The Church | A Generous People - 2 Corinthians 8:1-15 (Nov 5) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Let's pray together.

Father, we bow in your presence, God, to experience everything that we just sang about.

And God, we give you all the praise that Jesus Christ, the one who has defeated death and entered into new resurrected life, Lord, He did that for us so that we might experience that victory too, Lord.

And we thank you, God, that you are bringing us from defeat to victory, from death to life.

And God, we recognize in moments like this where the presence of your Spirit is with us and the power of your spirit is for us, God, these are moments that you're calling us to enter into the victory that you have won for us in Christ.

And so we pray, Lord, in every way.

God, that as we open up your word, as we hear of all that you have to say to us, that that would be us experiencing the victory that you have won for us, Lord.

That would be you resurrecting us to new life.

God, we give you all the praise.

We pray this in the name of your Son.

Amen.

Amen.

As you take your seat, you can grab your copy of God's Word and turn it to 2 Corinthians chapter 8.

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

If you don't have a copy of God's word, the ushers are making their way to the front of the worship center right now.

And if you stick your hand in the air, they're gonna get a copy of God's word into your hands.

And if you don't own a Bible for yourself, we would just ask you to keep this.

This would really bless us if you would take this home and read it for yourself, trusting that you have found in this book words of life.

Now, many of you, uh, we saw each other on Friday night, this past Friday, where we were at our worship and prayer night, our regional worship and prayer night.

And I gotta tell you, that was such an incredibly encouraging time.

I don't think I will ever forget that night in my life as we all drove down to Hope Markham, and there were 600 people sold out in that worship uh center, worshiping the Lord, singing at the top of their lungs.

I don't know if I've ever heard 600 people sing so loudly, and yet it was such an incredible time, so encouraging.

We were so blessed.

The people who were there are kind of coming in with things with a little shekinah glory on their face, having been so encouraged and blessed.

And we're gonna do it again.

We love worship, we love prayer as a church, but I just wanted to let you know how amazing it was.

Paul Winningstall said it best at the bet at the end of the night.

He reminded us, you know, it's moments like that where you realize that the church is not struggling at all, that the gospel is going forward, that God is accomplishing amazing work.

It's an incredible night.

Now you have your Bible in your hands.

I want to ask you a few maybe statistics about the Bible.

We'll play a little bit of a game here.

I want to ask you this.

If you were to read the Bible from front to back, how many times do you think prayer would be mentioned?

You know, kind of like a theology of prayer.

How many times do you think you'd read about that?

Maybe, you know, say to your neighbor, this is a time where we can interact a bit.

Say to your neighbor, whoever you came with, how many times do you think the word prayer is in the Bible?

I'm hearing guesses.

I'm also seeing a lot of people not guessing.

That's okay.

You can play internally as well.

That's fine.

Well, if you guessed 500, you are right.

500 times.

Well, let's go again, okay?

How about faith?

How about faith?

Okay, well, faith is really important to the Bible.

How many times was it mentioned in the Bible?

You can tell your neighbor right now, or you can just talk to yourself, whichever one kind of suits you the best.

Well, if you guessed 500 again, you would be right again.

500 times.

Now let's reverse the game, okay?

I'm gonna tell you a number of a subject that's mentioned a number of times, and I need you to tell me the subject, okay?

Subject I want to talk to you about is mentioned four times as much as faith in prayer.

It's mentioned two thousand times in the Bible.

Can anyone guess what the subject is?

You can say it out loud right now if you have a guess.

Heard a few different things, but I definitely heard money.

Money.

2,000 times in Scripture, this comes up.

Now that's really interesting.

That in God's word, over 2,000 times we read about money and we are taught about money.

That's interesting because in our culture, we're really skeptical about money.

In fact, even as I start talking about money right now, I'm sure that there are many of us, we're kind of getting our backs up because not only are we skeptical of people talking about money in the first place, we're especially skeptical when the church talks about money.

And yet as we consider the teachings and the ministry of Jesus especially, we find that he was very concerned about money.

In fact, Jesus, we read of in the Gospels, taught 36 different parables, and 18 of them concerned money.

And as we look at the whole of Jesus' teachings, if Jesus were to be the pulpit pastor in this church, he would be teaching on money one of every four sermons.

Jesus taught frequently and often about money.

And so as we look at this phenomenon in Scripture, over 2,000 times it's mentioned, and really an obsession of Jesus, the question we need to ask is why?

Why is Jesus so concerned about money?

Well, on the one hand, we recognize it's because money can really have a destructive and poisonous power over your life, can't it?

You know, some of us were anxious about money, so that money's so tight and it's so hard in moments like that to think about anything else, let alone to think about matters of eternal life.

We're so focused on the here and now.

We know we've we've seen it, whether it's in our life or in the life of other people, that the pursuit of more stuff and more things and more money can distract our lives.

And even if money isn't making you anxious, if money isn't destroying your soul, the reality is that anytime we talk about money, for many of us, it's not really a happy conversation.

And maybe you're feeling that in your heart right now, like, oh great, here we go.

A whole sermon on money, a whole serving on giving.

Like in many ways, we don't look forward to it.

Especially as we consider giving and generosity, this can bring up feelings of guilt.

Bring up feelings of anxiety as we think about the many priorities that we have in life, as we think about our mortgage, as we think about inflation, as we think about money coming in and feeling coming out.

Maybe we're thinking about this and feeling anxious.

And so one of the reasons why Jesus spoke so often about money and about giving and about generosity is because he was concerned for his children about this destructive and poisonous power of money.

And yet I want you to also realize and especially realize this morning that Jesus spoke so often about money, not only because of its destructive power, but also because a right relationship with money is actually the only path to freedom and joy in this world.

In fact, it was Jesus that said you can't serve two masters.

And if you don't have a right relationship with money, and if you don't have a right relationship with generosity and giving, and it's very difficult to walk in your life without guilt.

You walk in your life with this kind of burden on your back, and what Jesus is unleashing us to this morning is this right relationship with money, this right relationship with giving that is actually a path to freedom and is a path to life.

And so we continue our church series this morning talking about how God is creating us to be a generous people, and we recognize that unless the church gets right its relationship with money, it will continue to distract us, it will continue to destroy us, and it will continue to make difficult the accomplishing of Christ's mission.

And yet, on the other hand, I want you to recognize there's so much grace here that as we talk about generosity, as we talk about giving, we're really talking about an action that we can pursue today that will bring freedom into our life, it will bring peace into our life, it will bring joy into our life.

And sure, so so you need to know as we talk about generosity, as we talk about giving, this is all grace.

There is nothing but hope as we consider what the Bible has to say about generosity.

And the reason for that is this.

This is really what I want you to understand this morning.

If you're to walk away with one thing, let it be this.

And if you're taking notes, you can write this down.

I think this is going to be incredibly helpful for us this morning.

Paul wants us to understand in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 that generosity is for us, not from us.

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

Generosity is something that is for you, not needed from you.

God doesn't need a single penny from you.

We recognize God is God is not in heaven right now looking at this church and saying, oh man, you know, I'd really love to pour out my favor and blessing on these people, but they just won't give me anything, and so I'm just gonna hold back.

I'm not gonna bless them at all, not gonna love them.

God's not in heaven thinking, like, man, I would really love to accomplish a lot of things in New Market, but the people just won't give, so my hands are kind of tied up here.

God doesn't need your generosity.

God doesn't call us to generosity in the Bible because there's some sort of lack of funding.

It's just like, you know, if you're a parent, you recognize this every day.

Like you don't need anything from your kids, do you?

There is nothing that your kids can really offer you that would put you in a better financial position.

And yet you look at your kids and you long for them to have generous hearts.

And the reason for that is because you recognize that in a life of generosity there's great blessing, that this is the best for them.

You're you don't need anything from them as parents, their siblings don't need anything from them, and yet you long for them to be generous, you long for them to be selfless because you recognize it's good for them.

This is why, as we consider Jesus and how much he talked about money, it's really interesting to note that never once did Jesus take up an offering.

All this opportunity as he's speaking and the Spirit's pouring out in conviction of people and how they should be giving, he never once asks for money because Jesus didn't need any money.

What Jesus was doing by talking about generosity, by talking about giving, was showing his followers this path to freedom and life in a world that is so concerned about money, in a world that is so often poisoned by money and experiencing its destructive effects.

And so I want you to understand that as a church, as elders, we did not choose to talk about money right now because we're in a deficit.

Now, if you follow our weekly email, you know that we're in a deficit, but I want you to understand that in many ways, we're not talking about this, you know, hoping that this is the way that God is going to fulfill the deficit.

You know, the Bible, the psalmist says that the cattle on the thousand hills are God's.

That means that at any moment God could snap his fingers and he could fulfill our need.

Well, you know, as elders, we're looking at God and we just trust him.

And so we're not here like begging you, pleading with you to make up this deficit.

God could provide that anytime.

Now I don't know how much a cattle a cow is selling for these days.

That was like an awesome moment for my joke that I was about.

I was happy that doesn't happen a line after because that would have been incredibly awkward.

Uh, I don't know how much a cow is selling for these days, but I'm sure if we had a thousand of them, we could probably make up the deficit.

Now do the feedback.

Now that the joke landed fat, we should put that feedback soundtrack in there.

That joke would have been funny, okay, if it didn't get caught up.

It's all a timing thing.

I feel the need to just say it again, but I'm just gonna move on.

Let's just move on, okay?

God could provide for us in a moment.

In a moment.

See, as your shepherds, what we care about here is your heart.

What we care about here is that you experience the blessing of generosity.

And I just need, I just need you to know so personally, like, I am not preaching as one who has succeeded in this.

I am preaching as one who in every way needs to hear this for my own soul.

Because I, like you, have experienced the destructive power that money can have over life, and yet I've also experienced the freedom and joy that can come in a life of generosity.

It's something, generosity is something that if you rightly participate in, it will bring you life and freedom and joy.

And I want you to see that generosity here in 2 Corinthians chapter 8.

2 Corinthians 8 · chapter mention

Now, here Paul's writing to the Corinthian church, and he's gonna bring up uh an example of another church in Macedonia and the way that they gave.

Paul at this time in his ministry is going around these churches, making a collection for the church of Jerusalem to give to the saints who are suffering there as a blessing to free them from their burden.

And so he writes to the church in Corinth to talk about the way that the church in Macedonia had given and to spur Corinth on in their own giving and in their own generosity.

But I want you to notice that as Paul talks about Macedonia, he's not talking about them as an example of what it means to give.

What Paul's talking about here is the example of what happened in the church at Macedonia once they committed to generosity.

What this church began to experience.

And so let's read it together, 2 Corinthians chapter 8, verses 1 to 15.

2 Corinthians 8:1–15

Paul says, 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 the 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 urge Titus 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 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 and 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 he does not have.

For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that is that as a matter of fairness, your abundance at the present time should supply their needs, 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.

I want you to see this that generosity is for you, and I want the first thing I want you to see is that generosity is not loss, but gain.

Generosity is not loss, but gain.

Here's what God is pressing into us this morning.

That the call for generosity is not about a loss of money, but it is about the gain of grace.

So notice there, put your eyes on verse 1 of chapter 8 with me.

Notice that when Paul talks about the grace of God in the Macedonian church, what you'd expect is that through their generosity, God's grace is working through them.

That the Macedonian church is kind of being like instrumental in God's generosity going to other people.

But I want you to notice that Paul actually says that the Macedonians' generosity is actually God's grace being given to them.

It is the grace of God for the children of God to be able to be generous with the resources that God had given to them.

Now, right off the bat, this is this is an immediate rebuke to you and me and the off the way that we often use our money.

See, in terms of our generosity, there's often kind of two extremes, isn't there?

One is the extreme of pride, where we give and we think, okay, well, now God loves me, he's gonna use my money, he's able to accomplish so much with this.

We give like as though we were someone who was coming to pay for a friend's gas bill and expecting that they would be thankful to us in order for uh because we relieve them of that burden.

And you need to know that your giving does not relieve God of any sort of burden he has.

On the other hand, we might be filled with this sort of guilt, knowing that we should be giving and feeling like God's mission is kind of halted because he doesn't have our resources.

And what Paul wants us to recognize, and ultimately God wants us to recognize this morning, is that when we don't give, the person who loses out the most is ourselves.

We are suffocating ourselves from the grace of God.

See, generosity is an action that primarily funnels grace into your life.

So that the primary receiver of grace was the Macedonian church who was doing the giving rather than the churches that were receiving the giving.

And Paul talks about exactly what this grace looked like in the Macedonian church in verse 2.

Look what he says.

He says, 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.

You notice this verse contradicts itself.

On the one hand, this trial that the Macedonians were facing was this trial of extreme poverty.

Like this church in Macedonia, they were struggling to make ends meet.

And it was bad, so bad that, you know, Paul has to use this word extreme.

You understand this.

Like if someone says, you know, you're broke, you're like, okay, yeah, well, I'm, you know, I don't have much money.

But if you're sitting in front of your financial advisor and they say, you know, you're extremely in poverty, you're like, wow, this is next level poverty.

I don't have much, if anything.

And yet, in the very next sentence, Paul says that they were experiencing this extreme poverty, but that their poverty overflowed in wealth.

That makes no sense on the surface level.

Poverty does not overflow to wealth.

You know this, right?

Like all those Halloween candies you've been eating this week does not overflow into you becoming skinny and fit.

Those are opposites.

It doesn't work like that.

We wished it worked like that, but it doesn't.

And yet, here Paul is saying is that that's exactly what happened.

And this is exactly what he wants us to see.

You see, the sacrifice of money that is experienced in generosity is actually true gain.

Well, what gain is it then?

What kind of gain is generosity?

What does it funnel into your life?

What like specifically is the grace that we experience when we give?

Well, the first thing I want you to see is the gain of heavenly investment.

The gain of heavenly investment.

When we are generous, we are making a heavenly investment.

Now we see this so clearly in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.

In fact, this is going to come up on the screen in Matthew chapter six.

Jesus says these words.

He says, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

This is so good for us right now.

Jesus, what Jesus is doing is he is giving us investing advice.

I don't know if you've ever, you know, kind of been in the same room or been in a conversation with someone that you know is like really good at investing, you know, like they kind of understand how money works and where to put your money in the stock market.

Don't you kind of have like an ear tilted towards them, you know, waiting to hear, you know, invest in this stock?

And here is Jesus, the king of the world.

He knows everything about everything.

And he's telling us this morning exactly where we should put our investments.

He's laying out an investment strategy.

I love what Jesus says.

He says, Do not lay up yourself treasures on earth.

But he says, do lay up treasures in heaven.

Store up treasures for yourself, make investments with your money that are going to last.

Jesus is looking at us this morning and asking us to evaluate ourselves, to evaluate the way that we're using our money and ask, the things that you are spending on the here and now, how long will they last?

And the answer is not long.

It's so clear, and Jesus is laying it out so clearly for us that the greatest gain for us is found when we invest in heaven.

I love what John Piper says about this.

He says, quit being satisfied with little 2% yields of pleasure that get eaten up by moths of inflation and rust of death.

Invest in the blue chip, high yield, divinely insured securities of heaven, giving your life to material comforts and Thrills is like throwing money down a rat hole, but a life invested in the labor of love yields dividends of joy unsurpassed and unending.

See, giving for us is a heavenly investment that secures our greatest return.

But secondly, I want you to see that through generosity we gain a holy interest.

You see that in Jesus' words?

At the very end of his sermon, he says, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

And so we understand that giving has the power to take our affections off the things of this world and to put them on Jesus.

Now, this is so practical for us.

It does not get more practical than this.

Some of us are really struggling in our walk with the Lord.

Like we just cannot understand why we we cannot look to Jesus.

We know that joy is found in Jesus.

We know that our greatest access satisfaction will be found in him, but we just struggle to spend our lives looking to him.

And for many of us, the reason for that is that we're just putting way too many investments in the here and now in earthly things.

So that we're constantly, so to speak, kind of opening up our earthly portfolio and having to care for earthly things because we've just put so many investments on here and now on earth.

And yet when we put our investments in things that are heavenly, it put our it puts our minds on the things of heaven.

Things have a way of steering our affection.

I experienced this firsthand.

You won't believe this.

I talk about my Toyota Corolla, my 2004 Toyota Corolla pretty often.

Park it front and center so you can see it on your way out.

And I don't know what I'm gonna preach about once that thing's gone.

And it's it's you know consumes a lot of my illustrations.

You won't believe this, but I actually drove a beater before that car.

It was a 1999 Mazda Protege.

Some of you guys are like, okay, now we understand extreme poverty.

Now we see it firsthand.

And that 1999 Mazda Protege, it had a feature where on the driver's side and the floor there was a hole that had rusted out in the floor.

And so water would come in.

And it's one thing when it's raining for water to come in, it's another thing in the winter when that water comes in and creates kind of like a ice skating pad on your feet.

And if I drove anywhere more than five minutes, my left foot would be numb from sitting on the ice and it would be sliding all over the place.

When you drive a car like that, you really don't have any concern for it.

I'd I'd be at Walmart, I'd be at the front spot, you know, it'd be a tight squeeze.

I'd be like, ah, I don't care, you know, just kind of grind it in.

Now, after that car died, someone in the church saw our need and they were incredibly generous.

They stepped up and they filled our need and they gave us a BMW.

It was a BMW convertible.

And for the first time, and really I haven't felt it since then, I drove a real like this really nice car that you care about.

I was parking like a kilometer away from the mall just to stay away from all these like lower class cars.

Now eventually I had to sell that.

There's something about being a youth pastor, you know, and preaching week in and week out about like, you know, you gotta love Jesus, don't love your stuff, and then you get in your BMW convertible with the top down and drive away.

There's something that's like contradictory about that.

And so I sold that, but I but I began to see the power that things can have over us.

All of a sudden, we want to care for these things.

But when you invest in heaven, what Jesus is saying is that the things you care about are then in heaven.

So you're looking past this life that is fading and temporary, and to your life that is eternal and forever.

Our concerns will always be on the investments we've made.

Generosity is investing in heavenly things so that we feel less and less concerned about the things that are concerning our earthly home, and more and more concerned about the things that are concerning our heavenly home.

Lastly, I want you to see this that generosity is gained because it leads to happiness inwardly.

It's gained because it's a heavenly investment, it's gained because it's a holy interest, and it's gained because it leads to happiness inwardly.

You see that in the Macedonian church in 2 Corinthians 8.

It says that in the midst of their affliction and their extreme poverty, there was an abundance of joy because of their generosity.

Abundance of joy.

Church, you know that this is offered to you this morning through the path of generosity, this abundance of joy.

And it's so crucial that we that we hear this.

I'm sure that you are feeling the pressure of our economy right now.

I don't think anyone's not feeling it.

The rising interest rates, the rising inflation.

I don't know about you, but like my jaw cannot drop any lower in the grocery store.

I walk in the door, my jaw is already dropped to the floor.

And I just walk around the whole time, my mouth wide open.

I cannot believe pepper is$15.

No word of a lie.

We understand it.

Yet Paul wants us to see that even in our scarcity, the path to this abounding joy is generosity.

Now, this is a rebuke to many of us because I in my life have at times I've listened to a message like this and thought, okay, well, this is for someone else.

This is for someone else who's like, they're experiencing excess right now.

They got all sorts of money.

I don't know who this person is, but I'd love to talk to them.

They got all sorts of money just sitting around, they're just waiting to give it.

It's this message is for that person.

But me, things are way too tight for me to give right now.

And you need to look at this Macedonian church and see that in their extreme poverty, they were experiencing this abundance of joy through the wealth of their generosity.

And that abundance of joy is available to you this morning.

See, this generosity is not just for those who have an excess of wealth.

It's not just for those who are in a season where finances are tight.

There are no seasons to giving.

Extreme riches, extreme poverty, generosity is called for.

Those who have little will gain much by giving their little.

Those who have much will gain much by living their much, giving their much.

In other words, true wealth is about the level of your generosity.

And our culture is constantly kind of pushing this message that you'll choose, you'll you'll find true joy when you just increase your standard of living.

You just need to have a nicer home with more garages, and you need to drive a nicer car, you need to get the newer phone, then you'll have this abundance of joy.

And God is here to say it's not about your standard of living, it's entirely about this standard of giving.

This is true wealth, what is given.

I love what C.S.

Lewis says here.

He says, Nothing you have not given away will ever truly be yours.

Church, this is true wealth.

Generosity.

Now, because generosity is gain, I want you to see this also.

Secondly, I want you to see that generosity is guilt, not grace.

And what I want you to see here is that this gain that we've really that we've just talked about is actually the motivation that Jesus used, uses to encourage us to give.

This motivation to be generous and to give to the church does not come from guilt.

It comes entirely from grace.

You see, as Christians, we should be eager to give because giving is like hooking up the fire hydrant of your soul to sorry, sorry, the hose of your soul to the fire hydrant of God's grace.

It's like funneling in God's grace into your life.

This is what's done through generosity.

And so look at the motivation of the Macedonians here.

In verse 3, it says, 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 the relief of the saints.

Now, this word favor here, it's the same word that's been used a number of times already through this passage for grace.

What the Macedonians are doing is looking at generosity and begging to partake of the grace of being able to give.

This flips generosity on its head.

Generosity is not from you, generosity is for you.

And this is the attitude that here now Paul is commanding to the church.

In verse 7, he says, But as you excel in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you, he says, See that you excel in this act of grace also.

That act of grace is this generosity that was pouring out of the Macedonian church.

He's calling our church, he's calling us as Christians to, just as we excel in faith, we recognize faith is good, right?

If any of if we sat in a sermon where I'm saying, hey, you've got to be faithful, all of us would be like, yes and amen.

If we sat in a sermon where I said, you know, you've got to have your speech, it's got to be seasoned with grace, we would all say, yes and all amen.

All these things Paul mentions, you know, we could get behind and see the gain of earnestness and see the gain of knowledge and see the gain of love.

But what about then when when Jesus looks at you and he says, and you also have to be generous?

All of a sudden the room gets hot.

All of a sudden we we are skeptical.

And yet this is what Jesus is doing.

You see, to find resources to sacrificially give to the Lord is ultimately a grace to us.

Let me ask you this really practically.

Who is it that gains the most from giving?

Is it the giver or the receiver?

Well, you know the words of Jesus.

He said it's more blessed to what?

To give than it is to receive.

The blessing of generosity is primarily in the ones who give.

In fact, this is why in verses 10 to 14 of 2 Corinthians 8, Paul's gonna make this exact argument.

He says, you need to finish giving Corinthian, you need to complete the collection because this is gonna be a benefit, not to Jerusalem, to you.

In fact, in Mark 10, Jesus gives us the exact math of the benefit.

He says, Whoever gives to Jesus in the path of following him, they will receive a hundredfold in return.

And so some of you guys who love math right now, and you're just like, okay, well, how much more of a benefit is it?

And Jesus is saying right now, it's a hundred times more beneficial to you to give than it is the person who's receiving.

The person who's receiving is receives one share, he receives the thing that is being given, but the person who has given, their giving is multiplied by a hundred.

And if that's not enough, that this investment increases a hundredfold, look at second, look down with me at 2 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 6.

2 Corinthians 9:6

Because there God promises that those who give will also get.

He says this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly.

Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

I love this.

I'm so reminded by this by Dave Locke.

He says this frequently.

He says, God's math is not our math.

I love that.

It doesn't make sense to us at all.

It seems like it's loss and yet it's gain.

I love CS C.H.

Spurgeon says this.

He says, God has a way of giving by the cartloads to those who give away by the shovel fulls.

And so you need to understand this, church.

No one is more committed to your generosity than God Himself.

There's nobody.

God is so committed to your generosity that he promises that when you give, he will return the investment a hundredfold.

And he promises that when you give here and now, your storehouses will be multiplied.

It's so crucial we see this.

Because giving is a grace for us to participate in.

And yet I'm sure right now that there are many in this room who you're hearing this message and you're just so filled with guilt.

You know that you should have been giving.

You feel this pressure constantly to give.

And yet just finances are tight.

I want you to see that there's so much grace here.

There's so much grace for us when we listen to a message like this, we're so filled with guilt.

Maybe you're here and you're just recognizing, like, I just have not been giving in this season, and we're coming up to the end of the year, and you just realize, like, I have I've just not given much at all.

And I just want you to know right now that no one is more for your restoration in this than God Himself.

God is for you.

He is not against you.

He's not looking at your life and saying, like, okay, well, because there's been a lack of generosity, I'm done with you.

He's not looking at you and saying, like, listen, I've given you so much and you've given me nothing in return, so I'm done with you.

There's no children of God to whom God is looking and saying that.

Instead, God is for you, and every ounce of generosity you give towards him, he will multiply.

He wants you to experience this freedom this morning.

He wants you to draw near to him in repentance and say, even though I haven't given, I now I'm going to give.

And you know what happens when you draw near to God in repentance?

We're promised in scripture that God draws near to you.

Some of you in this moment, you have to accept God's grace.

And you have to understand that to reject generosity is ultimately to reject God's grace.

Generosity is for you.

It is for you.

And so you put away the guilt, you turn to God in repentance.

And now that repentance might look, might differ.

Maybe that just means maybe it just looks like regular commitment to giving from here on out.

Maybe repentance for you just says, okay, I know I've messed up, but from now on, I'm I'm gonna give generously, I'm gonna give cheerfully, I'm gonna give sacrificially.

Maybe you look at your finances now, and what makes the most sense is to give a lump sum, kind of as an expression of faith, to say, God, I I trust you, I trust in your providence, and then you make a commitment to regular giving.

I don't know what repentance looks like for you, but I want you to understand that repentance is offered to you by God.

God desires for you to experience the blessing of giving this morning.

There's no place for guilt, it's all grace.

Which leads to our next point.

I want to see this thirdly, that generosity is not about law, but gospel.

Giving's not about the law, it's not about an amount.

The source of giving, the thing that really will cause you to be a generous giver, really is the gospel.

It's the gospel that must transform you.

That's why in verse 8, Paul says this.

I say this not as a command, that's you know, that's law, that is the opposite of the gospel, but but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine.

Notice that Paul could command the Corinthians to do this.

He has apostolic authority.

Paul has every prerogative to say, thus says the Lord, you need to give.

You need to give 100%.

Paul could do that.

He has apostolic authority here.

He has the authority to speak on behalf of God, but he looks at them and he says, I don't need to speak on behalf of God.

And why is that?

It's because Paul knows that God has done a work in them, and this work over time, this work of salvation, will prove itself genuine and results in generosity and giving.

How can Paul be so sure of this?

You see, we we can look at Paul and say it would kind of be like the easy thing just to command an amount.

Just say, hey, just give the Corinthian church amount, say that, you know, thus says the Lord, you gotta give 10%, you gotta give 15%, you gotta give this much money.

But Paul understands guilt isn't the source of true giving.

You see, the law isn't the power that creates generous givers.

Only the gospel can do that.

Essential to this is the fact that Paul numerous times here has called giving an act of grace.

Not a burden, not a command.

It's an act of grace.

And we see that it's a grace in that true biblical giving is done out of a recognition of the fact that we have been given so much by Jesus Christ, and it's done out of a recognition that the grace of God's work in us is inclining us to give that which God has given to us away to others.

This is why Paul says in verse 9, look at me with me at verse 9.

Such an incredibly sweet verse here.

It says, 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 want you to notice so important here.

Jesus is not an example here.

Paul's not looking at Jesus and saying, hey, hey, look how much Jesus gave.

You should give the same.

That would be moralistic.

That would be teaching according to the law.

That would be saying that because Jesus gave so much, now you need to do it in return.

You need to earn his love, you need to earn his favor, and that is not at all what God is shepherding us to words this morning.

What Paul instead is saying is not that Jesus is a model of generosity to other people, Jesus is the prime giver that makes generosity possible.

Where Paul could say, be like Jesus, just give a ton, just give as much as you can, give everything.

Paul looks at Jesus and says, You cannot actually give unless you have been made rich by Jesus.

Unless there has been a transaction where you, by faith, have given Jesus your nothing, and he, by his righteousness, has given you everything, you actually have no platform for generosity.

Generosity comes from this recognition of the work that God has done in our lives.

And so notice here, no, notice here that you are in this verse.

When you read this verse, do you recognize that if you're a believer, you're in this verse?

He says it's for your sake, Christian, that Jesus became poor, so that you, by his poverty, might become rich.

We sing about this all the time, don't we?

We love to sing songs like, you know, Jesus is enough.

All I have is Christ.

The only thing I need is you, Lord.

We love to sing that, but can we for a moment say that, you know, it's so much easier to sing that than it is to really believe it.

To really believe that Jesus is enough.

And you and I, we live in this life that's kind of in between like Solomon and Job.

You know Solomon, right, in the story of Ecclesiastes.

Solomon literally has everything.

In fact, he's got this passive income.

All this income's coming in from all these other nations, so that he can buy whatever he wants.

And in Ecclesiastes, he decides, I'm gonna try everything under the sun with these unlimited resources, I'm gonna buy everything.

And so he creates these amazing palaces, these amazing gardens.

It says in 1 Kings that he has 15,000 horses.

Got all these things, and yet what does he decide?

After the pursuit is done, after he sought joy in everything under the sun, he says it's vain, it's empty.

You're not gonna find joy there.

Now, none of us are that rich.

None of us have the sort of resources that Solomon had in order to kind of do this conquest to see if we can just get everything and see if it'll actually make us joyful.

And if you are that rich, I'd love to talk to you right after the service.

We need a building, and so that would be nothing for you.

Many of us, you know, we kind of lean closer to the Job side, don't we?

Job had lost everything.

Job had nothing.

Everything was stripped away from him.

And yet in Job's life, he looks to God and he says, You are enough.

And so here's Solomon with everything, recognizing that everything cannot satisfy, so God must be enough.

Here's Job with nothing, recognizing that even with nothing, God is still satisfying him, so God must be enough.

And you and I live in the in-between of those moments.

We don't have enough to prove, like Solomon, that the more things won't make us happy.

And we've never really experienced having nothing so that we would know that Jesus alone can satisfy us.

And so living in that middle, you know what often happens to us?

We often just think, if I just have a little bit more, then I'll be happy.

And we can sing these things, you know, Jesus is enough, but it is so hard to believe.

You struggle to believe that if I just had a little bit more, I'd be richer.

As Jesus enters into this to say to you and I this morning that he can offer you everything you need.

This is what salvation is.

It is to be made rich in him.

To know Jesus is to know true richness.

Now, I'm not talking about the prosperity gospel here.

I'm not talking about that if you know if you follow Jesus, you're gonna be rich, healthy, wealthy, and prosperous.

I am saying this that in Christ, you have the outcome of every single idolatrous pursuit you could ever imagine.

Whatever you're pursuing outside of Christ, you need to understand that in the gospel you are already rich in that thing.

And so, to the person who longs for the validation of others, you know, you're you're a people pleaser.

Jesus says to you, I can make you rich in validation.

And I will accept you right now, even in your sin.

The one who longs for satisfaction in material things.

So you just gonna keep getting more and more stuff and newer and newer stuff.

Jesus says, I can pour satisfaction into your life right now.

I can make you rich in satisfaction.

The one who's filled with anxiety, Jesus offers richness of peace.

And some of you need to hear this for the very first time because you've spent your whole life, you've been pursuing things, things, things, you've been building up this earthly, earthly portfolio, and you need to hear, it's God's love for you to hear these hard words that in the end, after death, you will have nothing.

That ultimately, though you look rich from the inside, from an earthly perspective, you are poor.

You're spiritually bankrupt.

But you can become rich.

When you place your faith in Jesus Christ, who hung on the cross with nothing, in order that you may have everything, you can become rich.

And this is the heart of true giving, to know that everything you need is in Christ.

There is nothing that money can buy you, which Christ has not already offered you.

There's no amount of monetary sacrifice you will make in the pursuit of generosity that Christ has all not already filled up.

Everything is yours in Christ.

This is so important for us to note.

The motivation for giving for us is not law, it is the gospel.

That's why you'll never hear me talk about tithing.

Tithing is an old testament principle, and I get that people kind of use the word tithing to talk about giving, and I'm okay with that.

I want to pursue clarity here, though, and recognize that tithing is a principle that is given to us in the Old Testament.

And in the Old Testament, Israel was called by law to give 10% of their income to God.

Now, this is an Old Testament principle, and it's been fulfilled in Christ, so that the requirement of tithing in order to gain righteousness in God is no longer required.

But before you feel like you're off the hook, some of you are like, yes, freedom.

I want you to recognize that in many ways, 10% to the local church is a great place to start.

As we think about amount, an amount, in many ways, 10% is a great baseline.

I think we see this in Matthew 23.

In Matthew 23, Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees, and he says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.

You tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness.

But then he says this these you ought to have done without neglecting the others.

In other words, what Jesus was condemning the Pharisees here was that they gave without their heart in it.

They gave in order to fulfill the law.

Jesus says, you should have had both.

You should have had the law and heart.

You should have given with a cheerful heart.

And so, in many ways, 10% is a great place to start.

But if your question right now is how much do I have to give, I want you to understand that you've totally missed the point.

You've totally missed the whole point of this message.

That generosity is not something that you must do, that God is looking for 10% for you from you.

Generosity is something that is for you.

This is a blessing that you get to participate in.

It's not an amount.

Some of us, you know, we're really type A personality, and you know, give me an amount and I'll do it.

God says it's not about an amount, it's about Jesus' grace.

He's creating givers.

He is creating givers who do not ask how much they must give, but desire to experience the grace that is associated with giving and to express the thankfulness to Christ that they have for all that He has given to them.

I want you to see this lastly and really quickly, the generosity, it's not about the present, but about glory.

It's not about the present, but about glory.

And Paul points our eyes to this in verse 15.

It says, Whoever gathered much had nothing left over.

Whoever gathered little had no lack.

Here Paul's pointing the eyes of the Corinthians to the Exodus.

And you'll remember that in the Exodus, Israel was wandering in the desert.

They were going to the promised land.

And on their way, God was providing them manna.

And there's something really interesting about the manna.

See, the manna was provided every morning, and the command was to take just as much as you needed.

And actually, if you took more than you needed, it would rot and decay.

And so the command was to just take what you needed.

Why did God command them to do that?

Because this would set their eyes on the promised land.

The Israelites, they were going to a place where milk and honey would flow in rivers.

They would have more than they need in abundance.

And in order for them not to set their hearts on the desert, but to set their hearts on the promised land, God would provide just as much as they needed.

They did not need to take any more than was necessary for the day.

Eventually they'd get to the promised land where these things would abound.

Paul's reminding us we are not yet where we need to be.

We're not yet home.

This is not our eternal home.

I'm reminded of this as I as I think about that.

I just remember that there are times in my life where I've forgotten that we too are in pilgrimage.

This is not our home.

And yet, you know what so many of us are trying to do?

We're trying to use money to create heaven on earth.

We're trying to find satisfaction through things.

And so we just think, if I just have that bigger home, and God says, you don't need that right now.

This isn't your home.

You'll never find contentment here.

True contentment.

Because this is not your home.

You'll never find deepest satisfaction here.

This is not your home.

Instead of spending your money to create a place that will truly bring you joy but never actually will, look to heaven.

Look to the promised land.

Look to the rewards that you already have there that are waiting for you in abundance that will never disappoint.

Jesus tells us this morning, this place is already made, it's in heaven.

So he calls us, just collect what you need today, pursue generosity and ultimately God's grace, and trust that God has given you much that you might give in return and experience the blessing of generosity.

It's a generosity that's for you because it leads to your gain, not loss.

It leads to grace over guilt, the gospel over law, for the glory of heaven.

Let's pray together, church.

Father, we bow before you and God, we thank you for your love for us.

That God, you are so willing to talk to us about difficult things that Lord, at times we don't even want to talk about.

We're so filled with guilt and shame and anxiety.

And God, you open up the wound and you pour in your grace.

And as we think about money, as we think about generosity, as we think about giving, Lord, we recognize there is nothing but grace from you.

God, you are calling us to partake in this grace.

And so, Lord, I pray in this moment there just be the spirit of conviction to say, God, all that we have is yours.

There is nothing that we own that has not been given us to us by you.

And God, even the things that you are, the resources you're calling us to give, the generosity you're calling us to have, Lord, it is not to give something that we own ourselves, it is to give what you have already given to us.

And so, in every way, God, this is a work of you.

Lord, this is why the Macedonians were able to give beyond themselves.

Because they were reaching into resources that were not their own, they were reaching into resources that were yours.

And you call us this morning to that same grace, Lord.

The cattle on the thousand hills are yours, Lord.

You own everything.

Your resources are boundless, you are not limited in any way.

And so you give to your children and you call us to be generous.

And I pray that our response would be this, Lord, that our life is yours and that we will give it all back to you.

Lord, not 2%, not 10%, but we give it all to you, Lord.

And we pray this in the name of your Son.

Amen.