Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The way the body of Christ gives and stewards what is given should make Christ beautiful. The church must wisely manage what is given to leave no avenue to discredit the gospel of Christ.
Today, Pastor Rich lays out six principles for responsible giving from 2 Corinthians 8, 16-24. Let's listen in. So, good to have Chuck and his daughter, Shannon, with us today.
And Steve and Sarah Spidner are back with us all the way up from Athens, Georgia, down there where it's hot and they add more syllables to their words than we do. So, but great to have them with us and looking forward to continued fellowship through the day. In this series in 2 Corinthians 8, we have looked at, and it's Christian liberality, liberality that abounds and also liberality that is from abiding. But today we're going to look at liberality that approves, liberality that approves, meaning that wisdom and discernment are part of good stewardship, both on the administrative side and on the giving side. We are to be good stewards of what God has entrusted to us. And as we've discussed in our Care Group Sunday School, stewardship is not just about giving. Stewardship is understanding that all that I have, all the resources that I have are entrusted to me by God. Therefore, life itself is a stewardship. It is God's and the things that I have are entrusted to me by him to bring him glory.
So when we understand that, that helps us understand that the things that I do with my money is just a part of the broader picture of stewardship. In 1 Timothy chapter 3, the apostle Paul was writing to Timothy on the issue of qualifications for bishops, for leadership in the church. And the person who is to be a leader in the church is the person who is not to be given to what the King James calls filthy lucre.
It just has some good nuances to it, doesn't it? Filthy lucre. What that means is that a person who is going to be in leadership in the church is a person who should not be greedy for money.
Now, some things don't change over time. The well publicized efforts of religious leaders who are hucksters with questionable ethics and high pressure tactics make some pastors hesitant to discuss finances. Well, that's one of the liberties of a systematic exposition of the scriptures. We're just going through 2 Corinthians, and when we get to 2 Corinthians chapter 8, the subject matter is finances, particularly with giving. And that's why we call it Christian generosity.
But there are many principles that we can glean from this. Paul did not hesitate to talk about money. Paul was the founder of the Corinthian church. And he knew that if he, as the apostle, as the founder of the church, if he exhorted Christians to present themselves to Christ for his use, then that includes asking them to present their funds as well. Paul also understood that he had to be sensitive to the wisest use and management of material goods as good stewards and not providing any avenue to discredit the gospel of Christ through the administration and use of funds. He was very sensitive to that, and we find that in this text before us today. So Paul, who was expecting this gift, this contribution, this collection to be a considerably large collection because he was collecting from many churches, not just the Corinthian church. As we look in Romans, he was collecting from the churches in Macedonia and the churches in Achaia, which included the Corinthian church.
He expected this to be quite a large contribution. If you remember, the background information here is that the Christians in Jerusalem who were Jews were being ostracized by their fellow countrymen because now they had become followers of Christ. And so they considered them to be non-Jewish anymore, and they were cutting them off and they were running out of resources. And Paul, wanting to bring a sense of unity in the church, wanted the Gentile Christians to be generous and show their love for the Jewish Christians so that they recognize that they were all part of one body.
Not a separate Jewish and separate Gentile church. And so he wanted to bring that unity, and he was expecting this to be a large collection. And he knew in that case that because it would be a large collection, that it would open the administrators, those who were handling the funds, it would open them up to suspicion and questions. And so the whole process would not be without safeguards.
And we see them in this text here today. So in today's message, the title is Liberality That Approves. From this, we get six principles for responsible giving, and these would be both on the administrative side and on the giving side. The first one I want to discuss today is the aim of giving or the aim of collecting offerings, the aim of it. We need to remember that in this, the substance of this is specifically Christian generosity. It's not just generosity in general, it is Christian generosity. And as Paul was calling on the church to give of their funds to help their brothers and sisters, we must understand that Christian generosity is that which promotes God and God's agenda and God's purposes and God himself. We should be very careful that we do not give to a program or a cause that is promoting a particular man. The church is not about that, the church does not ask for funds, Christian ministry should not ask for funds to promote a particular man.
And Paul was very careful about it, that in this text we find he was not promoting himself, the delegates who were entrusted with the task of administrating the fund. It was not about promoting themselves, it was not about their personal gain, it was about promoting God, about pointing to Jesus Christ. And when we speak of the highest aim to be that of glorifying God and glorifying Christ, what that means is to glorify God means to point to him. When I'm pointing to him, I want to bring your attention to God and therefore when I give, when I am called upon to give, when I do that, I do so with the ultimate aim and objective of pointing you and others to God. And that needs to be the aim of Christian generosity. So ultimately, it is about the gospel of grace because God is a gracious God, he is a giver, he has given us of himself his indescribable gift in the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, because he has given, we therefore give out of generosity, out of gratitude. And that takes us back then to verse 9 once again, the gospel, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich. That then becomes the foundation of our generosity. It becomes the fountainhead of our, the outflow of our generosity and love as generous, Christian generosity. The second principle is that of administration. Paul said, as far as his aim for the glory of the Lord, look with me specifically at verse 19, he said at the end of verse 19, which is administered by us to the glory of the Lord himself.
He says so again in verse 20. Now, in that administration, the second principle is administration and we are administering it to the glory of the Lord. So Paul accountable himself to God's purposes, interesting this word administered by us, that word administered is the word Diakoneo, from which we get our word deacon, which means to serve or to take care of. And that's what deacons do. And I would have, you know, as pastor of the church here for over 10 years now, that the deacons of this church in its history have been of great reputation and have done a masterful job of administrating and taking care of the funds of Grace Bible Church.
I'm hands off when it comes to that. It's their responsibility and they do a good job of taking care of that with great integrity, oversight and accountability. When Paul mentioned of the administration of this collection for the Christians in Jerusalem, he said there has to be in place the right channels and the right oversight for these funds. Specifically, in this case, there was apostolic oversight. Paul himself being the chief overseer of what was going on, but he was not the one himself handling the funds.
He said in the administration, there needs to be order, there needs to be proper accounting and handling. And that is true for any way that I should give, I give to the church, if I give to another organization in responsible giving, I need to make sure that there is proper accountability for that and that there are the right channels and oversight for that so that I know what the money is doing. And so that brings up the question then, who will actually be handling these funds? In the administration of this large collection for the poor Christians in Jerusalem, who is going to be handling these funds? Well, that brings us to the third principle and that's the principle of approval. There is a delegation of three that we find in this paragraph, Second Corinthians chapter eight, there was a delegation of three who were approved and entrusted with the administration of this large collection. Thanks for joining us here at Delight in Grace. 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.. .
