Right, thank you. Hey, can we just celebrate God and applaud Him for His ability to rebuild and restore families, lives, marriages? Praise God. Hey, before we dive into today's message, I do want to tip you off to something you're going to receive as you leave today. It's this card right here that lists all of our Go teams for 2026.
A Go team is your opportunity to go and participate in God's work around the globe through our sent ones and our partners. I remember In high school, graduating high school, in fact, a man in my church, he told me, he said, So Brian, the things that are going to shape you for the rest of your life are the people you meet, the things you read, and the places you go. I would say that that's true, but I would also say that one of those can accelerate growth faster than any of the others. And that's going to places on a go trip, seeing God at work through our people. We have opportunities for 500 of you to go.
We want to see 500 people sent next year on a short-term trip. And so, hey, we know this is a decision. That you're going to have to think about. You're going to have to look at your calendar. You may have to ask off of work.
And so that's why we want to give this to you at the end of the year so you can be planning for the year ahead. And you may be thinking, hey, you know, I'm newer to Mercy Hill. Man, do I need to like be here a little while? I can think of a guy who him and his wife they started coming last year, and then he went with one of our teams to Honduras and had just a phenomenal time. And he was like, he was kind of wrestling with that.
Hey, I feel like maybe I'm too new. I was like, no, you're not too new. He had a wonderful time. It greatly impacted his life, gave him a new vision for how he sees his life.
So, hey, you are not too new to jump into this.
So, make sure you grab this on your way out and make a plan for it.
Well, as Pastor Andrew mentioned in the sermon, today's, or in the video, today's message, it is all about giving thanks for God's abundance and responding with generosity. Let me go ahead and give you the main idea of the message. The big idea is that cheerful giving shows confidence in God's abundance. It's no surprise to anyone here. That at this time of year, you are being asked to give financially everywhere you go.
Right. You're asked to round up at the pump. You're asked to round up at the grocery store as you check out. You know, it's Giving Tuesday is right around the corner. Matching donations try to persuade us.
I had this experience for the first time this year. My wife and I were out to eat at a restaurant, and when the server comes and brings the bill, there was the line, of course, for the gratuity to tip the server, but then there was an additional line that said, Hey, would you like to give to this organization that the restaurant was supporting? Even here at Mercy Hill, right? We are in our multiply season asking for you to give to fuel the ministry for 2026. You're being asked to give.
Everywhere.
Well, here's what the Bible says about how we should give. 2 Corinthians 9:7. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart. Not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves. A cheerful giver.
Now, we're going to dive into this passage in detail, but right up front, I want you to hear that this is God's Word telling you. You get to decide. You get to decide how much you give. You get to decide where you give. If this is your first time here and you're like, yep, just what I thought.
Church is all about money.
Well, you don't have to give here. You can give to another organization. The next step that you take, the ball is in your court.
Now I actually think That for the majority of the people in this room, You want to be generous. Right, like if you were asked, hey, do you want to be a generous person? I think you would say, well, yeah. I know I would say yes, I want to be a generous person because, you know, who wants to be the alternative? Stingy?
greedy withholding cheapscape. I asked AI to describe the opposite of a generous person, and it gave me this word. Miserly. Stingy to the point of living in self-imposed wretchedness, right? Miserly.
Like it has the same root word as miserable. Who wants to be a miserable miser? I'd much rather be someone that others describe as generous, gracious, giving. Goodness and joy are associated with generosity. You know, there have been multiple experiments where, hey, a group of people are given $20 or $5.
It really doesn't even matter the amount. And they're either told, hey, go and spend this on yourself or go and spend this on others, give it to others. And then they are kind of asked afterwards, you know, to kind of rate how they feel. And it has been proven that giving money away increases happiness more than spending it on yourself.
So why do I And perhaps you. Not always act. generously. If it increases our happiness, if we want to be generous people, Why do we not always act? generous.
If asked, do you want to be generous, the answer is, of course. If asked, are you generous? Uh that could probably be a little more. Right? What causes there to be this gap?
Between the desire to give and taking the action. to give.
Well, that is the exact scenario that today's passage addresses.
So let me set up the background. Today's passage is in 2 Corinthians chapter 9, and then we'll dive in. The background is that the Corinthian church had been started by the Apostle Paul.
Now when Paul started the church... He didn't ask them to pay for his salary, although that would have been perfectly acceptable for him to do, because he was able to support himself by making tents. And after establishing a church in one area, Paul's ambition was then to move on and start another church in an area where the church did not yet exist. And so he planted churches in places that are we know now as like Greece, Turkey, Italy, Cyprus. He even had the desire to go to Spain.
But he still cared deeply for the people of each church that he planted. And so he would correspond with them. He would send messages. He would send letters. And several of those letters became books in our New Testament, books like Second Corinthians.
And at the very time that Paul was writing, To those believers that church there in Corinth, 2 Corinthians, he was traveling around from church to church, taking up a collection. Receiving donations and offering. It was a relief offering that he was going to then take to Jerusalem to give to the believers there who were living in poverty and oppression.
Well, evidently, when the Corinthians heard of this collection, they were excited about it. They wanted to help. They were eager to give. And so the plan was that they were going to start setting aside some money that would then be given to Paul on his way through to Jerusalem. But that plan had not been executed.
Their good intentions to give had not resulted in actual giving. And Paul addresses this in chapters 8 and 9 of 2 Corinthians, and we're going to focus on his final appeal in 2 Corinthians 9. Six through fifteen. Give you a roadmap for today's message. We're going to take three turns.
We're going to look at the heart of giving. the promise of giving and the result of giving. Look at verse 6. The point is this. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
The point? Hey. Cohen, so you can give a little. Or you can give a lot to this really fun. Just remember.
What you put in is what you get out. You could sub in the word blessing for bountifully, right? If you give blessing, you're going to receive blessing proportional in proportion to the amount that you give. We get this here in North Carolina around the fall, right? If you want a lush.
Full green lawn in springtime. What do you got to do in the fall? You have to plant grass seed. Right? If you plant any other type of seed, you're not going to get grass.
But you also need to plant an abundance of grass seed. Right, you can't you can't go cheap and just buy the smallest bag and expect it to turn into that lush green grass that you want. Or ever had this experience? Ever had someone encourage you to buy stock in a company? Maybe when it's being initially offered, traded publicly for the first time?
And maybe you do. You buy a little bit of stock and then it does well. And years later, you look back and you think, Wow. I wish I'd bought more. Right?
Like, if I had bought more, then I would have gained more, I would have made more. Hey, Corinthians. The bigger blessing you give, the bigger blessing you're going to receive.
Now we'll get into the kind of blessing. That we receive through giving in a few verses. But notice Paul doesn't use any numbers or percentages in this entire passage, right? Amount is not measured by dollars and cents here. Because Paul knows that Jesus taught About the widow.
Who only gave who gave the smallest Valued gift, but yet Jesus says she gave more than all the rest because she gave all that she had. You see, generosity, it isn't a math calculation. but in an expression of the heart. It shows what's in our heart.
So, if the more generously we give, the more blessing we receive. Why do we give sparingly? In the nineteen thirties in America, One of the worst droughts ever. Hit the Midwest. Rich farmlands became parched dust bowls.
You probably have seen the images, you know. And in 1939, farmers they faced this dilemma. They had enough grain to feed their family for just one more year. They can hold on to it. and guarantee their survival for that year.
Or they could sow all they had and hope for rain. Thankfully, the rain did come, and those who risked sowing received an abundant harvest. See, we're kind of faced with the same decision. We can hold on to our resources out of fear, or we can give and trust God to multiply the harvest. Let's pick back up in verse 7.
Paul writes, Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. We read that a moment ago. And God is able. To make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times you may abound in every good work. As it is written, he has distributed freely.
He has given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. I want to camp out here. Because this contrast in these verses helps us to understand why we can have this desire to give. And yet not Follow through and live generously.
The contrast we see is there's reluctant giving. There's giving under compulsion, and then there's the cheerful giving. Reluctant giving is giving when you don't want to. Right, instead of it making you cheerful, it makes you sorrowful because it feels like you're just losing. Whatever you're giving.
Giving under compulsion is giving because of an external motivation. It could be that You feel guilty, or you feel that you may be shamed by others if you don't give. Or it could be that the external motivation is that you're giving to be seen. You want to receive some credit by it. What pleases God is giving that is voluntary, not coerced.
Right? It's giving that is done with delight. Not begrudgingly.
So here's the contrast. Giving reluctantly or under compulsion is giving done with a fearful. Scarcity Mindset Well if I give I'm I'm not gonna have enough. What's gonna happen if I get it's the what if game. Cheerful giving is done without fear.
Because that fear has been replaced with trust. in God's abundance.
Now, we've been together in this room for probably 30 minutes now. Breathing in. And breathing out. But I imagine that very few of us, if any of us, have even thought about the amount of oxygen in this room. or thought about our need.
for oxygen in this moment. Why? Because there is an abundance of air. But imagine with me that we go scuba diving. And we're descending down 40, 60, 80.
We get to 100 feet. Underwater. And all of a sudden there's a malfunction in my oxygen tank. And I begin to desperately signal to you that I am out of air.
Now air, oxygen, it becomes a precious commodity. Why? Because it's scarce. Right? What if there's not enough?
For both of us. See, an abundance mentality believes, hey, there's enough to share. There's no need to worry. A scarcity mindset focuses on the constraints, the potential personal loss. There's only one pie, and if they get more, I get less.
So, the clear, straightforward answer to why there's this gap between a desire to give and actually being generous is this. Fear. We feel that money offers better security Than God does. I know that steps on toes. That steps on my toes.
The decision to give, it has less to do with your bank account and more to do with what you trust and fear. Again, the only command in this entire passage is: give as you decide in your heart. And so now for the rest of the passage, Paul's going to help our hearts. to believe and trust the abundance and goodness of God. Notice how Paul speaks of God's abundance in verse A.
We read it a moment ago. And God is able to give All grace. Abound to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. And then he goes on, he quotes Psalm 112, 9. He's quoting this as an example because Psalm one hundred and twelve, it describes the blessed man who has confidence and delight in the Lord, so much so, his confidence and delight is so strong that he is not constrained by worry.
As it is written, he has distributed freely. He has given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. Okay, this man's generosity in Psalm 112. It has not caused him to lack anything that is truly good.
Because it says his righteousness endures. We could also go to Proverbs 22, 9. Proverbs 22, 9 says, Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor. A bountiful eye means that you look at the world through that abundant mindset, that God is able to supply all that I need. Therefore, I am free to share.
See blessing contentment. It's not found in the abundance of things. But in the assurance of God's goodness. And what Paul is wanting to convey to the Corinthians and to us today is that God is a cheerful giver. God is a cheerful giver, and He has shown His generosity in creation.
On your own time, go back and read Genesis chapter 1. Right, the account of creation. What we see is it is a song of praise to God's generosity. The waters are teeming with creatures, the birds have free rain in the sky. God gave Adam and Eve a multitude and abundance of plants and trees for food.
There is no hint of scarcity at all in God's creation. Right now, there are over 8 billion people living on the planet. And best estimates say that there have been well over 100 billion people who have lived on this earth across all of time. God created and sustains the world with the capacity for each one. That is amazing.
He has shown his abundance in creation. And as much as God shows his generosity in creation, God shows far, far greater generosity in the gospel. You see, any time that we break. God's law. It's because we don't trust His goodness.
We think, God, you're holding out on us. I can do better on my own. And this is the very reason that we don't experience that perfect, abundant, flourishing creation that God originally made for us. And yet how did God respond to our rebellion? He sent his one and only Son, Jesus.
To die on the cross. for the punishment that we deserve. Romans 8, 32 says, He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? God is rich in mercy. God wants to lavish his grace upon you.
God is able to make all grace abound. To you.
Now, I need to be really, really clear here. I'd like to kind of read through. my message before I deliver it and think through, okay. If people were going to misunderstand, like h how could they misunderstand? I think this is the risk.
The risk is that you could perhaps leave here and think: okay, God loves a cheerful giver. That means if I give, God will then love me. And if that is your takeaway, then I have failed you. Right, because if If God is waiting. On you?
To give or to show some sign of your love for him before he loves you, that is not grace. Right? That would be a reward. Grace. It is favor that you don't deserve.
It is favor that you cannot earn. It is favor that is unmerited. And the Bible is clear that we are saved by grace alone. It is a gift.
So, why then does God love a cheerful giver? He loves a cheerful giver, it delights him. Because We cannot be cheerful until we have received this gift. It is a sign when we are giving cheerfully. It is a sign that we are trusting in His provision.
We are trusting in His gift, and He delights in that. He is a good father that wants to give his children good things. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. We cannot manufacture a cheerful heart to give. But the gospel.
can give us the new heart that delights in giving. God is a cheerful giver.
So how confident are you? in his abundance. in his generosity. See, radical generosity, it shouts, My God is not scarce. He is overflowing.
Cheerful giving, it shows confidence in God's abundance. All right, let's take the second turn now. The second turn is the promise of giving, the promise of giving. Pick up in verse uh ten. He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.
you will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way. which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.
Okay, God will never call you to give something that He does not supply. I've talked to many people. And multiple times. And they've described to me how they thought that things were tight financially in their home and their household. And then all of a sudden a life change happened.
Maybe they had a child and so things got way more expensive. Maybe they lost a job and so things got really tight. But yet God had put in their heart A desire to give. Right, to to give a tenth of what they made to the church, for example. And their testimony is that even though they were having to learn to live on less.
They were still able to give, and it surprised them. And now they were experiencing the joy, the delight, the blessing of being able to give.
So here Paul explains the type of blessing. And the purpose of the blessing that we receive when we are generous. See, everything that we have. To give, it comes from God in the first place, and we aren't meant to hold on to those, we aren't meant to hoard His blessings. The purpose is that God blesses us so that we can then bless others and.
Therefore become even more blessed. By being able to bless others. Right? I think what We all probably do this. We all think, you know...
Yeah. I just had more, then I could give more. But the Bible is actually saying If you gave more. you'd have more.
Now I know, I I can feel it. That makes some of you uncomfortable. Because you're aware that there are false teachers who preach that: hey, if you give more money to this ministry, then God's going to bless you with more money.
Well, God can. Enrich you in that way. He can give you more money, but that's not the promise here. God's goal is not to make you wealthier. God did not give his one and only son so that you could live more comfortably over the next 20, 40, maybe for some 80 years.
See false teaching. It often takes truth, but blows it out of proportion, right? It gets pieces of it right. But it makes A little piece, the main thing. And the so-called prosperity gospel, it is a false gospel.
Not because it exaggerates God's ability to provide for us, but because it belittles what God can provide for us. A few years ago. We made a foolish decision in our household. We got one of those Amazon Echo Dots. Um Alexa.
Hey, Alexa. You know, I guess the reason we got it is so that every morning my boys can come downstairs and say, hey, Alexa, what's the weather today? I don't know why they ask Alexa that, because no matter what Alexa says, they're going to wear shorts and a hoodie to school. Right, that's just that's just fact. And then they'll say things like: you know, hey, Alexa, play Josiah Queen, play Forrest Frank.
And Alexa? Doesn't even listen to me or my wife anymore. Like, we'll say, hey, Alexa, turn the volume down because, you know, we're old like that. And it doesn't listen, it doesn't respond. But to my boys, it responds right away.
Well, a few nights ago, we sat down for dinner, and I asked, I said, hey, who would like to pray? I'm not gonna tell who volunteered, but We all bow our heads, close our eyes. And one of my sons begins. Dear Alexa? Yeah.
He quickly caught himself. And we had a pretty good laugh about that. But it did get me thinking. Am I treating God? Like Alexa?
Bring him into my house. in the hopes that he'll make things a little easier. A little more convenient. That he'll give me Better health. Safety Prosperity.
Or do I trust him enough to give him control of my life? 1 Timothy 6, 17 through 19. It says, As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches. but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good and to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.
Okay, let's be real. If you have a smartphone in your pocket. You are rich in this present age.
So let this be a warning to us, a gracious warning. warning to us. It is possible to accumulate wealth and miss the life that is truly life. We've all seen it, where higher income doesn't always enrich lives. How many times have families, siblings, been Just split apart.
over an inheritance they hope to gain? How many times have young athletes come to ruin over large signing bonuses? Having a bigger barn or in our context, another storage unit isn't living your best.
So what is the life that is truly life? How do you envision a life that is full and good? Like truly living. Instagram has its vision for you. People magazine has its vision for you.
The Bible's vision of a full life is described by the word righteous. This is the part of the passage that studying this, I really had to think about this. You know, what does it mean in verse 10? That God will increase the harvest of your righteousness. What is a harvest of righteousness?
I had to really think about this one. I started thinking about. You know how surf culture back in the 1950s? They use righteous as a slang term. You know, they they would say that was a a totally righteous wave.
Dude, I guess. I don't know. I wasn't there. But What did they mean? You know, hey, that guitar solo was totally righteous.
It meant that that wave was just the perfect wave. It was awesome. Everything about that guitar solo, it was good and awesome. It was the best. Righteousness means everything is right.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve lived in righteousness. They had a right relationship with God. There was nothing to hide. They were authentic and close. They had a right relationship with each other.
There was no resentment. They had great communication. They had a right relationship with creation. The animals were not a threat to them, and there was an abundance of fruit and food. But of course we don't live in Eden anymore.
What happened? Adam and Eve, they didn't trust in God's abundance. They believed the lie that God was withholding something from them and they needed to grab it and take it for themselves. Following in their footsteps, we've all acted selfish and That has thrown all of our relationships out of whack.
So can you see the connection? Right, a scarcity mindset and a selfish heart. It puts me in competition. with others. Right, there's not enough.
So I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to protect if I'm going to have. If I'm going to have, I'm going to have to withhold. I become at odds with others and with the creation itself and with God. Selfishness destroys. Righteousness.
But generosity is the antidote to selfishness.
So, this is the promise, right? This is the promise of gospel-centered generosity. It says, when we give cheerfully, God increases the fullness. of our life. The harvest of righteousness.
Full life. Our lives become rightly ordered, and we experience more of life as it's meant to be. And this is why Jesus said on the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for what? Righteousness.
for they will be satisfied. In the Old Testament, Hosea 10:12, the prophet God speaks to the prophet says Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap steadfast love, break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. And 100 years from now. None of us are going to be here. We'll still be existing.
So in a hundred years from now Would you rather have? More money? or more righteousness. See, the prosperity gospel says, hey, give and God will grow your bank account. The Bible says, give and God will increase your righteousness, your fullness of life.
All right, third and final turn here. I gotta go quick. The result of giving. Verse 12 for the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others.
While they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. Thanks be to God for this. inexpressible gift. One pastor simply put it: generosity, it feeds people. and it leads to praise.
Right, generosity, it meets needs. It fuels the mission. And it leads. to praise and worship. Let's focus on verse 13.
The believers in Jerusalem. They're going to glorify God for two reasons. Says, by their approval of this service, they, the believers in Jerusalem, will glorify God because of, here's the first reason, your submission. That comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and then, number two, the generosity, your generosity of your contribution for them and for all others.
Okay, so they're not just praising God for the Corinthians' generosity. They're praising God because their generosity reveals their submission to the gospel. This is glad submission, right? This is full trust. in the goodness and the abundance of God.
Trust in such a way that you order your life around it.
So you can say that you believe the gospel and actually not submit to it. You can also give. and not actually trust the generosity of God. But cheerful giving it flows. from trust in God's abundance and his goodness.
Back in chapter 8. Paul, he's he tells the Corinthians, hey, You got to hear this story of God's grace. He wants to tell them about their fellow believers in Macedonia. Paul writes, he says, hey, the Macedonians. Man, they've been having a hard time.
They've been facing Severe hardship. An extreme Poverty. And so when I was with him, I wasn't even going to mention this relief fund. But they heard about it. And they Begged me.
Let us continue. Contribute. Don't rob us. of the joy of giving. Don't rob us of the blessing of being a blessing.
And Paul says, they gave not according to their ability, but they gave beyond. their ability. And then in verse 5, he says, Hey, this is not what we expected. But they gave themselves first to the Lord, And then by the will of God, to us. See, cheerful generosity, cheerful giving.
It always starts by giving yourself first. to God. By entrusting yourself into his Care. Have you done that? Have you asked him to forgive you for thinking that your way is better than his?
Have you entrusted yourself? by submitting to his way. For those who who haven't trusted Yourself to Jesus. Does your giving Show confidence in his abundance.
Next weekend, it's our first fruits offering. the multiply. The idea of first fruits in the Bible, it's giving that first portion of the harvest as an offering to God. And just think about that, okay? Uh When the crops come in, the very first Crops you give away.
Meaning, hey, you've done all this hard work of sewing and tending the field and you're not getting any of it yet. It takes faith that there will be more to harvest. It would be so much easier. If just you could wait till the very end of the harvest when everything's in the barn and then look around and say, okay, let me give a portion of that. But giving first honors God because it says, God, you are first.
And I am trusting you. for all the rest. Giving to the multiply offering, it's less about what we want from you and more about what we want for you. that you would experience this blessing. This harvest of righteousness.
I love how one commentator paraphrased the end of this passage. He says, the relief offering is a prod. to live at your very best, showing your gratitude to God. And that's what we hope this multiply offering is that it prods you into living your best. Into experiencing the harvest of God's righteousness, His grace abundantly.
lavished upon you. Where has God? Shown his abundance to you. Let's pray. Father.
Would you give us Hearts. that trust you. And to you, who are able to do far more abundantly than all that we could ask or think, according to the power at work within us, God, to you. be glory in in this church and in Christ Jesus through all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Yeah.
