

what to look towards

what to move towards.

The 10% of our income

we give to the church

that's doing God's will

and then beyond that

we give to other things

that are continuing

to do to God's will

and that's what

we move towards.

And that's

so when it's

talking about

generosity in the real world

that's the rule of thumb.

I think that's what

the New Testament teaches

and the Bible

as a whole teaches.

And some grace

the grace of giving

will be well beyond that

and by that

I don't mean rich people

and many of you know

that it's often

in poor countries

that people are

vastly more generous

even though they have

very little money.

And the other thing

I guess I would just say

to you is that

for Louise and me

when we got challenged

about tithing

because we were not

even remotely

close to tithing

the time I was

getting paid

once a month

we just thought

we'd take a step

of faith

to start adding

twenty dollars.

And you know what

the world didn't collapse

we didn't all of a sudden

have no money to eat

and then we trusted

God with another twenty

in a month.

Oh okay

we still ate this month.

The kids still have clothes

and the house

still has heat

and that we just

but you have to begin

like begin today

or begin tomorrow

and begin where you are.

And the main thing

is to be gripped

by the gospel.

Just one other thing

I want to share with you

as a practical matter

for Louise and me

it's far easier

if we pay God first.

I'm just sharing with you

some practical thing

we've learned.

When the pay comes in

I mean

it would either be

setting an EFT

or just

I literally take the money

out of the bank

when my pay comes in.

I do that first.

The second thing I do

is move my money

from the account

the bank

to the account

where I pay my bills.

I do those two things first

and then I try to live on

we try to live on the rest.

And that's just

a practical thing

that I've learned.

In the Bible

it's called

The First Fruits

but I just want to

share that with you.

But the main thing

is to be gripped by grace.

As God grips us

with what he's done

for us in his son

it changes us

for real

and for good.

And it's not

legalism

it's not rules

it's not earning

God's favor

it's being gripped

by what God

has done for you

in the person

of his son.

Please stand.

Let's bow our heads

in prayer.

Father thank you

for Jesus.

Thank you Father

for God

the Son of God

the second person

of the Trinity.

Thank you Father

that even though

we human beings

didn't want a Savior

didn't think we needed

a Savior

weren't looking

for a Savior

hadn't asked you

for a Savior

Father

you knew we needed

a Savior.

You knew our true

and deepest need.

You knew that we

needed to be reconciled

to you

that you loved us

but we had a big problem

and you knew

that we had a big problem

and we couldn't help

ourselves

and still you loved us.

Still you sent your Son

to die upon the cross

for us.

Still you sent your Son

to become poorer

than poor could be

so that we

when we put our faith

and trust in your Son

Jesus

become rich in him.

Father

we ask that you

make us disciples

of Jesus

who are gripped

by the gospel

and learning to live

free

and whole

for your glory.

Free and whole

and generous

for your great glory

and the good

of this created order

and the whole world.

Father

make us such

disciples of Jesus

this we pray

in Jesus' name.

Amen.