2 Corinthians 8:16-24 | The Gift of People | 05/24/26

So, if I told you that a few thousand

dollar just left your bank account right

now, how you felt about that would

likely be dependent on where that money

went, right?

If I said, "Hey, there's a surprise car

repair or there was a mistake on your

taxes and now you owed the federal

government another $3,000."

I mean, who doesn't love giving the

government money? I trust the government

completely to handle my money.

I mean, how we feel about these things

would be dependent on where that money

went. Obviously, you'd feel more upset

about that situation than if you bought

a new set of golf clubs or if you booked

a family vacation or a day at the spa.

Now, you can tell I don't go to the spa

because I don't know how much the spa

costs. I'm lumping it into the few

thousand category for some reason. I'm

sure it doesn't cost that much.

But we begrudgingly pay for car

maintenance,

house maintenance, random fees

associated with whatever.

But when it comes to things you love,

when it comes to things like family,

rest, hobbies, building a down payment

for a house, things that we're genuinely

excited about, we typically have an

eager readiness to put our money towards

those things.

We have an eager readiness to

participate in that goal that we have

around the things we love. What was the

last big purchase that you made that you

got excited about?

That's likely something that you love.

What thing do you have in your life

where if your money flowed in that

direction, you'd be pumped about it?

You'd be excited.

That gives you a window into where your

loves are, where your desires are. And

that's because where your heart is,

there is your treasure. Your money flows

towards what you love. And Jesus wanted

us to know that there's this connection

between our heart and our wallet. In

Matthew 6:21, Jesus is teaching on

Matthew 6:21

giving and money. There he taught his

disciples, "Where your treasure is,

there your heart will be." Also, we'll

talk more in a few weeks about how God

loves a cheerful giver. We've been

talking about willingness and readiness

to give throughout this series because

Paul keeps going back to that thought

over and over again in these two

chapters in 2 Corinthians.

But we should get excited.

We should get excited when we have the

opportunity to give to God's work in and

through the local church.

We should get excited about that because

that's where God has chosen to work

today through his people.

At the heart of biblical generosity, we

get to worship God and we give to bless

real people. We give to bless people.

Nothing we do is about building up some

impersonal institution or structure.

Everything we do is about helping

people.

connecting people to God, teaching

people what it means to follow Jesus and

to walk in a life that emulates Christ.

And so again, we're on week three of

five weeks in this series around giving

and generosity. And as we explore what

Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 8:9, we're

2 Corinthians 8:9

going to learn more and more about this.

But Paul wants us to understand that

giving is personal.

That giving is personal.

It's about people. God doesn't want us

to solve just to solve m sorry this is

actually a good thing but he doesn't

want us to think about money as as a

means to solve problems yes money can

solve problems there are worse things to

do with our money but he wants us

actually to view it as an opportunity to

give our whole self to him

and in our text Paul highlights the

connection between people and generosity

all of them that he mentions were

earnest they were of one accord and they

were messengers representing their

church. And Paul calls us that same

level of eagerness and readiness to give

because get this, we get to feel great

about giving generously

because it's about blessing people.

It's about blessing people and

glorifying God.

And so I want us to understand this

morning that true generosity is personal

and God desires that we eagerly align

our heart with our money. That we

eagerly align our heart with our money.

Let's read the text of scripture and

then we'll break it down and talk about

all these different components this

morning. But this is the word of the

Lord from 2 Corinthians chapter 8:1 16.

We'll read down to verse 24.

But thanks be to God who put it 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. And with him, we're sending the

brother who is famous among the churches

for his preaching of the gospel. And not

only that, but he's been appointed by

church, the churches to travel with us

as we carry out this act of grace that

is being ministered by us for the glory

of the Lord himself and to show our good

will. We take this course so that no one

should blame us about this generous gift

that's being administered by us. For we

aim at what is honorable, not only in

the Lord's sight, but also in the sight

of man. And with them we're sending our

brother whom we have often tested and

found earnest in many matters, but who

is now more earnest than ever because of

his great confidence in you. As for

Titus, he's my partner and fellow worker

for your benefit. And as for our

brothers, they are messengers of the

churches, the glory of Christ. So give

proof before the churches of your love

and of our boasting about you to these

men.

Paul wants us to understand first and

foremost that generosity is personal

here. Verse 16 and 17 starts to

introduce the people who are carrying

this gift, this offering called the

Macedonian offering. Introduces Titus to

us. Now, Titus has been a name that

we've mentioned a ton of times in this

series on 2 Corinthians. If you've been

with us, you've heard him probably a few

dozen times because he was the

representative that Paul sent to Corenth

to check in on how they were doing

spiritually, how they were doing with

Paul's correction of them, Paul's

teaching. The Corinthians were going

through a spiritual struggle. They had

become emotionally imshed with false

teachers in a group of false teachers

that were not happy with Paul because of

Paul's connection um and uh leading that

church. They were trying to erode their

trust in Paul. And that erosion of trust

the false teachers were doing caused

Paul to change his plans. He didn't

visit them when he told them he would.

He sent a letter instead. And then Titus

to follow up on that letter. And Titus

arrived and found the church was a mess.

He found the church was a mess. They had

turned out though with his time there,

investing them, correcting them to be

teachable and repentant.

And so in Paul's letter to second

Corinthians here, he was, you know,

praising them for being repentant,

talking to them about their correction,

talking to them about challenging these

false teachers. But there was a second

motive that Paul had for sending Titus.

Titus was to encourage them to restart

the Macedonian offering.

Titus was a protege of Paul. And you

look at verse 16 here, he tells us he

had the same heart for the Corinthians

that Paul had, the same earnest care for

them, the same love, the same

compassion.

And so this Macedonian offering, we've

talked about a few different times in

this series, but it was one of Paul's

major projects

happening during the writing of the New

Testament. something that's in the

background talked about throughout many

of the letters and often an occasion for

some of the writing of Paul's letters.

We saw last week that pastor Jason

mentioned that the reason for this gift

was to supply for the needs of the

Jerusalem church. The thought was since

the Corinthians and other churches were

blessed spiritually by being connected

to the people of God through Jesus that

they were to bless the Jerusalem church

going through a time of need. There was

a division that happened throughout the

New Testament between the Jewish

Christians and the non-Jewish

Christians, the Gentile Christians. You

read about this a lot in the book of

Acts. When Gentile Christians became

followers of Jesus, the Jewish

Christians were like, "What do we do

with them? Do they have to follow the

law? Are they actually inheritors of the

promise of God because they're not

connected to the people of God?" And so

so many times in the New Testament

letters, Paul's encouraging the Jews who

follow Jesus and the Gentiles who follow

Jesus to be unified and to love one

another. And so he saw this opportunity.

The Jerusalem church was being

persecuted. They're going through an

immense time of struggle. And so Paul is

going to all these gentile churches in

Greece and Macedonia and saying, "We're

giving financially to support them." It

was a work of church unity.

Now, this offering is mentioned in 1

Corinthians 16. It's mentioned in Romans

15. It's mentioned in Acts 21. And it's

mentioned here in our text in 2

Corinthians 8 and9. And Paul's mission

here is to help again build that bridge

between the Gentile Christians and the

Jewish Christians through this financial

support. And the Jerusalem church was

hurting financially because they were

being persecuted in a way that many of

the other Christians around the

Mediterranean weren't being persecuted.

We get a really small glimpse of this in

the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews

was written to a suffering church, the

Jerusalem church, who was going through

that period of persecution. And many of

them were finding it was easier going

back to being Jewish, to forsake Jesus

than it was to go through that

persecution. And so the message of the

book of Hebrews is Christ is better.

Jesus is better. And don't give up,

stay focused.

And in Hebrews 10, the writer over

Hebrews is exhorting them in this season

of suffering. And we get this window

into what they were experiencing.

Hebrews 10:32-36.

Hebrews 10:32–36

This is what was happening. He says,

"Recall the former days when after you

were enlightened, you endured with a

hard struggle with sufferings.

Some of you were being publicly exposed

to reproach and affliction and sometimes

being partners with those so treated.

For you had compassion on those in

prison, and you joyfully accepted the

plundering of your property,

since you knew that you yourselves had a

better possession and an abiding one.

Therefore, do not throw away your

confidence. Don't throw away Christ,

which has a great reward, for you have

need of endurance, so that when you have

done the will of God, you may receive

what is promised. So, these Jewish

Christians were disowned by family.

They're being publicly reproached,

mocked.

They were being humiliated, physically

hurt, thrown into prison, and having

their property confiscated.

They were hurting financially in so many

ways. And so the message is don't give

up. Don't throw away your reward. Have a

great confidence. Have endurance. And so

Paul knew this kind of thing was

happening. He made it his goal to

support their physical and material

needs.

And he actually is delivering that gift

when he gets arrested in Acts 21

to the church. But notice in our text,

it's about more than just the money.

It's about more than just the money.

It's about the love that's being

demonstrated by the people of God.

Their earnest compassion, their earnest

love that went with this gift. As a way

to demonstrate this earnest care and

this earnest love, Paul started to form

a group of people who would carry that

offering and represent each of the

churches that was giving.

We'll look at this in a bit. We have

Titus and then verse 18, someone who's

described as famous for preaching the

gospel and another who's described as

the tested one. the one who's been

tested and found earnest, the one who is

reliable.

More on that in a moment. But first, why

send people? Why not just hire a

service? Why not just Venmo the money?

Like, why send a group? What's going on

here?

First, we learn that we should be eager

in our generosity. Notice in our text,

the word earnest is used four times. It

was also used in last week's text of

scripture as well. this idea of

earnestness to describe this group that

was forming to carry this financial

gift.

It describes a general eagerness and

readiness to jump into action. This is

the sprinter who's in the blocks, right?

You watch the Olympics and stuff like

the sprinter who's in the blocks waiting

for the gun to go off, waiting for the

buzzer to go off. The sprinter who knows

their entire race will be raced at top

speed and they're excited for that.

An earnest person is someone who's ready

to start and committed to finish.

They're ready to start and they're

committed to finish seeing something

through to the end. And so verse 16,

Paul gives praise to God. Thanks to God

who put it into the heart of Titus to

love them with his sacrificial

service and his giving because he loved

people. He loved people.

God put that in Titus's heart to

participate in the collecting of this

gift. Titus was earnest and of his own

accord. He didn't have to be convinced

to serve the Corinthians. He was able to

serve them because he loved people. He

loved them. And so there's a connection

between our generosity

and our loves, our cares, our hearts.

And again, when we love something, like

we're so eager to have our money flow to

that thing. We're so eager to have our

money go to things we love.

We're eager to support, sacrifice,

be committed to completing the things we

love, sometimes even to our own

detriment.

But notice that this earnestness was

about people.

Paul said, Titus shared this earnest

care I have for you. It wasn't about the

Corinthians cash. It was about them. It

was about the church.

They were not objects or means to an

end. Paul and Titus loved them because

of what God was doing in them.

And because of this love for Christ in

the church, because of how much he

believed in the gift to the Jerusalem

church, Titus would travel all over the

Mediterranean world to see this offering

raised.

It's not an easy feat. Travel today is

so easy compared to back then. He would

travel all over the place to raise

support

for this church in Jerusalem.

And so, first we see that it's about

this earnest care, this earnest

generosity, this readiness to give

because it blesses people. Second thing

we see here about this is that this

generosity is personal because it's a

show of goodwill.

It's a show of goodwill. Look at verse

19.

Paul wrote, "And not only that, but he's

been appointed by the churches to travel

with us and carry out this act of grace

that's being ministered by us." Two

reasons. For the glory of the Lord

himself and to show our goodwill.

Paul called it an act of grace, a means

of showing God's glory and a show of

goodwill. Meaning that it communicates

personal love

from the Gentile church to the hurting

Jerusalem church.

Paul called this offering an act of

grace, something that God was stirring

up in their hearts, that God was

accomplishing, that God was changing

their hearts, softening their hearts to

give generously.

It's really easy to hear about problems

like this and to want to solve that

problem by throwing some money at it.

Now, again, money can help for sure. Do

not mishar me on this.

God's given us resources to participate

and to help.

But we should be careful to never

separate genuine compassion

from our giving.

We should be aware that there is a time

and place where generosity is meant to

be personal.

We're not to be dispassionate about our

giving.

For example, if you have a good friend

who lived a few hour flight away and

they were hurting, their spouse left

them, they got a cancer diagnosion,

they're going through a season of deep

depression, likely you would jump on a

plane and be with them.

If you could, you'd likely be there.

Now, Paul didn't tell the whole church

of Corinth to go to Jerusalem.

That would not be practical. that would

not be likely something they could

accomplish.

But he reminded the church that

generosity shows good will and so they

were to send representatives

with the gift

to be there in person.

And so to underscore that point, Paul

introduced two new people to the

Corinthians who are also part of this

team. We never get their names and

presumably they're standing in front as

this letter is being read to the church.

Presumably they they they know who these

people are because they're there with

Titus.

The first brother was described as

famous for preaching the gospel. Verse

18, with him we're sending the brothers

famous among all the churches for his

preaching the gospel.

Then verse down uh 22, we're sending

with them our brother whom we have often

tested and found earnest in many

matters, but who is now more earnest

than ever because of his great

confidence in you.

Uh we don't know who these people are

specifically. There's a lot of

speculation that he was Apollos,

but Paul had already named Apollos in 1

Corinthians. The church would be

familiar with Apollos. He probably would

name him here if it was Apollos. Apollos

is known for being a very bold and

passionate preacher of the gospel.

Others think it might be Luke who's from

Philippi.

But there are a few names mentioned in

Acts 20:4 connected at this time and

Acts 20:4

place that might be the people. We have

Soer the Berean, Aristarus, and

Sagundis.

What's interesting is that Sagundis,

if you can spell that, I'll give you a

gold star.

Um, Sagundis comes from the word second.

And what's interesting is that he was

likely a slave who was born into a slave

household or into a, you know, a a, you

know, lord's household, right? and

didn't even get a name. He was just

second. There are a handful of people in

the New Testament, Tersius, Cortis,

Sagundus, who are named here in the text

of scripture, but in the family, the

household they were born into, they

didn't get a name. They're just number

two or number four. It'd be crazy if it

was him famous for preaching the gospel.

We see the upside down nature of God's

kingdom that call God calls the least of

these to be great among us.

But we don't know who it is. We don't

know for sure. But this person had a

commitment to the gospel. They were a

gifted preacher and teacher. The second

brother was just the one who was tested

and found reliable. He's described as

earnest and confident in the

Corinthians. He was honorable and

trustworthy and sincere.

Look at verse 23.

As for Titus, he's my partner and fellow

worker for your benefit. As for our

brothers, these other two, they are

messengers of the churches, the glory of

Christ.

They were appointed, this word

messengers, the word apostle. They

weren't, you know, appointed to be like

Paul as a capital A apostle, but they

were representatives. They were

messengers of these churches, standing

in place as an ambassador for these

churches

appointed by each of the churches that

Paul was collecting from. And this is

important. These churches are

contributing financially, but they were

being represented personally by a

delegate. And the plan is actually to

add someone from Corinth to this mix for

the Corinthians to pick somebody to join

the team

that they would represent the entire

church. Paul talked about this in 1

1 Corinthians 16:3

Corinthians 16:3 about how he hopes that

one of them will join up with this

group.

And again, it's because sometimes it's

about showing up. It's about being there

personally.

I had the opportunity in 2005, feels

like so long ago. I had an opportunity

in 2005 to go and visit New Orleans

after the aftermath of Hurricane

Katrina. Uh it was October 2025, about 6

weeks after the hurricane. And I have

not seen that level of destruction

before in my life. Before or since.

There were water lines on buildings

about 15 or 20 feet high where the water

came to rest after the hurricane. There

were boats in the middle of the street.

Like imagine driving down Monterey

Highway and there would be boats

littered in the middle of the street

nowhere near water.

Homes that drifted off their

foundations. Just a massive amount of

destruction. And the reason I went is

because our church has had a substantial

gift at the time to a group of churches

out there to care for real needs to work

relief in that area. And we had a small

team that went out as representatives of

our church to be there to meet with

church leaders to pray for them to

assess needs for potential future

service trips that kind of stuff. And we

showed up personally.

Now, you could argue that maybe we

should have sent an extra $500 instead

of sending me. Like, you make that

argument like that could buy, you know,

a dozen CS for people who don't have a

bed. They could buy extra food. You make

me make this argument that shouldn't we

use the money and is as much money as

possible to go to that church to these

churches. We could have maximized the

dollars.

that minimizes the hidden blessing of

showing up in person, being side by side

with leaders who are leading in a hard

season, who need encouragement, who need

compassion, to be there personally.

And so, generosity is always about,

it's always more than the money. It's

never just about dollars transfer from

one account to another. It's more than

that.

as these representatives wanted to show

the Jerusalem church that they loved

them.

And this financial gift was a means of

God's blessing and showing that they

mattered. It was a show of goodwill.

And for that reason,

Paul wants us to first to make giving

personal.

But the second thing Paul focuses in on

here is he wants giving to be protected

because it's personal. because he's

blessing real people. He wants our

giving to be protected.

Look at verse 20.

We take this course

getting these people together who are

honorable, who are noble, a group

together. We take this course so that no

one should blame us about this generous

gift that's being administered by us.

For we aim at what is honorable, not

only in the Lord's sight, but also in

the sight of man.

Paul acknowledged a spiritual danger

when it comes to money.

And so they worked against that

spiritual danger by developing a team of

people, representatives from each

church, so that they would be above

reproach. They be blameless when it came

to how they handled the generous gifts.

Verse 21, they talked about

aiming for what is honorable in God's

sight and the sight of man.

God's sight. We have to recognize that

nothing is hidden from God. He knows the

thoughts and the motives of our hearts.

He knows our secret sin. He knows where

we spend our money, how we give, where

we give,

and he knows how people in authority

handle the gifts of the church.

He knows that

people may get away with mishandling

tithes and offerings on this side of

eternity, but not on the next.

Everyone stands before the word and

gives an account because God sees and

God knows.

and they aim to do what's honorable in

man's sight.

Paul lived under the recognition that

people were always watching. Especially

if you're a leader, people are always

watching. And hear this,

we should be discerning

about where we give and who we support.

And we should ask and demand that

there's accountability

with how our generosity is used because

human beings are not beyond temptation.

There is an inherent spiritual danger

with handling money.

And many people today have an inherent

builtin distrust of institutions.

They'll say things like, "I don't need

organized religion to worship God.

I don't need to give to a local church.

I'll just trust that God will provide

opportunities for me to give.

What happens though in those situations

is that usually people with that

mentality and attitude

will just never give.

I'll use that as a smoke screen for

holding on to more.

I can sympathize the mentality though

because there is an inherent spiritual

spiritual danger with money and pastors

are not above a love for money. Church

leaders not above a love for money.

Peter warns us or teaches us in 1 Peter

1 Peter 5:2

5:2 that elders are not to elder or

pastor for shameful gain.

Paul warned that we're to be free of the

love of money and not set our hope on

riches in 1 Timothy 6:17.

1 Timothy 6:17

1 Corinthians 10:12, "We're to take heed

1 Corinthians 10:12

lest we fall because we're not above

temptation." Judas, one of Jesus's

handpicked disciples,

was helping himself to their money bag.

So Paul says here, I don't want to be

associated with handling the money.

I don't want to be associated with

asking for handling money. Verse 12 20.

He recruits these three brothers and

representatives from each of the

churches so far because they wanted

accountability.

And they were also carrying physical

cash over a long distance. They needed

to make sure it wasn't misused or

stolen.

Shared this story before, but I used to

work at a bank and we'd regularly get in

shipments of cash that we had to check

into the vault there and there were

times where I'd be literally holding a

bag of $500,000 of cash.

What would you do with that money?

What's the most you've held in your

hands?

What would you do with the cash? I mean,

of course, we give it to the building

project,

right? If you win the lottery, that's

I'll call you. That's where it's going.

And to protect against that stuff, we

had something called double custody.

People were given two different modes of

access. Each needed to be present. Each

was accountable. the money went missing

because even an honorable person's not

above temptation.

As this warning about the spiritual

danger of money hit close to home with

the Corinthians because remember back to

the beginning of the series, these false

teachers in Corinth were using the

Corinthians and their wealth as a means

for their gain.

They were using the Corinthian people.

They were peddlers of God's word. They

were in it for the money. As a part of

the Corinthian challenge with false

teachers here using the money they were

building their platform for their

support through the Corinthians and

going back to first Corinthians Paul he

made a theological case for why pastors

should be financially supported by the

church they serve at he made a

theological case for that. You can read

about that in 1 Corinthians 9.

He says it's wise to have pastors who

devote themselves fully to ministry in

the word and prayer and shephering. But

Paul himself waved his rights with the

Corinthians to receive that

because the Corinthian church uniquely

was suspicious of

teachers of God's word who were trying

to use a congregation to build their

wealth.

They were uniquely suspicious. And Paul

waved his right to do that.

He supported himself by other churches

like a missionary and through his own

trade.

In our current cultural moment, again,

distrust of institutions. In our

affluent, wealthy America, there are

pastors and ministries of private jets.

Pastors who take lavish vacations

because of the stress of ministry.

Social media channels even ex devoted to

exposing this hypocrisy

among prominent pastors which usually

will clip pictures or photos from social

media or live streams with, you know,

different clothing items like their

jackets or their shoes just with a, you

know, listing next to to show you that,

yeah, that pair of shoes cost $3,000.

You know, I have never spent that much

money on a pair of shoes. If you have,

let's talk later.

But people get mad about that because it

feels like targeting these pastors or

what if they were a gift or something

like that.

All the guy's doing is like, "Here's the

shoe. Here's the price tag."

The thing is,

many of us think that we're honorable.

The truth is, we haven't been tested.

Many of us think we're honorable how we

handle our money. The truth is we have

not yet been tested.

And so even with all that in the

background with Paul's own personal

practice around handling money, the

Corinthians suspicion around things,

notice

it was not an excuse to stop giving.

It was not an excuse to stop giving. It

means giving requires wisdom. It

requires accountability. But we are

never given an excuse to stop our

generosity.

Church, have you ever thought that maybe

God has commanded, prompted, encouraged

generosity among his people? That he

desires our generosity so that we would

be free from the love of money. That as

we give generously every time we are

whittling away in our hearts a love for

money,

that maybe God commands us to be

generous

so that we wouldn't love things of this

world more than him.

So that with each and every gift we not

only bless people but we tell money we

tell our hearts money has no hold over

us. There's a great wisdom how God

designed this. He doesn't need your

cash. He wants your heart.

As a church talking about giving being

protected here we have accounting

controls in place that help us to keep

things confidential while making sure

that there is protection from people

taking or using money inappropriately.

The accounting terms is we have a

segregation of duties and are running

protective and detective controls.

This includes things like separation of

duties so that no one person has sole

power over any area of money. We review

transactions from multiple sets of eyes.

We have an external audit here. We have

protections in place to make sure that

giving here is safe

and we can maintain our generosity.

And so Paul wants us to make our giving

personal and for that reason because it

blesses people. He wants us to protect

our giving. And the last thing here is I

just want to give us the motivation that

we should be excited about giving

because it's all about blessing people.

It's about blessing people. 2

2 Corinthians 8:24

Corinthians 8:24.

This is Paul's kind of closing of this

statement here. Give proof

before the churches of your love and of

our boasting about you to these men.

Prove your love through sacrifice.

Prove your love.

I mean this is where the gospel roots

into our giving.

This called a sacrifice.

True Christian giving is selfless

because Christ is selfless. Christ's

sacrifice. Jesus died for our sin. He

died to reconcile us to God. He died for

us. He laid down his life. And so Jesus

invites his followers to lay down their

lives as they follow him. Says, "Take up

your cross. Follow me. Make my life the

manner of life that you live." And so

we're able to die to ourselves, be free

from the love of self, free to the love

for God

because Christ died for us. Christians

should be among the most sacrificial and

generous people in the world because

we've received the greatest gift.

And so Paul wants us to keep that in

mind as we think about how our

generosity is being used to bless

people.

We should be earnest and excited about

generosity because we get to be part of

something greater than ourselves when we

give to God's work and God's kingdom.

And how is God at work? He's at work

primarily through the local church,

primarily through places like

Westvilles.

And so, we should be pumped because we

participate with God and demonstrate our

love for God and God's people because

generosity is always about blessing

people. Now, it could be a struggle to

give today because our giving often

feels impersonal.

It often feels like it's not personal.

And so, I want to talk about why that is

and how we can make our giving personal

practically.

It can feel impersonal. One big reason

is because most of our money is digital.

We're not bringing a bag of coins to the

church to be loaded up into a wagon to

go across the Mediterranean Sea to

Jerusalem. That's not happening. We're

not like taking three or four guys to

lift the chest, right? Most of our

giving is digital. Most of our money is

digital. We would enter an account on a

web page and pixels go from one account

to another. It's more than that, but you

know what I mean.

To be honest, it would not take much for

our system of digital currency. It would

not take much for it to break. Does that

scare you? I feel like it's scary. I

don't know. I'm also not an accountant,

so that's good. Now, to be clear,

electronic giving is great. As a church,

want to encourage electronic giving

through recurring gifts because it

enables us to be consistent, to be

intentional. We're able to pre-plan our

giving. We're able to have giving

generosity goals.

1 Corinthians 16:1, Paul tells the

1 Corinthians 16:1

church, "Set aside something at the

beginning of the week." Now, that means

rather than giving from the end, rather

than giving what's left over, we plan

ahead and we give from the first of our

harvests.

If you not intentionally thought about

your generosity goals for this year,

it's a good time to do that. Do you have

goals for being generous this year?

Another reason that giving can feel

impersonal, I mentioned it a couple

times, that we think negatively about

institutions.

There are currently many bad examples

and we should be discerning. We've

already discussed that, but I just want

us to think about the amount of good

that can happen when our giving is

collected together through a local

church.

We can do a lot through a local church

to bless people to exalt and glorify

God. Now, it may sound silly, but having

clear information through emails,

bulletins, and signups, that's not like

some secular work. That's spiritual. Our

goal is to help people to connect into

the work of God in our midst here. And

clear communication helps that to

connect people to community.

Having organized and programmed

disciplehip ministries like our kids

ministry and our youth ministry help

people learn to walk in a manner worthy

of the gospel from a young age to fight

sin, to know God in a deeper way. Those

ministries we have, kids and students,

they are the biggest mission field on

this hill right now.

They're learning about Christ. They're

responding to the gospel. We're going to

celebrate baptisms today and a couple

people from those ministries are getting

baptized today.

Hospitality like food and coffee on

Sunday morning or events we have can

make people feel comfortable. And our

goal is to create space for you to

linger,

to not just rush out of here because we

want you to connect with one another, to

pray with each other, to know one

another, to develop deeper

relationships.

A building a space to meet is a huge

gift that enables us to gather for

worship regularly.

Buying books, resources, materials for

people to study helps knowledge of God

grow and for organic ministry to happen

in the body of the church. Supporting

and sending missionaries brings the

gospel to the ends of the earth.

Benevolence, helping people in our

community in real physical financial

need, spreads the love of God to people

who are financially hurting.

The blessing of dedicated staff and

dedicated pastors, enables so much

shephering and planning and counseling.

It gives an opportunity for good

ministry programs, great sermons,

classes that we can grow in our

knowledge of faith.

And at the end of the day, it may feel

impersonal,

but the work of the church is always

about 2 Corinthians 8:23, glorifying

2 Corinthians 8:23

God.

And verse 24, proving our love by

blessing people. And so, just two

actions, two challenges I want to give

us this morning as we think about how we

make giving personal.

First challenge,

I want you to start thinking, I am part

of that.

I am part of it. If you're giving

sacrificially generously, if you're

giving to God's work, whether it's in

this building or somewhere else, I just

want you to think, I'm part of that. If

you're giving to the work of God through

Welss or another Christian organization,

where you hear good news about someone's

spiritual growth, baptisms, new marriage

studies, students being saved at camp, I

just want to challenge you to think, I'm

part of that. Even if you weren't up

until 2 a.m. having a conversation about

the sovereignty of God in a middle

school boy cabin. Yes, that conversation

happens. I want you to think, I am part

of that. When you hear testimonies, when

you hear about God's work, when you hear

about kids at BBS, when you hear about

counseling that's happening, I just want

you to think, I am part of that.

When you are generous to the local

church, you are giving to bless real

people, real people, real kids and kids

ministries, real ministries around the

world, real missionaries, real souls in

this building who are looking for hope

and guidance and a growing faith in the

Lord.

So think I'm part of that. Second thing

I want to challenge us with in addition

to your normal giving,

I want to encourage you to try giving to

real people yourself.

And what I mean by that is that

generosity is about participating in

God's work, God's love for people. I

want to challenge us to think about

setting aside

in addition to our normal giving some

resources, some money each month and put

a label on it.

Put some boundaries on it and say, "I

don't spend this on golf clubs, a grande

latte, or a credit card bill."

This is about blessing people. And so

pray for opportunities with that. Likely

you're not going to miss $50 to $100 a

month. Some of you might, so set aside

less, but over time it grows. And just

pray for opportunity. Invite people over

for dinner. When someone's car breaks

down, you have some money to help them

with a repair. When a student's going on

a mission trip, you have funds to

support them. You can have random cash

to bless people generously,

maybe even anonymously.

And so, set aside some money, put it in

a separate account, create some rules

around it. and what can or what it can

or cannot be used for. And pray for

opportunity. If you feel like giving is

impersonal, pray for personal

opportunity. Church, we have an

opportunity here to bless God's work,

participate God's work, bless real

people because generosity again shows

the love of God through us. And so

giving is relational. And we give to the

work of God through the local church.

That impact is magnified.

God's primarily at work through his

people, the local church today. ly pray

for us.