Though He was Rich | 2 Corinthians 8:8-15 | 05/17/26

Mhm.

Luke 12:13 through 21.

Luke 12:13–21

Someone in the crowd said to him, that

is Jesus,

"Teacher, tell my brother to divide the

inheritance with me."

But he said to him, "Man,

who made me a judge or arbiter over

you?"

And he said to them, "Take care, and be

on your guard against all covetousness,

for one's life does not consist in the

abundance of his possessions."

And he told them a parable saying,

"The land of a rich man produced

plentifully.

And he thought to himself, 'What shall I

do, for I have nowhere to store my

crops?'

And he said, 'I will do this. I will

tear down my barns and build larger

ones, and there I will store all my

grain and all my goods.

And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you

have ample goods laid up for many years.

Relax, eat, drink, be merry."

But God said to him, "Fool,

this night your soul is required of you,

and the things you have prepared, whose

will they be?

So is the one who lays up treasure for

himself,

and is not rich toward God."

What does it mean to be rich toward God?

Does it mean to be generous to God, to

enrich him?

How can you enrich the one who owns

everything?

How can you enrich the one who imagined

diamonds into existence?

Who spoke all of the girl the gold on

this world into existence by his word?

The one who owns every galaxy, you can't

enrich one like that.

The answer is

how do you be rich towards God? The

answer is you you God your riches.

He is your treasure.

Your heart is wealthy with love and

contentment because God is all the

riches you need.

Now, if you remember from last week, we

are in the section in 2 Corinthians

where Paul is addressing giving and

generosity. I'm so glad you all came

back. It's great.

He told the Corinthians to look at the

example of the poorer churches in

Macedonia.

They had far outgiven much wealthier

church of Corinth.

And last week I posed the question that

we're trying to unpack for the next

several weeks

as we go through chapters 8 and 9 of 2

Corinthians. And that question was this,

if Christ is our ultimate treasure, what

does that mean for our money?

So, we're going to continue to unpack

that question today. Our text this

morning is 2 Corinthians chapter 8

2 Corinthians 8:8–15

verses 8 through 15. So, if you got your

Bibles, go ahead and make your way over

there. 2 Corinthians chapter 8 verses 8

2 Corinthians 8:8–15

through 15.

Paul writes,

>> [snorts]

>> "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 that others

should be eased and you burdened.

But that is a matter of fairness. Your

abundance at this at the present time

should supply their need so that their

abundance may supply your need that

there may be fairness.

As it is written,

"Whoever gathered much had nothing left

over.

And whoever gathered little had no

lack."

This is the word of God.

Paul gives us four principles for giving

in this text.

Give from love.

Give from a posture of spiritual wealth.

Give from what you have.

And give from faith.

We're going to look at those principles

one at a time. Principle number one,

give from love.

Now, in order for us to understand our

text this week, I need to take you back

to how our text ended last week.

If you look back to how he ended verse

7, which we covered last week, you'll

see he says, "See that you excel in this

act of grace also."

If you remember from last week, you

remember that the act of grace that Paul

was asking the Corinthians to excel in

was

giving of their financial goods to the

church in Jerusalem. He was telling them

to play a part in the grace of God.

The grace of God that was extended to

Jerusalem.

So, Corinthians, excel in giving so that

you can play a part in God's grace.

And now look with me at the beginning of

verse 8. He says, "I say this not as a

command.

Not as a command." This is so important,

church.

Paul is saying this is not law that you

give.

This is not law that you give to the

collection in the church of Jerusalem.

This is not a membership due. This is

not like the Old Testament tithe where

the Israelites were commanded to give

10% of their income to the maintenance

of the tabernacle and the temple and the

priesthood.

And then they were required to bring

other offerings on top of that. This is

not that.

This is not the law that they were

required to give. So, if Paul in the New

Testament give no law regarding giving,

then why should we give?

Why should we even do it? There's no

law.

Okay, so we're now we're free. Free to

do what we want. So, why should I give?

Read the rest of verse 8.

I say this not as a command,

but to prove by the earnestness of

others that your love

is also genuine.

That's why we give.

To prove our love is genuine.

Now, you can give in order to pretend

that you love.

There are many people who do that. I'm

sure that there are many extremely

wealthy people in the world who don't

who donate large sums of money to the

poor in order to maintain the image that

they're a good person,

that they're a loving person.

That's pretending to love, but our love

must be genuine.

Our giving is not only a verification of

our love, but it also must be truly

motivated,

truly motivated by love.

Now, let me talk about both of those

things briefly. The motivation of love

and the verification of love in our

giving. First, here's what I mean

by motivated by love.

If at any point in this series, in this

trip through chapters 8 and 9, if you

feel guilty,

and you feel like you must give out of a

sense of guilt,

that's wrong.

You should not give from a sense of

guilt.

If at any point you feel compelled to

give to the church or to the poor or to

some other organization,

and it's motivated by love,

you should do that. You should give.

You should give generously. You should

give sacrificially. You should give

joyfully.

But on the other hand, if you sense

guilt, if you're thinking I'm giving

only so that others see me giving. I

want others to think that I'm generous."

If you're giving for any other reason

than love of God, love of church, love

of people, then you shouldn't do it.

You shouldn't give.

God doesn't need your money

with that kind of a heart.

Now, the exception to this

is when you're giving in order to train

your love.

Now, let me explain what I mean by that.

Sometimes our love

follows after our actions. It comes

later.

Sometimes we know what to do. We know

that we should love, but our emotions

aren't really into it. They're They're

not really in it. Well, love isn't an

emotion.

Love is a decision.

You decide to act in love, and then you

would trust that your emotions will

follow suit in time.

And I can tell you that they always do

with some training.

Duty

can be love.

For example, when a firefighter has to

run into a burning building in order to

save a civilian,

do they want to go into that building?

Well, yes and no.

Their sense of self-preservation says,

"No, don't go in there."

But their sense of duty says, "You

must." Their Their sense of love for

people

and and their desire to risk their own

life

out of duty compels them

to run in.

Performing your duty can be a powerful

form of love, and it's very honorable.

So, giving out of love or giving out of

a sense of duty when you don't feel like

it is honorable, but giving out of guilt

is not something that you should do.

There's no law

here.

This is all grace.

Okay, so giving must be done from a

motivation of love. Now, what about the

verification of love? Paul said to the

Corinthians that they needed to give

generously in order to prove that their

love was genuine.

This is important because love that

doesn't have action behind it is not

love at all.

It's just words.

Let me give you an an example. You can

say you love your spouse.

You can say, "I love you." all day long.

But if you never serve them,

never sacrifice for them, never take

from yourself in order to give to them,

you do not love them. You love yourself.

You prove that you don't love them by

your actions.

Or how about this example from

scripture? James 2:15-16 says, "If a

James 2:15–16

brother or sister is poorly clothed and

lacking in daily food, and and one of

you says to them, 'Go in peace. Be

warmed and filled.' without giving them

the things needed for the body,

what good is that?"

The principle Paul is trying to give the

Corinthians is this, words are not

enough.

Words are not enough. Words are cheap.

Put your money where your mouth is.

Love is a decision. Love is an action.

The Corinthians were a church that was

very gifted with words.

They had so many word gifts.

They had the best preachers. They had

the most theological knowledge. They

spoke in the tongues of men and of

angels.

They had many prophets,

but they struggled with love.

I'm getting this from the famously

chapter 1 Corinthians 13. "If I speak in

the tongues of men and of angels, but

have not love, I am a noisy gong or a

clanging cymbal.

If I have all prophetic powers and

understand all mysteries and have all

knowledge, and if I have all faith so as

to remove mountains, but have not love,

I am nothing."

The Corinthians words of love will be

verified as true only when they follow

the example of the Macedonians and begin

to give generously.

That's what Paul's saying.

This is our first principle that we

should give from a motivation of love

and as a verification of our love.

Principle number two.

We should give from a posture of

spiritual wealth.

We should give from a posture of

spiritual wealth. We see this in verse

nine.

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.

Here Paul is trying to load up the

Corinthians

with as many reasons to give as

possible.

He says, "You are rich." But he doesn't

mean monetarily rich, though they were.

They were wealthy.

He's talking about a different kind of

riches here.

What kind of riches is he talking about?

Well, let's talk about each of the

phrases in verse nine starting with "For

you know the grace of our Lord Jesus

Christ."

Last week we defined grace as God's

undeserved, unmerited favor.

It's God's free, voluntary gift of love,

mercy, and power extended to sinners who

deserve judgment, not kindness. And here

again this week Paul brings up grace

in connection with giving.

West Hills, I need you to tune in here

because this is the undertow

of all Christian giving. This is the

foundation of Christian generosity that

you have been given grace for free.

It cost you nothing. You just simply

received it.

How then can you not give? The

generosity of the saints is rooted in

the free grace of Christ Jesus our Lord.

If you don't understand grace, you will

never be generous.

And if you understand grace, you should

be exceedingly generous.

If you don't comprehend what was given

to you, you don't comprehend what it

cost to save your soul, you will never

be able to verify your love for God by

giving back to him.

Now, notice the next phrase of verse 9.

That though he, Christ, was rich.

Paul is talking about the way Christ was

before he became human.

Before the incarnation. In what ways was

Christ rich before his incarnation?

He was rich in glory.

He was rich in dignity. He was rich in

the affection of the Father. He was rich

in the friendship of the Spirit. He was

rich in the adoration of the angels. He

was rich in the worship of his creation.

He was rich in honor. He was rich in

power. He was rich in in strength and in

beauty and in righteousness. He was rich

in splendor and majesty. He was rich in

justice. He was rich in truth. He was

rich in authority. And he was rich in

dominion. He was rich in compassion and

mercy and grace and love. And he sat on

the throne of the universe before he

became a human. He was so rich.

He was overflowing with these

attributes. They were gushing out of him

and splashing onto his creation.

Jesus is the ultimate source of all that

is good and true and beautiful in this

world.

That and so much more is what Paul means

when he says that Christ

was rich.

But what about the next phrase?

Yet for your sake

he became

poor.

In what ways did Christ become poor?

First, he became poor by becoming human.

He, the eternal one, took on mortality.

He took on weakness, frailty. He took on

the limitations of the body. He took on

the capacity for sickness and injury. He

took on the emotions of a human, yet he

never wavered. He took on the

temptations of man, yet he never sinned.

Not only did he take on a human body, he

took it on in its most vulnerable form,

the form of an infant.

And not only an infant, but an infant

born into a poor family in a captive

state in ancient Rome.

In a day when the poor were very, very

poor, he grew up in in obscurity. And

when he emerged from obscurity at the

age of 30, he became even more

impoverished. Leaving his one-bedroom

house of his parents, he became

homeless. Even the foxes have dens and

the birds have nests, but the son of man

had nowhere to lay his head, nowhere to

call home.

But these were not the only ways in

which he became poor.

He was impoverished in his friendships.

He was impoverished in his friendships

as he will never be.

He was betrayed by a friend, abandoned

by all of his closest disciples. He was

impoverished of justice when he was

falsely accused as you will never be

falsely accused.

You've seen injustice in your life, yet

it didn't kill you.

He was sentenced to death by injustice.

You think you've been bullied, but you

have never been bullied or mocked as

Jesus was bullied and mocked.

He was impoverished of the truth. The

truth is that he was the son of God, and

yet he was crucified for those claims,

crucified like a common slave.

And ultimately, he was deprived of life

itself when he breathed his last breath

on the cross. They killed God.

They killed God himself.

And why would he allow this to happen to

himself? If he is so strong, if he is so

mighty, why would he allow this to

happen?

Why would he who is rich in every way

allow himself to to poor in every way.

Paul answers that verse that answers

that question in verse 9.

For your sake.

Why would he do it? For your sake.

He became poor.

Why would someone with all of the riches

of the universe, all of the riches of

Christ choose to become poor?

Love.

That's why.

He was motivated by love and he verified

his love by his sacrifice.

The last phrase of verse 9.

So that by his poverty

we

might become rich.

We might become rich.

How did his poverty make us rich?

Well, he had to take from himself

and give to you.

He had to take from himself and give

to us. What did he take from himself?

He took his righteousness, his holy

life,

his refusal to sin, his intrinsic

holiness, his complete innocence, his

perfect moral character. He took all of

those things and he gave it to us.

He put it in our metaphorical heavenly

bank account.

And then he was treated as though he had

no perfection, no holiness, no

righteousness. He was treated as if he

was morally bankrupt.

He was punished on the cross as if he

was the worst sinner on the planet

though he had never sinned.

This is what Paul said a few weeks ago

in chapter 5. He who knew no sin

became sin that we might become the

righteousness of God.

So his wealth of righteousness gets

accredited to us and our poverty of

righteousness, our sin, our guilt, our

shame, it all gets assigned to him.

And he pays our penalty and the penalty

for sin is death, and that is why he had

to die.

And that is

how he became poor

and how we became rich.

Now, the second question is in what ways

are we rich?

>> [snorts]

>> Well, some of us are financially rich.

But that's not what Paul's talking about

here.

He's saying that all of us are

spiritually wealthy.

All of us are spiritually wealthy. We

are enriched by Christ in so many ways.

We are rich in forgiveness. We are rich

in the love of God. We are rich because

we have been adopted into his family.

We are his children now.

We are rich because we have become the

temple of God and his spirit lives

within us. We are rich in the church

because he has given us a family to grow

up spiritually with. We are rich in

heaven because he is safeguarding an

inheritance for us there. We are rich in

eternity because we will reign with

Christ forever.

We are so rich.

I feel like I could go on making list

after list.

There's no end to the riches of Christ,

but you get the point.

But there is even more for the

Corinthians and for us

than just the spiritual riches of Christ

that have been given to us.

Paul shifts gears a bit. He takes us out

of the heavens and our spiritual wealth

and brings us back down to earth.

He wants the Corinthians to know about

the earthly benefits that result from

giving to the church.

If they can start giving once again to

the collection for the church in

Jerusalem, they will be able to finish

what they started, putting their money

where their mouth is.

That's the earthly benefit, he says.

We see this in verses 10 and 11. And in

this matter, I give my judgment. This

benefits you, Corinthians, 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. Let me paraphrase those two verses

for you. Paul is saying that he started

the collection among the Corinthians a

year prior.

And they had started to give. They

started to contribute.

Their generosity was beginning, but then

they had their falling out with Paul,

and they stopped giving.

They desired to give, but their actions

never followed up. And here Paul is

saying the first earthly benefit to them

would be to resume their giving, and

that they that way they will be able to

prove their love, not just say their

love.

You do not benefit by merely having a

desire to do something. You must align

your desires with your actions. Be not

merely a hearer of the word, but also a

doer of the word.

When it comes to giving, it's not the

thought that counts.

The heart matters, but it's of no

benefit if your desire does not lead to

action.

Having a desire to give and not giving

is about as much use as having a desire

to exercise and not exercising.

It It accomplishes nothing.

It's a great desire,

but that's all it is.

It's meaningless unless it leads to

action. Paul is calling the Corinthians

and all Christians everywhere and all

time

to action.

Now, there are several roadblocks that

prevents desire from becoming action,

aren't there?

First, our excuses prevent us.

We make excuses as to why we shouldn't

follow through with our desire to give.

We say, "Oh, well, I'll give after I get

a raise.

I'll give after I get this promotion.

I'll give after I buy the house." No,

you won't.

You won't.

You You why I know that?

Because Luke 16:10-11

Luke 16:10–11

says you won't. One who is faithful in a

very little is also faithful in much.

And one who is dishonest in a very

little is also dishonest in much. If

then you have not been faithful with the

unrighteous wealth, who will entrust you

with true riches?

Here's what that means. If you can't

give away a little bit of money,

you definitely won't be able to give

away a lot of money.

If you can't give away a little bit of

money when you make little, you won't be

able to give away a lot of money when

you make a lot.

Practice giving out of what you have

now.

Not what you will have someday. Give

based on today's situation, not

tomorrow's dream.

Give in accordance with your present

reality, not your future goals. You can

give more tomorrow,

if that makes sense.

You can give more tomorrow if you make

more tomorrow. Don't make excuses by by

always moving the starting line to your

giving

out to the future.

So, our first obstacle is excuses.

Second, laziness.

Some people don't give because they're

too lazy.

It's too much work to set up recurring

giving. It's I can't figure out the

website.

It's too much work to do the math to

know how much to give.

It's inconvenient.

Since when is sacrifice ever convenient?

That's kind of the definition of a

sacrifice.

It's very inconvenient

to sacrifice.

Ease and convenience are not really part

of the equation when we're talking about

sacrificial generosity.

Third, procrastination.

A lot of people don't give or they don't

give in accordance to their to their

means because they just procrastinate.

Well, I know I just got the new job,

that new promotion, the refinance that

lowered my mortgage, that inheritance,

but I'll update my giving later.

3 months goes by, 6 months goes by, 2

years goes by.

Before long, you might be two or three

raises in and a promotion deep before

you realize that you haven't been giving

generously or according to your means.

The The point Paul is trying to make to

the Corinthians is this.

Having a desire is not enough.

Having a desire is not enough. Not

acting on what you know to do is right

is actually a spiritual problem.

You have everything in Christ. You are

rich.

Don't take the posture of a poor person.

Don't adopt a poverty mentality.

Adopt a generosity mentality.

Okay, so we've seen in our first two

principles that we should give out of

love and we should give from a posture

of one who is spiritually wealthy.

Principle number three.

Give

from what you have.

Give from what you have. We see this in

verses 12 through 14.

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 as a matter of fairness, your

abundance at the present time should

supply their need so that their

abundance may supply your need that

there may be fairness.

This principle is so important for those

of you in here who are very low income

but have extremely generous hearts.

I'm talking to you right now.

Low income but but generous hearts.

Don't give what you don't have.

Paul's very clear about that. Don't give

what you don't have. You don't need to

go into debt to give money away. You

don't need to go get that third job to

make more in order to make more so you

can give more. You don't need to make

yourself poor

poorer than you already are in order to

make others rich. Paul is saying, "No,

just look at what you have. Is there a

surplus? Do you have more than you need?

Then you can begin to give it away.

He doesn't mean to give from your

leftovers after you finish providing for

yourself lavishly.

That's not what he means by a surplus.

He's saying after you have met your

basic needs, food, shelter, clothing,

then begin to give generously from

what's left at that point.

Paul's wanting there to be fairness in

the churches.

It's not fair that the members in the

church of Jerusalem are starving, while

the the members of the church in Corinth

are getting drunk at their church

potlucks. They have so much excess.

That's not fair. He's advocating for

He's not advocating for a Christian

socialism. In fact, elsewhere he says,

"If you do not work, you do not eat."

He's not advocating for a Christian

socialism. He's advocating for

Christ-like generosity.

Generosity that provides for your family

and then says, "Now, how much can I give

away?

What's left for me to give?

Give from what you have,

not from what you don't have.

Okay, so far our principles are give

from love, give from a posture of

spiritual wealth, give from what you

have, and now finally, give in faith.

We see this in our last verse, verse 15.

As it is written,

"Whoever gathered much had nothing left

over, and whoever gathered little had no

lack."

Paul is quoting from the book of Exodus

Exodus 16 · chapter mention

chapter 16. And if you were with us in

our series through the book of Exodus

last year, you might remember the

context of this quote.

In Exodus 16, the Israelites had just

escaped from slavery in Egypt, and they

were wandering around in the wilderness

on their way to the promised land.

And along the way,

naturally, they got hungry,

and they grumbled against God.

But God was so merciful. He provided

manna from heaven, a kind of bread,

a flake-like bread or wafer that

appeared on the ground every morning.

And the Israelites were commanded to go

gather this bread every morning because

it would appear on the ground like dew

each morning. But as the sun would draw

higher in the sky, it would evaporate.

It would melt away.

This bread was really interesting

because

God would not allow the people to gather

a surplus.

He prevented them from from gaining any

sort of surplus. They could not store

it. If they tried to store it, they

gathered more than their family needed

to eat for that day,

they would wake up the next day and it'd

be full of maggots. It was destroyed by

God.

That's where verse 15 from our text

comes in.

Whoever gathered much had nothing left

over, and whoever gathered little had no

lack.

If you were an Israelite and you wanted

to store some manna for tomorrow, and

you gathered extra, you gathered more

than your family could eat,

you would be prevented. You could not do

it. You could not You literally could

not store this stuff.

Why?

What's the big deal about storing stuff?

I just want to I want to a little safety

net. I want to I want to make sure that

I'm okay, that my family's okay.

Why would God have a problem with that?

Think about the mentality that says,

"God told me, don't collect more than

just today's,

but I don't trust him.

I don't trust him.

I think I need to provide for myself.

He won't provide for me tomorrow.

Let me provide for myself and my family

tomorrow.

I'm going to give myself a nice safety

net just in case God doesn't show up as

he promised he would."

God gave just enough to his people

because he wanted them to have faith.

He wanted them

to believe that he would provide for

them

as he promised

every day, today, tomorrow, forever.

Paul reaches deep into the Old Testament

for this principle. He's saying, "If you

believe God will provide for you

tomorrow,

then you can give generously today."

So, give out of faith.

Church, I think our problem with giving

and the Corinthians' problem with giving

stems from a lack of faith.

We're not sure that God will actually

provide for us tomorrow.

Or we're not sure that he'll provide as

much as we want to provide.

We doubt that he will give us as much as

we like.

And so, we want to take things into our

own hands. I'll store up for myself.

I'll build bigger barns.

Church, where is our faith?

Where is our faith?

We are already so incredibly rich. So,

give from love.

Give from a posture of spiritual wealth.

Give from what you have.

And give in faith.

Let's pray.