Philippians 4:14 to 20, The Joy That Gives

Today is our last sermon in the book of Philippians.

Next week, we're going to start a new series, which is titled Modern Problems, Ancient Solutions.

We're basically going to go through a series of uh, you know, short series on the timeless wisdom of God and how it relates and applies to our life today, practically when it comes to relationships, money, uh, just decision making, all sorts of just really practical stuff for us as we live day to day.

So that's starting next week.

This morning.

I want to be up front before you know we get into the text this morning.

We are about to talk about money and giving.

I know.

I know.

Some of you just check the time.

You remember you got somewhere else to be.

I saw some of you actually look up at the ceiling, think, uh, I'm just gonna look up here and not look up at the front during this message.

I get it.

Uh, talking about money in church can be comfortable, uh, uncomfortable, but somebody's got to do it.

And actually, I was actually uncomfortable preparing this sermon this morning, uh, you know, all week.

And I was trying to debate as to why, and it didn't hit me until about literally about two minutes before we started the service.

And it just clicked, and I realized, oh, that's why I have this discomfort with this serve, with this, with this topic.

Let me share a quick story.

Before I was a Christian, before I came to faith, my wife, as loving as she is, as much as she cared, she wanted me to come to faith in Christ.

So, what would she do?

She would bring me to churches, right?

We're in Charlotte, North Carolina at the time.

She says, You know what?

Would you, would you please just come to me, come with me to this church?

I was like, you know, oh, fine, I'll come with you.

Well, she brought me to this church.

She had never been to this church, by the way.

We just started driving, and wherever the car took us, we found we landed at a church and we're like, okay, let's just walk into this church service.

So we walk into this church service, and I'm sitting there, I'm sitting in the back because, you know, I don't, I don't want any part of this.

So I'm sitting way in the back.

I don't want anyone to see me, I don't want anyone to know me.

The preacher comes onto the stage.

Now I want you to imagine this because, and I'm not kidding when I say this.

The guy walks in with a glittery, glittery pinstripe suit.

He's got a cane, he's got a long wallet chain, and he's got a long top hat, also glittery.

He comes rolling into the onto the stage and starts talking about money.

And what does he do?

He first starts off as all right, everyone, get your offering envelopes out.

Put the money in the envelope, and make sure you write your name first and last name on those envelopes.

Because if you don't, you're not gonna get credit for it by God.

You're not gonna get credit.

So make sure you write your name and first and last name clearly, legibly, so that, and then you gotta hold it up, you wave it up there, and you say, Thank you, God, I'm giving this to you.

Like scream it out loud.

He's doing all these things, and I'm sitting here thinking, what the heck is he talking about?

This is such a turn off.

But wait, it gets worse.

Because then he proceeds to talk about such a blessing he has having an American Express credit card.

I'm thinking, where's where's he going with this?

I love the American Express credit card.

Why?

Because I can charge things onto that card and I can call up American Express and tell them I didn't buy it.

And they'll just instantly credit back my account.

And I thought, Sarah, this is your religion?

This is Christianity?

And she's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

This is not, no, no, no, this is wrong, this is wrong.

She and I stormed out of, she basically dragged me out of the church because she's like, man, this is this is now going to prevent him from even considering Jesus.

So I realized this morning, really, like two minutes before we started the service, that, oh, this is why I have a discomfort, because I don't want others thinking that that's what this faith is about.

Because it's not.

That's not what it's about.

And we're gonna unpack that this morning.

And look, I know, I know money and giving is an uncomfortable topic.

But again, somebody's got to talk about it.

And here's why, because here's something that might surprise you.

Jesus talked about money more than he talked about heaven and hell combined.

So he wasn't embarrassed by the topic.

And if he wasn't, you know, if he was willing to go there, if he's willing to talk about this, then we've got to be willing to go there too.

And look, if you're here and you're not a Christian, if you're still trying to figure out what you believe about Jesus, I'm gonna be the first one to tell you that I am not talking to you about money today.

I'm not talking to you about giving, not even a little.

What I want for you has nothing to do with your wallet.

So I want you, if you're not a Christian, I want you to just sit back and relax and listen to what God has to say for us.

I want you to look at Jesus.

And for the rest of you who are Christian, if you've given your life to Jesus, open up your wallet.

No, I'm kidding.

I want you to hear something that that not enough, I think not enough pastors really say out loud.

I know some of you are already doing the math in your head.

You're already doing the calculations.

I know some of you came in this morning stretched really thin, and the last thing you needed to hear was a sermon on giving.

And look, I hear you, I get it.

But I also love you and care for you too much to skip this.

Because what Paul writes in Philippians 4, it's not a fundraising pitch, it's not a guilt trip, it's not a budget update.

In fact, I would venture to say it's one of the more liberating things we can experience in the Bible.

So my hope and prayer this morning is that some of you leave here today with something loosened in your chest that maybe has been tight for a really long time.

Okay?

So if you have Bibles, you have Bibles in front of you, you can you can open up your Bibles to Philippians chapter four.

You can also follow along on the screen.

Philippians chapter four, we're gonna pick it up in verse 14.

Verse 14.

Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles.

Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only.

For even when I was in Thessalonica, you send me aid more than once when I was in need.

Not that I desire your gifts, what I desire is that more be credited to your account.

I have received full payment and have more than enough.

I am amply supplied now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent.

They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.

To our God and Father be glory forever and ever.

Amen.

Okay, this morning I'm gonna go the typical three-point sermon route.

We're gonna see that Paul shows us that giving is fellowship, giving is worship, and we can give because God gave first.

Look at verse 14.

Look at what Paul says in verse 14.

He says, Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles.

That word share, it doesn't mean donate, it doesn't mean contribute, it doesn't mean drop something in the offering plate and just walk away.

It means to enter into someone's suffering.

To enter into someone's suffering alongside them, to climb down into the hole that they're in and tell them, I'm here with you.

Their burden is now your burden.

Their struggle is now your struggle.

The Philippians didn't send Paul a financial gift and then just move on with their lives.

They put themselves alongside a man in chains.

And in Rome, that was actually socially dangerous.

It's publicly humiliating, potentially costly, but the Philippi, they did it anyway, consistently, from the very beginning.

In fact, Paul says in verse 15, no church shared with me except you.

I mean, think about that.

In all his travels, in all his missionary work, in all the churches he planted, the Philippians were the only ones essentially who showed up for him financially.

Again and again.

And here's something more I need you to see.

The Philippians, these were not wealthy people.

These weren't wealthy people giving from a surplus.

I mean, last week we discussed having contentment in Jesus during times of plenty and times of need.

The Philippians did not have plenty.

I mean, Paul tells us elsewhere that the Philippian church is giving out of extreme poverty.

So out of a severe trial.

They didn't wait until things got easier.

They didn't wait until they had more margin in their life.

They gave while Paul was in chains and they could barely make it themselves.

That's who the Philippians were.

And understand, there's something Paul does in this letter.

Again, last week, we talked about verses 11 through 13, contentment.

And then 14 to 20, he's moving into generosity.

That's not accidental, that's intentional.

Contentment leads to generosity.

Contentment leads to generosity.

You can't give freely from a hand that is constantly gripping for more.

That's why he teaches that way.

But it still begs the question like, how does a group of broke people, people under real financial pressure, how do they give like that?

How does generosity like that even happen?

Well, Jesus answers that question in Matthew 6.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with it.

Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.

It's a very familiar word verse.

But I'll tell you, usually, we read that backwards.

We think if I get my heart right, the money will follow.

Get the heart sorted first, the wallet will catch up.

Jesus doesn't say it like that.

That's not how he says it.

He says, where your treasure goes, your heart follows.

You see, often the money moves first, and the heart follows.

I mean, think about this.

Where does your extra money go?

I'm not talking about your rent or your mortgage or your utilities, not the core essential obligations.

I mean, I mean the money you choose to spend, the extra money you choose to spend.

Eating out, sports, clothing, entertainment, the thing you bought last week without thinking twice.

You start analyzing all that, you're gonna start to see a map of your heart.

The Philippians sent their money to Paul and their hearts went with it.

That's how money works.

What you pay for, you pay attention to.

If you start helping someone, you start caring deeply about them.

If you start giving toward the work of God, your heart starts moving toward the work of God.

And some of you, some of you here, you already know what this looks like.

Not in theory, I'm talking about in your actual life here at Belvedere Church.

Some of you have been on the receiving end of this.

You've been on the receiving end of the church showing up for you.

Food when there was nothing in the home, help with rent when you were out of money and out of options, hospital visits, phone calls, prayer when you didn't know what to do next.

And some of you have been on the giving end of that.

You gave time, you gave energy, and you gave money that maybe you didn't even have much of, but you gave anyway.

Why?

Because someone needed it.

That is this passage made real in this room.

That's what makes your that's what your giving makes possible in this church.

Now look, I know, I know what happens the moment a pastor says the word giving.

We get very creative with it.

Right?

We we don't we don't immediately say, well, you know, I don't want to give.

No, we don't say that.

We we get more spiritual with it.

We say, well, you know, I'm uh I'm in a season of discernment.

Uh I'm waiting for God to confirm it.

Yeah, you know, we're praying about it.

Gosh, some of us, we've been praying since 2019.

I get it.

I do, but and and also let me let me let me just back up because I want to be clear about one other thing.

I don't want to misconstrue anything.

Giving your time, it does matter.

Giving with your talent matters.

Showing up matters.

God sees every bit of that.

But Jesus did not say, where your time is, there your heart is also.

He didn't say that.

He said, where your treasure is.

See, because he knows something.

He knows something about us that we don't always want to admit.

Money is the thing that we hold on to the tightest.

It's the thing we hold on to the tightest.

It's the thing we protect the most.

It in fact it's it's the last thing we let go of.

And that's exactly why it's the most accurate indicator of where our hearts actually are.

See, God's not reaching into your wallet, he's reaching into your heart.

I mean, think about a farmer.

Think about a farmer holding a seed.

If he keeps it in his hand, and if he keeps it in his closed fist, he's safe.

He knows what he's got.

He can see it, he can count it, nothing is at risk.

But a seed in a closed fist never becomes anything.

The only way to find out what it can become is to open the hand and put it in the ground.

For a little while, it looks like the farmer's got less than he had.

But he hasn't lost a seed.

He's entrusted it into the soil.

That is what God is asking you to do with your treasure.

Not to lose it, but to plant it.

Because where your treasure goes, your heart follows.

And God wants your heart.

So the question isn't, can you spare a little?

The question is, where do you want your heart to be?

There's a little girl named uh Hattie Mae Wyatt, four years old, poor family, Philadelphia, early 1880s.

She walked into a small Baptist Sunday school one morning and she stood outside crying.

She stood outside crying because the room was too crowded and there was no space for her.

Pastor walks out, finds her there, he lifts her up, carries her inside, and found a small corner.

She places her there.

And then he leans in and he tells her one day, we are going to build a church big enough for every child who wants to come in.

Four years old.

She goes home, tells her parents she wants to help.

So they let her run some small errands, some day-to-day errands, and they give her pennies.

She saved every single one.

Two years later, Hattie Mae died.

At her funeral, her mother handed the pastor a small, worn-out purse that they had found under her pillow.

Inside it, 57 cents and a handwritten note in child's handwriting that said, to help build the church bigger so more children can go to Sunday school.

Look at her heart.

Look at her heart.

A six-year-old girl, poor, no extra money, but she gave what she had.

57 cents, a handwritten note, and a little girl who decided that what God was building was worth belonging to, even if she would never see it finished.

And that's what we're doing here at Belvedere.

Look, I want to be honest with you.

Right now, your giving is keeping this place open, and that matters.

Don't ever let anyone tell you it doesn't matter.

But I believe God is asking us to build towards something bigger than just keeping the lights on.

Outreach in this city, events that bring people in who have never heard the gospel, a new generation of leaders trained up, a team built, a church of people whose lives have been transformed by Jesus and are going out transforming the lives of other people.

But now that doesn't happen without a church that gives.

And we know it.

Because most of us, let me say it this way, most of us are not holding back because we're greedy.

I don't think that's what we're going through.

I think most of us are holding back because we're scared.

We're scared that if we let go, there won't be enough.

Scared that that if we if we open our hand, God won't show up.

So we hold on.

And we call it responsible.

But underneath all that responsible, careful, realistic exterior, there's a question underneath that that most of us don't say out loud.

What if I open my hand and God doesn't catch me?

What if he doesn't catch me?

That question?

It's an honest question.

And Paul has an answer for it.

Let's look at verse 17.

Not that I desire your gifts.

What I desire is that more may be credited to your account.

Paul is flipping the script entirely.

Paul isn't primarily grateful for what their gift did for him.

He is grateful for what their giving did for them.

I mean, he's not even thinking about his prison cell right now.

He's thinking about their account, what the generosity is producing in them and before God.

In other words, Paul is saying, he's essentially saying, I'm not writing this because I want more from you.

I'm writing this because I want more for you.

Every time you give, something happens in you.

And I want to see more of that.

So keep going.

Not for me, for you.

And then verse 18, and this is where this is where it gets extraordinary.

Okay.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

You know that smell of coffee first thing in the morning?

Right?

The best part of waking up, you guys know it, is foliers in your cup.

You guys know the jingle, right?

Although no man, no one really drinks folgers anymore.

But you know the smell, right?

That fresh brewed coffee in the morning.

Or maybe for some of you it's it's the grilling on a Saturday afternoon.

Something good coming out of the oven.

There's this aroma that just does something to you.

It gives you that, ooh, good feeling inside.

It just stops you in your tracks.

And maybe you feel something before you even think about it.

What we're about to read, verse 18, what Paul does here, Paul is reaching for that kind of language to describe what happens when you give.

Paul describes their financial gift using three specific words.

He calls it a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.

Now, if you grew up in church, you might read past that really quickly.

But I want you to stay here for a second with me, okay?

Because those three phrases aren't Paul's own words.

He's reaching back into the Old Testament, into the worship language of the ancient temple, and he's applying it to the financial gift that's being given from a broke church.

Listen, in the Old Testament, worshipers brought sacrifices to God.

Sacrifice was laid at the altar, it was burned up, the smoke rose, and that rising aroma was a picture that God received the offering.

It belonged to God and he was pleased with it.

It pleased him.

That's the language Paul reaches for to describe what happened when the Philippians sent their money to him.

In other words, Paul is saying, when you open your hand and gave, it wasn't just a transaction, it was worship.

God saw it.

God received it.

God was pleased with it.

Understand, church, your gift, your giving is never just a transaction.

Paul calls it something else entirely.

He calls it worship.

Worship.

Now here's here's something else I need you to hear.

And for some of you, this might be the most important thing you hear today.

For others of you, you the leaders of the church, you might be scared when I say this.

Paul, he never mentions the amount.

Not once.

He doesn't say their gift was large enough to qualify.

He doesn't tell us the number, because the number was never the point.

The amount was not the point.

God was looking at the heart behind the gift.

The fragrant offering in the Old Testament wasn't accepted because of the size of the animal.

It was accepted because of the posture of the worshiper, the surrender, the open hand, the nothing held back.

Which means your five dollars rises before God as worship.

Your$10 rises before God as worship.

The offering of someone who's behind on rent and gives anyway that rises before God as worship.

Not despite the smallness of it, but because of the faithfulness behind it.

See, church, your first and your best belong to God.

And that is an act of worship.

Let me explain this a little bit more.

In the ancient world, the first fruits offering, okay, first fruits is an agricultural farming language.

It meant bringing the first portion of the harvest to God before anything else, before the rest was counted.

Before you knew what the total return, the total yield would be, you gave first and trusted God with the with what remained.

There's a trust aspect here.

And in fact, it's an inversion of everything our instincts tell us to do.

See, our instincts say, count what you have, keep what you need, give what's left over.

Right?

That's what our instincts tell us.

Count what you have, keep what you need, give what's left over.

God says, give first, before the counting is done.

And discover something about me that you could never discover any other way.

First fruits is not give God what's left.

It's saying, God, before I know what's left, I belong to you.

Everything I have belongs to you.

So you trust God with your first, not just today, but before every paycheck.

So here's the application on this.

Make giving a first line act of trust.

Not just an afterthought.

For some of you, that may start very small, but start somewhere.

Before you decide where every dollar it goes or what every dollar is for, say, Lord, it all came from you.

Teach me to trust you with my first.

And look, I want to be honest with you.

I'll be the first to say, I've got a gift.

I have the spiritual gift for convincing myself that not giving right now is actually responsible.

It's actually spirit-led.

It's a mature decision.

That's sarcasm if you guys didn't catch it.

Like I've done the math at 11 p.m.

on a Tuesday evening to prove to myself that, you know, right now, I can't give right now.

In fact, the spreadsheet, the spreadsheets I put together, always agrees.

Spreadsheets have a funny way of being agreeable that way.

Look, let me tell you something.

There was a season in our family.

Actually, we've had multiple seasons like this.

But there was a season in our family when the finances were tight.

Unexpected bills came at me at the same time.

I sat at the kitchen table with the numbers in front of me, just looking at it, staring at it.

And the first thought I had, we're gonna have to pause our giving.

Just a few months.

But you know what?

God's gonna understand.

I felt my hands close.

I was a missionary and church planter, preaching faith every week, sitting in my own kitchen table, afraid that if we gave, there'd be nothing left.

And I I had to look at what I was actually trusting in.

And guess what, folks?

In that moment, I wasn't trusting God.

I was trusting the number on the screen.

I'm not sure if I'm the only person in this room who sat at that table.

But here's what I want to tell you.

Not as a way to boast, but to just to encourage.

We gave anyway.

And I want to be careful because I'm not promising you some great financial outcome or anything like that, but something did shift in us.

The grip loosened.

Our eyes moved from the numbers to Jesus.

And over time, yes, God provided, but even more than that, he changed what we wanted.

We began to care more about what God could do with the money that we had than what we could do with it.

And look, this isn't some financial testimony.

That is what Paul means when he says the fruit increases to your account.

God was growing something in us, in both of us, that money could never buy.

Contentment that we never had before.

Joy that didn't depend on the numbers, a deeper experience of God's love and a love, a greater, deeper experience for the love for other people.

And it started to matter more than our own comfort.

That's what's on the other side of open hands.

Not just provision, freedom, joy, eyes fixed on Jesus rather than on the numbers.

And that's what this passage is promising you.

Not just supply, a different kind of life.

Which brings me to our final point.

We can give because God gave first.

And I know some of you still praying about it, still praying about whether to give.

You've been praying so long that God started to reroute your prayers to voicemail.

Listen, listen to verse 19.

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.

One word in that verse changes everything.

The word according to.

You following?

But if he brought that man into his home, put him in the will, opened his accounts to him, now he's giving according to his riches.

The supply is measured by the full scale of what he has.

God supplies according to his riches.

That means his supply is measured by who he is, not by what you have.

God is not giving to you from a bank account that can ever hit zero.

He's giving to you out of who he is.

And who he is, guess what, folks?

Never runs dry.

There's no ceiling on God.

And here's the thing: here's where it hits home for us.

He calls us to give the same way.

Not out of our riches, according to our riches.

Some of us in this room have been blessed with a lot.

And if we're honest, we've been giving out of our riches.

A safe amount, an amount that doesn't require any trust, an amount that doesn't change anything about how we live.

That's not according to your riches.

That's a comfortable amount from a comfortable distance.

God gives according to his riches.

And he's asking you to give according to yours.

So what would that look like?

What would that look like for your giving to actually reflect what God has placed in your hands?

And look at what God did.

He didn't wait until it was safe to give.

He definitely didn't do that.

He didn't look at humanity, broken, rebellious, running in the opposite direction, and decide we were worth investing in because we had something to offer.

We brought something to the table.

Guess what, folks?

Do you want to know what you brought to the table?

Sin.

That's it.

That's what you brought to the table.

And God, He gave first to us.

He gave His Son before we deserved it.

Before we asked for it, before we had anything to offer.

Romans 5 8 says, God demonstrates His own love for us in this.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

He opened His hand completely all the way to the cross.

And he held nothing back.

The Father's own son, given for people who had nothing to give in return.

That is the God of verse 19.

That is the God who is making this promise to you today.

And look, here's the question that I think this whole sermon's been building up to.

What has God, listen to me?

What has God ever withheld from a person who opened their hand to him?

What has God ever withheld from a person who opened their hand to him?

I mean, think about that honestly.

He gives grace upon grace, undeserved kindness that keeps coming and coming our way.

He has never once abandoned someone who opened their hand to him in trust.

The God who did not spare his own son?

I mean let's be real.

Do you think he's gonna drop you over a paycheck?

He's got you.

So your first and your best belong to God.

He gave first, which means you can give now.

And look again, I'm gonna come back to the to those who don't know Jesus.

If you if you're here today, you don't know God, if you don't know him yet, I'm not asking for you to pull out pull out money out of your wallet.

I'm asking you to look at Jesus.

God gave his son before you did anything, anything right, before you deserved anything, before you had anything to offer.

He is not asking you to pay him back.

He's not asking you to raise your offering so you get credit for it.

He's inviting you to trust him and receive him.

And for the rest of us, in a moment we are going to transition into our time of giving.

And as always, you can give at the offering plates as you leave the service when we bring it to a close.

You can also give online on our website or the QR code that's located in your bulletins.

Whatever it looks like, whatever giving looks like for you, do it as an act of worship.

Do it as trust.

Because when you give today, you're not paying a bill, you're not funding a budget, you're not tipping God for a good Sunday service.

You're opening your hand.

You're declaring to your bank account, to the South Florida housing market, to every anxious calculation you have run this week that you do not get the last word.

My God does.

You are bringing your first to the God of verse 19.

Maybe it starts small, but it starts before anything else.

Everything else tries to capture your heart.

You're stepping into God's way of taking care of his people.

And God is not limited by your bank account.

The God who supplies according to his glory isn't waiting for you to have enough before you trust him.

He's inviting you to open your hand.

So trust God with your first.

After Hattie May's funeral, Pastor Conwell told the church her story.

He offered the fifty-seven pennies for sale.

The people of the church, they bought them.

Many of them gave them back.

And the pennies were sold again and again and again.

Soon, the Wyatt Might Society was formed to multiply that little girl's gift.

Within five years, those fifty-seven cents became two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

What got built?

Temple Baptist Church.

Seating 3,300 people.

A Sunday school building large enough that no child would ever have to stand outside again.

Temple University, one of the largest universities in America, got built from that.

And here's one that might be familiar to many of you.

Good Samaritan Hospital got built out of that.

Gosh, that's touch.

Little girl.

Hattie Maywai couldn't see any of it.

She died at six years old with 57 cents and a dream.

Nobody in that room knew what God was gonna do with those 57 cents.

But he knew.

He knew then, he knows now.

He knows exactly what he's gonna do with the open hands in this room today.

Imagine what he builds when a whole church opens his hands together.

Imagine what what not just one little girl, but a whole congregation, week after week, trusting him with their first.

Look, we're not giving just to keep the lights on, although we need to improve some of our lights.

I get that.

We are giving to keep the mission moving, to grow this church, to reach this city, to raise up leaders, to see lives transformed, to become a church that looks like Jesus and goes where Jesus went.

Amen.