Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell.
Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Generosity is the result of a grateful heart. The grace of God shifts our focus away from building our own kingdoms and calls us to lives of stewardship.
All we have becomes a gift from the Lord to invest for the Lord. Let's listen to this message titled, Liberality That Abounds, from 2 Corinthians 8, 1-7. This is the second part of a message first preached on June 22, 2014 at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. It is a work of God's grace and Macedonia would include churches like the church at Thessalonica, the church of Berea, the church of Philippi, all these that we're familiar with, these churches did this. They were imploring us with much urgency that we should receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. Translation, these churches under the grace of God came to the apostle and said, we really want to help. We need to help.
We want to help. And why is that? Well, Paul has a very high compliment for them here in verse 2. Look with me at verse 2, that in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality.
That's quite a mouthful to chew and swallow. Let me give you what I believe is a good translation of that verse. It's, I think, the best one of it.
And I love, listen to the words. This is from the English Standard Version. This is verse 2, okay? In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. Isn't that good?
What is that? That's God's grace at work. That's what God's grace does.
Let me give you an example of that that's going on even today. Churches in the northeastern Indian state of Misuram have a beautiful phrase to express the way they give to God. The phrase is Bufaitam. It means one handful of rice at a time.
Here's how it works. Families in the church set aside a portion of rice at every meal. Set aside a portion of rice for God at every meal. And when they collect enough, they give their donation, they donated rice to the local church, and the church then sells the rice for income. And that's how the giving is done.
Now bear with me. It's not just a fundraiser they're doing, okay? This started a long time ago. In 1914, they used the sale of rice to raise $1.50.
Now $1.50 back then was a lot more than it is today. But lately, these Christians have collected $1.5 million by this means. What are they doing with it? They're supporting over 1,800 missionaries as well as local ministry. And people have started giving in more creative ways as well. They use vegetables, firewood, and other resources flow into the church's outreach. There are many ways of serving the Lord, says one of the church leaders. Some people do great things. Some people are great preachers.
Some people contribute lots and lots of money. But when we talk about this handful of rice, it is very humble. The service is done in the corner of the kitchen where nobody sees but God knows and He blesses it. Another church member said, it is not our richness or our poverty that make us serve the Lord, but our willingness. So we Misso people say, as long as we have something to eat every day, we have something to give to God every day. That's good, isn't it?
And that's going on as we speak. And this is how it was at the Macedonian church. We find that in verse 2. The churches in Macedonia, their poverty did not impede their generosity. Their adversity did not diminish their joy.
And those two go hand in hand. You see, the churches in Macedonia, they were a grateful and generous people because generosity is an outflow of gratitude. And that's how it can be distinctly a Christian virtue. Now, obviously, there are many unregenerate people who are generous. Many of them are quite philanthropic and give huge sums of money. Warren Buffet was one of them, although he thought he was going to get some eternal reward out of that.
You'll hear more about that next week a little bit. But taken from a line that I heard at Care Group last week as Joshua Spencer led the discussion, if you're a cow, you're going to moo, but just because you moo doesn't necessarily mean you're a cow. And so it is with generosity. But generosity and gratitude, some of you have to think about that for a while, don't you? I know your gears are turning. I believe generosity and gratitude go together.
Let me give you an example of that. I'm an MK. I grew up in Colombia, South America, first 12 years of my life. Still pretty young when we came back.
But there are some things that I distinctly remember that I will never be able to forget, just simply because of the impact that they had on me. We were missionaries. We were supported by churches and families here in America. We had a house to live in down there, a good yard, big walled fence around it with a broken glass around the top of the wall to keep people from climbing over and taking all of our stuff away.
You know, you have stuff, you have to protect it, right? Such is the problem with wealth. My dad was a pastor of a church down there and there was a family in the church. They were actually a couple. They were empty nesters. They were living by themselves, probably at that time in their early to mid 50s.
And I will never forget it. They lived in a little shack down by a stream. It was a small river, a stream.
It got pretty deep in some places. They actually called it the Jordan. I, by the way, was baptized in that river.
So I can honestly say I was baptized in the Jordan. But they lived on the banks of that little stream. What they lived in was whatever they could find to make walls with. Flattened out tin cans, cardboard, other discarded building materials, whatever they could put together to live in. This family was materially very poor.
But they had a wealth that was unforgettable. As poor as they were, they invited my family, mom and dad and four boys. They invited us to dinner. He got his gun out, went out rabbit hunting. Shot rabbits. And they invited us to a dinner called Arroz con coco y conejo.
Rice with coconut rabbit. And the plates they served on were banana leaves. I will never forget that dinner.
I felt so unworthy. Their joy was unmistakable. Their gratitude was clear. What does this? What does that mean? What does that mean? I felt so unworthy. Their joy was unmistakable. Their gratitude was clear. What does this?
What does this? We think that the wealthy people are the generous ones. Did you know that statistics show that that's really not true?
In fact, almost the opposite is true. But why is it that people can be generous like this even going through poverty and adversity? Because look what it says in verse 5. I think this is the key. Not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord.
That's a good phrase, isn't it? They first gave themselves to the Lord. What does that mean? You go back to Jerusalem and materially they were all out. But when it comes to the churches at Macedonia, they first gave themselves to the Lord.
What does that mean? They were all in. Spiritually, materially, they were all in. They belonged to Jesus Christ and everything about them. You see, commitment to Christ makes a huge difference in people's lives. And the grace of God changes one's perspective toward material things specifically, but about life in general.
Here's an example of that. Sam Houston, does that name ring a bell to some of you? I don't know, some of you might have known him.
It was a long time ago. LBJ, Lyndon Baines Johnson, while he was president, on his wall in the office was a framed letter written by General Sam Houston over a hundred years ago to Johnson's, what was it, great grandfather, Baines. Baines had led Sam Houston to Jesus Christ. And Houston was a changed man, no longer a coarse and belligerent man, but peaceful and content. And the day came when Houston was to be baptized, an incredible event for those who knew him. After his baptism, Houston offered to pay half of the local minister's salary. When someone asked him why, he said, my pocket book was baptized too. What does that mean? Just like the Macedonians, he's all in.
He's all in. You see, under the grace of God, we recognize, and this is a work that God's grace does in us, it transforms our perspective. And through the grace of God, under the grace of God, we recognize life as a stewardship, that all that we have is entrusted to us by God. It's not ours, it's entrusted to us to be stewards of it. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace mission is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good and your deepest satisfaction in him, the one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on weekdays at 10 a.m.
