Five Reasons to Give Generously

Well, today we continue Paul's instructions about the Jerusalem Project offering, a benevolence offering directed to the poor and persecuted saints in Jerusalem, money which is collected from the Gentile churches planted by the Apostle Paul in Asia and in Greece, which was carefully planned and organized and executed. And the church at Corinth was one of the first to make a generous commitment to this project, but now they are lagging behind in their completion of that which they had promised. And so Paul devotes two full chapters in his second epistle to the matter of the project offering for the saints.

And we have made our way through chapter eight and we are now addressing chapter nine. Today in taking up the first seven verses of chapter nine, I want us to look at five reasons for Corinth to complete this project. All of these do not apply exactly and equally to us today as they did to Corinth in their day, but all of them apply to us in some way or another. And they constitute five of many reasons why we should give generously to the Lord.

And let us look at them one by one. Number one, why should we give generously to the Lord? To fulfill our intentions. To fulfill our intentions, that's verses one and two. Now concerning the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you, for I know your willingness, about which I boast to you to the Macedonians that Achaea was ready a year ago.

And your zeal has stirred up the majority. To fulfill your intentions, and in verse one, Paul is stating the obvious in verse two, he is remembering their intentions, which were previously stated. He states the obvious in verse one, concerning the ministering to the saints, that is the collection for the saints in Jerusalem.

It is indeed ministry to them. It is superfluous. It is unnecessary for me to write to you. And yet he does. He restates the purpose for this project offering, declaring that this restatement is unnecessary, or at least it probably ought to be unnecessary.

It's superfluous. But he states it anyway. We do something like that from time to time when we say, now I know I really don't need to tell you this again, but, and we tell them again.

And why do we do that? Well, because we have this inclination that maybe they haven't remembered it, or are not taking it as seriously as they should have. Yes, you have stated it before. You've discussed it previously.

Yes, they are aware of it, but they need to be reminded. We all do that, both in our conversation to others and in the words that we receive from others, because we know that we need reminding from time to time. That's exactly what Paul is saying here. He's saying, I know on the one hand I really don't need to tell you about this again, but I am.

And the reason is because you're not coming through, and I'm concerned that you may not. And so after saying that he doesn't need to say it again, he does. He plunges ahead and states it again, because they are not following through on what they had previously committed. And that brings us to verse 2, where he recalls their previously stated intentions. I know your willingness, that is, to give to this offering.

I know your willingness. How does he know their willingness? Because it had been publicly stated. Obviously, that's the only way that he knew their willingness. In fact, it was publicly stated in such a way that this enabled and encouraged Paul to tell others what Corinth intended to do. Corinth is going to do such and such in this offering. Obviously, their intentions to give were stated, and the amount they intended to give was stated.

That becomes very clear throughout this passage. And so Paul tells others, he tells them in Macedonia, the churches in Macedonia, what Corinth is going to do for this offering. And that prompted Macedonian churches, the three that we know of, to give very generously, partly in response to the commitment that had been made by Corinth. The commitment, we are told, which was made a year ago, a year prior to Paul writing the second epistle, it was, in essence, a one-year commitment. A year ago, Paul asked them for their commitment and asked other churches for their commitments as well, with the intention of letting time pass by for them to collect the amount of their commitment, what it is that they had pledged. Some people don't like that word pledge, but there it is.

The concept is certainly here for them to get together over time. In fact, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 16 that he intended for them to collect it week by week. That's what chapter 16, verse 1 of 1 Corinthians is all about. Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I gave instructions to the churches of Galatia, even so do you on the first day of the week.

Let every one of you lay by in stores. The Lord has prospered that there be no gatherings when I come. So the idea was for each person to take his commitment and basically break it down into about 50 different parts and every week give something toward the fulfillment of that commitment so that in the passing of a year it would all be there and Paul would just need to come with those who were traveling with him and pick up what had already been collected and take it along with what had been collected from other churches and take it to Jerusalem. And so this generous amount, and evidently it was generous because Paul says your zeal has stirred up the many or the majority, your zeal has stirred up the majority of the Christians in Macedonia. What you said you were going to give stirred up their zeal to give generously and they gave very generously and sacrificially as we learned in chapter 8 in the first several verses. And so in order to fulfill the intentions which the Corinthians had previously stated, they need to go ahead and give generously. That's reason number one.

Because a specific amount had been publicly declared, which was to be fulfilled within the course of a year, but these are good intentions that now need to be completed. All of these things are elements that some people think are unspiritual, but here they are in the Bible. They're not unbiblical, they're not unspiritual, there's nothing dishonoring to the Lord in going about this kind of a project. And in fact it's very clear that there's everything honoring to the Lord in conducting a project in this way. And it may be that this does have application to you. Of course in the case of Paul and Corinth it's clear that they were falling behind on what they had stated.

The money was not coming in week by week as it should have been. But it's very likely that some of you along the way have made, at least in your own heart, maybe not publicly stated, but in your own heart, have said, you know, I'm going to start giving. I'm going to start tithing. I'm going to start giving to faith promise. I'm going to start doing these things. I know I should. You stated those intentions to the Lord in your own heart, but for some reason you haven't been fulfilling it very much like the Corinthians. And you, like them, need to get on the ball. You need to get going.

You may have failed to follow through, but you need to do so now and you need to ask God to help you to do it. So reason number one to fulfill your intentions. Reason number two, to avoid embarrassment. Verses three and four. Yet I have sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this respect, that, as I said, you may be ready.

Lest if some Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we, not to mention you, should be ashamed of this confident boasting. Paul mentions a helping hand in verse three and a helpful warning in verse four. The helpful hand in verse three is I have sent the brethren on ahead. We could say in our day, I've sent the fundraising committee on ahead.

They've got some work to do before I get there. This fundraising committee. And it was made up of three men that were introduced in chapter eight. They are Titus, well known to us, another preacher known to the church at Corinth, but not known to us because he's not named.

And then a third man who was known neither to Corinth nor to us, he's not named, but he was a very committed behind the scenes layman, as we would call him, who was much involved in the work of the Lord. And those three men made up the fundraising committee that Paul sent in advance of his intended arrival. And he sent them there to prod and to help and maybe to make suggestions for how to get this thing moving again, how to get it better organized, how to get the money better collected in order to prevent an embarrassing failure, a helping hand, followed by a helpful warning, a heads up in verse four, because Paul says, when I come, there very well may be some from the Macedonian churches traveling with me. You know, the ones that I told how much you were planning to give, the ones who responded in generous and sacrificial giving on the basis of what I told them that you were planning to give, you know, those guys?

Well, some of them may be with me when I visit. In fact, we learn from Acts chapter 20 verses one through four that some of them did come with Paul when he did visit not too long after writing this. And so members of churches which gave sacrificially, partly because of what Paul reported to them, boasted to them, as he says it here, of their intentions to give, may be traveling with Paul. And if they arrive at Corinth and the money's not there, it hasn't been collected, it hasn't been given that which they said they were going to give, that failure would be, says Paul, a terrible embarrassment to me. You don't want to embarrass your church-planting apostle, do you? Not to mention the embarrassment it will be to you.

He kind of puts that in parentheses. Being very tactful, being very kind in the way he's going about this, but he's saying, if you don't follow through, this is going to be very embarrassing. Now again, this particular reason may not apply to us directly across the board in the same way that it applied in Corinth, but I can imagine some things that would promote similar embarrassment, in our case, every year on the basis of our Faith Promise missions commitments, we propose a budget, how much we're going to give to each missionary or to each mission organization. And we commit ourselves, we send a communication, a letter or an email to all of the missionaries to say, it is our intention to support you this amount this year, we're going to do it, we plan to do it in so many dollars per month. And we get back their expressions of thanksgiving. Sometimes they say thank you for continuing to support us, as you did last year and the years before.

Sometimes, if this is appropriate, they say thank you for increasing the amount of support that you are going to direct our way this year. And it would be embarrassing if along the way we couldn't fulfill our commitment because the money wasn't coming in. Now, if the reason for that was some obvious calamity over which we have no control, here we are in COVID. That could well be an understandable event that would make it difficult, if perhaps impossible, for us to completely fulfill our commitment.

To our great gratitude, the commitments are coming in just about at the normal level, even in spite of eight months of COVID now. We are astounded, we are amazed, we are giving praise to God for that. So at this point, there's no cause for embarrassment in our church. But I'm hearing from missionaries that they have supporting churches that have not been able to send their commitments. And it is putting a squeeze on the missionary's ability to serve.

Again, depending upon the circumstances in that church, that might be a cause for embarrassment, it might not be. But it certainly would be if there were no external circumstances, it's just that they didn't do it. It's not because they couldn't. It wasn't because of an economic downturn. It wasn't because of a famine. It wasn't because of a plague. It wasn't because of any obvious reason.

It's just because they didn't do what they said they were going to do. That would be embarrassing, wouldn't it? Probably not the highest motive that you can think of, but a legitimate one, and therefore a legitimate reason to give, to avoid embarrassment. Number three, to suppress covetousness.

And now we get into something that is very significant and fundamental. Verse five, therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren to go to you ahead of time, that fundraising committee again, and prepare your generous gift beforehand. How did they know it was generous?

Because it had been stipulated in, we would say, dollar amounts, although they didn't use dollars, of course, in that day. That's the only way Paul knew that they had committed a generous gift. So prepare your generous gift beforehand, which you had previously promised, that it may be ready as a matter of generosity, and not as a grudging obligation, says my New King James Bible.

But that's not the best translation, as I'll show you in a minute. But Paul talks first of all in verse five about bountiful giving, and then secondly about covetous withholding. Bountiful giving.

He talks about this generous amount, previously promised a year ago, not yet collected, it needs to be ready when Paul arrives, a generous amount backed up by a generous spirit, not something that indicates an unwillingness, a grudging spirit. But given not only the amount given, but the way it's given in such a way that it's clear that you delight in doing this. Bountiful giving. Bountiful in every way. Bountiful as to amount.

Bountiful in your spirit and in your enthusiasm about giving. Because the opposite, the lack of giving in this way, is an indication of covetousness. Now we get to that better translation of that last phrase, that it may be ready as a matter of generosity and not as a grudging obligation. The Greek is literally not as covetousness. Should be ready as a matter of generosity and not as covetousness. The New American Standard Bible I think helpfully renders it not affected by covetousness.

Your giving needs to be generous and not affected by covetousness. And that causes us therefore, forces us to talk about a sin that we probably don't talk about as often as perhaps we should. The sin of covetousness, which is a very serious sin in God's eyes. You can find many warnings throughout the Bible in regard to the sin of covetousness. Listen to one, and I could have selected many similar ones, but listen to this one in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 9 and 10. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. Wow, covetousness is not in very good company in those verses. A sin that I'm afraid we tend to view fairly lightly, God views very seriously. Look at the company it keeps, and he says covetous people will not inherit the kingdom of God.

This is very serious, right along with habitual fornicators, habitual adulterers. Obviously people may commit those sins and repent of them and seek God's forgiveness through Jesus Christ, and they will be forgiven. But those who live that lifestyle of any of these things that are mentioned, fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, drunkards, revilers, extortioners, that revilers by the way, this is not a bad time to mention that in the heat of the recent political events in our day. Be careful how you speak of others. Don't take up the language of reviling.

That goes all the way to the top on down, from the president on down. It is ungodly to be a reviler. But in all of that, covetous, covetous. Right in the midst of these things which if it is a habitual part of your life that is not repented of and confessed and committed to the Lord and forgiven will land you in the lake of fire, it is a serious sin. It's one of the Ten Commandments. Again, we tend to kind of forget about it. It's at the tail end.

It's the last one. Well, that doesn't make it any less important than number seven, thou shalt not commit adultery or thou shalt not kill or thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet. But because covetousness is more a matter of the heart than it is the matter of our outward deeds, although it certainly affects our outward deeds and that's what Paul is getting at here.

But it's easier to identify murder and lying and stealing and adultery because we recognize them by the deeds that represent those sins. But the sin of covetousness, at least at the beginning, is a matter of our thoughts, our heart, our motive, our secret things that are not seen by others. We sometimes wonder, well, how do you identify covetousness?

The Bible tells us in one place that the church is not to keep company with the covetous person. Well, how do you recognize that? How do you identify that, particularly if we're only dealing with a matter of the heart?

And as long as it's only in the heart, of course, we cannot. It's only as it displays itself in obvious and in significant ways that we can be certain that that is covetousness at work, that covetousness is the cause for that. But again, back to the question, how do you detect covetousness in your own life?

Because that's where we need to be most concerned about it. How do you detect covetousness in your own life? Look at your giving.

It may be just as simple as that. Look at your giving. If it is short, way short, and you know it's way short than what from what it ought to be, that indicates covetousness. Look at your giving. How do you suppress covetousness? Cultivate generous giving. A lack of giving is the indicator that covetousness is present. A practice of generous giving is the remedy to root it out of your life.

Now that's getting pretty practical, isn't it? It's very easy for us to justify why we cannot give, and very difficult at times to detect covetousness within our own heart, but Paul gives us a very helpful tool here. I think it's about as good as anything you could find anywhere in the Bible. You want to know if you are covetous? Then just check your giving, see if it's generous. If you know that you do have covetousness that needs to be addressed, how are you going to do that? How do you root out a feeling?

How do you root out a sentiment? How do you deal with covetousness that you know rises up from time to time within you? Cultivate generous giving.

That will knock it on the head more quickly than anything else that you can probably do. So we're talking about five reasons to give generously. Number three, to suppress covetousness. Number four, to receive financial blessing.

Now this is tricky too, but it's here and we need to get it right. To receive financial blessing. For six, but this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. And this is tricky because we know there are dangers attendant with this idea, and we know that there are plenty of people, plenty of preachers, plenty of Christian ministries that abuse this idea, but here it is in the Bible and we've got to find out exactly how to understand it and apply it because it's here.

We can't ignore it because we see some people abusing it. And Paul states what is sometimes called the law of the harvest. This I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. It's a general principle that's understood by nearly everybody, certainly those in the agrarian society that he's writing in in that day, and it's as simple as this. Minimal sowing, small harvest. Generous sowing, large harvest. That's the general principle.

Are there any exceptions? Sure, sometimes you scatter a lot of seed and you have a drought. Sometimes you scatter a lot of seed and you have a flood that washes it all away. There can be exceptions to it in the natural world, but this is the general law of the harvest. Those who work hard, prepare the soil, prepare a lot of soil, a big field, a big farm with as much soil as it's possible for them to prepare and sow a proper amount, a generous amount of seed are the ones who are going to reap a great harvest and those who don't work hard aren't willing to prepare the soil, aren't willing to invest in the seed, are not going to reap much of a harvest.

It's just a simple law that everybody understands. And Paul, in this section, applies this to giving, this general law, this statement. He who sows sparingly shall reap also sparingly. He who sows bountifully shall reap also bountifully. In Galatians chapter 6, Paul applies the law of the harvest in a different direction. He says, he who sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.

He who sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. It's the same general principle, but it can be applied different ways. The principle is, whatever you sow, you reap. That's the principle. If you sow wicked deeds, a sinful lifestyle, you're going to reap the corruption that is the consequence of that.

Mark it down. It's the law of sowing and reaping. But if you sow godly living, a righteous lifestyle, you're going to reap the consequences of that.

You're going to reap the rewards that come with that. It is the law of sowing and reaping. You reap what you sow.

And the same thing is true here. In the area of giving, you're going to reap what you sow. If you sow sparingly, you're going to reap sparingly. If you sow bountifully, you're going to reap bountifully. What is this telling us as Paul applies this general law to giving? He tells us, and I'm going to read these very carefully.

I prepared them carefully because you've got to get it all together or you will get off the track. But he tells us, number one, the generous giving with right motives brings divine rewards. That's clear. Generous giving with right motives brings divine rewards. Furthermore, by doing it this way, he tells us that it's a good thing to tell people that. Nothing wrong with telling people that you are going to reap financially in proportion to the way you give.

That's not something that we are embarrassed to talk about. It's part of scripture and it's declared here by the Apostle Paul. He's telling us that in the way you give, God will in return give to you. Jesus taught the same thing.

What did Jesus tell us in Luke chapter 6 verse 68? He said, give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over will be put into your bosom.

For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you. Same thing, same thing. Give and it'll be given to you. Give a lot, you'll receive a lot back in return.

Don't give much, you won't get much back in return. This is a law of harvest that Paul applies to giving and Jesus said, this is the way God operates. This is a divine principle that relates to giving.

He's telling us that your welfare will improve more by giving than by withholding. Natural thinking says if I give it away, my welfare will be less. I have less left for myself. I can't give away much and prosper. I've got to save. I've got to hoard. I've got to keep if I'm going to increase and prosper. And Jesus said, no, it's the other way around. Your welfare will improve more by your giving than by your withholding.

That's a divine promise. It's based upon unseen multiplication. It produces inexplicable results. That's a word that's easier probably to say than unexplainable, but unexplainable you understand better.

So we'll just put it that way. This produces unexplainable results. You can't always connect act A with result B, but in God's working, it works this way. And though you may not be able to trace the exact path by which that happened, you can be certain that in the unseen workings of God in your life, there are going to be results in the area of financial welfare, well-being, that will be unexplained humanly speaking, but they're going to be produced by your obedient and cheerful giving. God has promised that he's going to bless that. This verse is telling us that as we give to bless others, we reap blessing for ourselves. This verse is telling us that our blessings from God, materially speaking, are related to our giving to others.

Now, here's how you sort out the valid use of this scripture with the improper use that it's put to by many in our day. It is a wrong motive to give in order to gain for yourself. Why? Because that's covetousness.

He's already dealt with that. The right motive for giving is to please God and to show your love for God and for others. But there's a promised reward by God for those who do that.

Let me expand upon that a bit. Those who misuse this principle appeal to people to give on the basis of covetousness. God promises to give. You send me a hundred dollars and God's going to return a thousand to you. And so most people who respond to that are doing what?

They're responding on the basis of covetousness. Well, boy, that's a pretty good deal. I couldn't do that good at the racetrack. I couldn't do that. I probably couldn't do that good at the lottery. That's better than any other thing I can do.

I couldn't do that well on the stock market. So, yeah, I'll give you a hundred dollars if it's going to get me a thousand in return. What's the motive for that? That wasn't to give out of love for God and love for others and to please Him and to honor Him and to be willing to give away regardless of what you get back in return. That's the motive of covetousness. That is a wrong motive. God doesn't promise to bless that.

But here's where it works. This is a promised reward for those who want to give, but they fear a shortfall as a result. They're timid. They're fearful.

They're not quite sure they can trust God. They really have a heart that wants to give. They want to give more. They really do. Their heart desires to.

It's a heart that's been changed by the grace of God. They want to give more. But as soon as they think about it, Satan jumps up and starts whispering in their ear and says, but what if some calamitous illness comes along that you didn't expect? What if some great financial wipeout occurs that you didn't expect? What if this? What if that? Are you sure you can really afford to do this?

Do you really think it's safe to do this? Now, that's what this promise is for, for people whose heart is right and their motives are right, they're a little bit timid and fearful. And Paul said, this I say, it's a strong declaration. This I declare. This I affirm. This I proclaim.

This I know to be absolutely true. This I say, he who sows sparingly shall reap also sparingly, but he who sows bountifully shall reap also bountifully. You have nothing to fear. You have nothing to fear. If you give with the right heart motive out of love to God, then you don't need to worry about negative consequences in your life.

Just the opposite. You can be assured that God is going to take care of you and take care of you more bountifully than he would have otherwise. So start doing what Jesus told you to do. Stop taking thought for tomorrow.

Let God take care of that. And you take care of today, including a God honoring response in your giving. There's one final reason to give generously, and that's to enjoy God's love.

Verse 7. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver. This is the way to give.

How? Comprehensively. Let each one give. Each one. Just like 1 Corinthians 16, 1.

Let every one of you lay by in stores. God has prospered. Each one. Poor as well as the rich. Young as well as the old. Laymen as well as pastors, full-time Christian workers, and so forth.

On and on and on it goes. Let every one of you, every one of you, comprehensively, what's the way to give? Intentionally, as he purposes in his heart.

The word purposes has the idea of that which is predetermined, that which is planned, that which is systematic. God's not encouraging here this emotional knee-jerk kind of giving that only gives when you're overcome with emotion and somehow that wrings it out of you. The whole scripture indicates this is something that you think about, you pray about, you commit to the Lord, you plan.

You plan to do it systematically over a period of time. You trust God week by week to enable you to do that, but this is a purposeful act of giving. In this case, basically a one-year commitment to give so much over the course of the year so that the final amount can be received. And what this tells us is that it's an exhilarating experience to give this way for those who give with the right motive. God loves a cheerful giver, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver. And some of you know that word cheerful is a Greek word where we get our word hilarious from. God loves a hilarious giver.

It's exhilarating. Those who give with the right motive in this way receive a special measure of God's love. God loves a cheerful giver. You say, I thought God loved everybody.

Not in the same way. Well, at least I thought God loved all of his children. Not all in the same way. How else could the Apostle John be known as the disciple who Jesus loved if he loved all of his disciples in exactly the same way? There are different degrees of love, different levels of love. And one way to increase your relationship with God, one way to increase God's love to you and for you, is to cultivate deliberately, intentionally, purposefully and cheerfully, hilariously generous giving. And those who do that are loved by God in a special way.

That's reason number five, to enjoy a greater measure of God's love. Now, what are the lessons we learn in this passage to wrap it up? Well, first of all, we learn the importance of cultivating the grace of giving.

That's what this is all about. To learn to give the way we ought to give helps to shape our priorities in a God-honoring way. It forces us to live, to think, to plan, to budget, to spend with right priorities, with eternity's values in view. Furthermore, cultivating the grace of giving develops our trust in God. We take God at his promises and we wonder, I don't know how this is going to work, but this is what God's word says. I'm going to take a step and see what happens.

Am I going to step off the cliff and perish? Not if you're trusting the promises of God, doing this to please him. It develops trust in God. Furthermore, it encourages sound financial practices.

Why? Because it teaches you to do what you ought to do anyway, even if you weren't giving to God. But it teaches you to live not above your means or even exactly according to your means, which is right on the edge all the time and you never know when you're going to be in trouble. But it teaches you to live below your means because that's the only way that you could give generously to God. And when you start learning that lesson, you're going to subdue covetousness. You're going to subdue your need for all of these things that you know deep down in your heart aren't really needs anyway. You just told yourself that.

Some things are, of course, but so many things are not. When you learn, I can't do that because I've committed myself to giving this to God, you're learning an important lesson that carries over. Pretty soon you'll find out. First, the average American I read lives at about 103 to 106 percent of his annual income.

How do you do that? Debt. Just keeps piling up, but you keep juggling it. Debt.

Some people ring that in. They only live at 100 percent of their income. They spend every penny they get, but that doesn't give them anything to give. Well, they even put some giving, maybe put tithe into their budget. But then after that, it's 100 percent of everything that goes out the door as soon as it comes in.

Well, that's not really wise either, but if you start cultivating the grace of giving, I'm going to give more by the grace of God. The only way you can do that is to spend less. And pretty soon, now you're living not on 100 percent, but on 90 percent. Now you're not living on 90 percent. You're living on 80 percent. Now you're not living on 80 percent. You're living on 70 percent. Now you're not living on 70 percent. You're living on 60 percent and 50 percent.

And you say, what's happening? Well, you're giving generously to God, and you are saving appropriately. You've learned the discipline of good money management. You've learned that when you live on less than you make, then you have money to invest as well as money to give. And it was cultivating the grace of giving that got you there.

Don't some of you wish you had learned that many, many years ago, a long time ago? It's a whole lot more helpful if you do that starting young. You wait until you're 60 to start doing this, you're not going to build a very big nest egg. But there are some important financial disciplines that you can learn by cultivating generous giving.

It really works that way. And God, in many cases, people have a 401k at work, and their employer contributes to the amount so that you get more than what you save yourself. What this is telling us is, you do it God's way, and God's sticking it into your 401k.

It's not actually your 401k. You don't know exactly where it's coming from and how it works, but amazingly, amazingly, you're doing better after you've given than you were before. Amazingly, amazingly, this divine, unseen operation of giving is going to work in your life, and God is pumping up your circumstances in a wonderful way.

And finally, I just want to say this in closing. Our Faith Promise Program is designed to reflect many of these principles. It very closely corresponds to what we see in the project offering that Paul raised among the Gentile churches. It has to do with needs beyond the local church.

This is money that people were giving to go to Jerusalem. Well, what about the instructions, the requirements that they had to take care of the needs of their local church? What about their requirements to care for the widows who are widows indeed, who don't have family or others to help take care of them? What about their requirements to financially support their pastors? How is that?

Well, of course, that's just all understood. That comes first, but this is beyond giving. It's a project giving beyond that. It's an annual commitment, like this one was. It's a matter of tangible partnerships between multiple churches that come together to support individual missionaries.

And it brings, like this project in Corinthians, the Faith Promise Program, if followed with a right heart attitude, brings personal rewards. You're going to be a whole lot better off in every way, not just financially. That's just part of it. But it is part of it.

You can't erase that. You're going to be in better emotional health, mental health, spiritual health, probably even in better physical health. I can't guarantee that, but in most cases that will be the case. That's one of the ways that God will help extend your finances. Some people are sick all the time and spend it all on the doctors. God can make you well so that the same income that for them is drained away by their illnesses for you is available. I'm not saying that people who are sick are not givers. I'm not saying that. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying.

Believe me, I've been very, very sick at times in my life, very, very sick. I'm not saying that, but I'm just saying God has different ways of making you better off in every way. You're going to be a whole person that is a whole lot better off because you've learned to give generously than if you are a stingy person who won't let go of that nickel from last Sunday.

You pinch that nickel until the buffalo jumps off. If you're that kind of person, you're not going to be as well off in any way, including financially, as the person who learns to give generously to the Lord, shall we pray. Father, thank you for the practicality of your word. Help us to learn what you are teaching us in these verses, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.