Well, please turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 9. We'll be picking up where we left off last time in verse 6 of 2 Corinthians 9. We'll read to the end of the chapter. I'm excited to walk through this passage of God's Word together with you today. These verses have fed my soul this past week with such rich truth, and I can't wait to share those riches with you.
I trust that they'll feed your soul as well. What a treasure we have. in God's word. 2 Corinthians 9, verses 6 through 15. The point is this.
Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. And whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart. Not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 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. Forever.
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. 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 his inexpressible gift. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, you have been so incredibly generous to us. We who deserve eternal wrath have been welcomed as sons and daughters of the Most High to feast at your table. Truly, your grace is an inexpressible gift. And the only thing that would make this gift better is for us to demonstrate just how inexhaustible your grace is by giving that same grace to others. to reflect your generosity towards us by being ourselves generous.
to others. Help us to be generous like you are. Help us to be a gracious people. Who, by the very liberality of our graciousness, testify to the sheer shocking abundance of your grace to sinners. Holy Spirit, open our eyes to see.
our hearts to believe. and our wills to not only obey, but cheerfully obey your word. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Well, if you've missed our study of Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, we have learned that Corinth and Paul had been partnering together for over a year now to gather a collection, an offering of money that would help alleviate the suffering of the saints in Jerusalem. Corinth had promised to give something to this cause, but as yet had given nothing. Others, like the Macedonians, who were far less wealthy than the Corinthians, had given abundantly and even out of their poverty.
So it was high time that Corinth made good on their promise to financially help those in need. These verses then are about generosity. Paul is calling Christians to be a generous people. And while the immediate context has to do with financial generosity, there are many ways to exhibit generosity. We can give of our time.
We can give of our energy and effort through service. We can give of our knowledge and wisdom as we counsel others in the truth. Greed and generosity are not measured merely by how much money we give or don't give. Generosity is ultimately a disposition of the heart. It's an attitude, a mindset that willingly and even cheerfully gives itself away.
As we contemplate the virtue of generosity today, don't limit your thinking to only your use of money. How we spend our money is not the only measure of a person's generosity. How we spend our life is a better question to ask.
Well, Paul is going to get very specific in his instruction to the church here. He's going to tell us not only that we ought to learn to be generous with our lives, he's also going to show us how to learn generosity. Charles Dickens' story, A Christmas Carol, is perhaps a secular equivalent of our sermon text today. Both Dickens and Paul expose the vices of stinginess and greed and self-centeredness. Both encourage the virtue of generosity.
But there's a stark difference between them. While Dickens grounds the motivation for generosity in the self, And in the effect that a generous spirit will have on society, Paul, on the other hand, grounds it in the character and the grace of God toward man. Dickens goes as far back as Scrooge's childhood to find motivation for Scrooge's change of heart. But Paul goes back to the eternal decree of a gracious God who decided before the foundation of the world. to create a people who would bear his image and fall into sin and be redeemed from that sin through no effort of their own, so that thanksgiving would abound from redeemed sinners to a gracious God who lacks nothing and yet gave everything.
Scrooge's sin is a very typical sin, isn't it? It's the sin of selfishness. Greed. Lack of generosity. And while Scrooge overcomes his ba humbug by looking deep within himself.
For resolve and incentive to change, Paul tells us that the sin of self-centered greed is overcome by looking deeply at the graciousness of God. Sinners are not by nature generous. We're stingy. We preserve self. We live for self.
we're not naturally inclined to give ourselves away. And yet Paul calls the Corinthian church, and he calls you and me today, to learn to overcome that natural bent, that inner Ebenezer Scrooge, if you will, which characterizes us all apart from grace. What we see in these verses is first, that God wants his children to be liberal in our generosity. And secondly, that God's liberal generosity to us is the motivation we need to repent of selfishness. and to become imitators of God's generous, gracious character.
Well, let's dig into this wonderful passage of scripture. First, we see that God wants his children to be generous.
Now, when God calls his children to exhibit some virtue, some godly trait, only the best will do. God is not a chinsey giver, he gives only the best, and so he wants his children to learn to give best. The best. Paul calls the church not merely to generosity, but to abundant, willing, even cheerful generosity. First, our generosity is to be abundant.
Verse 6. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap. bountifully. The implication being so bountifully because bounty is better than sparseness. Don't be measured and careful in your sewing.
Be Well, generous in it. Godly generosity is also a willing generosity. It doesn't give begrudgingly. Verse 7, each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. We don't give because we're forced to give.
That defeats the whole purpose. That isn't generosity. We ought to give because we want to give.
Now, just on a side note, verse 7. is not a license to withhold generosity simply because you don't feel like being generous. The point of verse 7 is not, if you don't feel like it, then don't be generous. The point of verse 7 is if you don't feel like it, learn to feel like it. If your generosity towards others is a reluctant generosity, you need to change.
You need to train yourself to want to be. generous like God. And then finally, generosity gives cheerfully. For God loves a Cheerful. Give her.
So, God is generous. He wants his children to reflect his character by being abundantly, willingly, and cheerfully. generous Now, I think for the most part, we all know this. We know that generosity is a virtue. We admire generosity whenever we see it in people.
We despise greed when we see that in people. We instinctively know that generosity is good and right and noble.
So why then are we so bent towards self centeredness when it comes to giving of ourselves and of our resources? If we know that God loves a cheerful giver, why do we struggle so much with giving? How can we overcome? That persistent bent towards selfishness and learn to be generous like God is generous. Do we, like Ebenezer Scrooge, need ghosts to visit us at night and shock us with the ugliness of a self-centered reputation or sadden us with the potential harm caused by greediness?
Well, no, those emotions will only last for so long. But Paul tells us how to become generous people, and it has everything to do with gaining a right perspective of God. A right perspective of God. Paul tells us that we become generous by learning trust that leads to worship. Learning trust that leads to worship.
Now, let's be clear. In saying that God wants his children to be generous, we're not saying that God needs our money and time and effort to further his cause. We're not saying that God is somehow dependent upon the generosity of the saints. Congregation, the God who made heaven and earth lacks for nothing. He is entirely self-sufficient and needs nothing from us.
Whenever he makes demands of his creatures, be assured it is not so that he will gain something that he lacks. It is always the same. for the creature's good and happiness. and benefit. If you're turned off.
by a sermon about giving. If you find it distasteful to talk about money and giving and generosity, then just hang on because Paul is about to shift the tables on how we think about these things. He's about to make the point that giving is not a matter of other people needing what we have or of God needing what we have. It is in fact a matter of us needing God and properly using that which God has given to us. Let's follow Paul's logic carefully, beginning at verse 8.
Paul says 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.
So, step one in us learning to be generous like God is generous is to recognize it is God who supplies everything we need. Did you notice How generous God is in Paul's description of Him there in verse 8. Look at the recurrence of the word all. God makes all grace abound to us. God gives us All sufficiency in all things at all times.
And the result of this superlative giving on God's part is not that we can barely make ends meet, it's not that we have just enough to get by. The end result is that we are able to abound in every good work. God supplies everything we need.
So, when calling for Christians to be a generous people, Paul's starting place is to make perfectly clear that we have nothing which has not been given to us from heaven. God's giving to us precedes our giving to others. God, in fact, gives us everything we need to abound in every good work. generosity towards others then. is simply what trusting in God's generosity looks like.
Paul continues in verse 9 with a reference to Psalm 112. As it is written. He has distributed freely. He has given to the poor. His righteousness endures.
Forever. Now the New Testament writers will often refer to an Old Testament passage to confirm or explain or illustrate some truth. Here in 2 Corinthians 9 verse 9, Paul points back to Psalm 112 verse 9. A verse which incidentally applies to the generosity of the Christian. While here in 2 Corinthians 9, it refers to the generosity of God.
Now that's very interesting. Paul is making the point that Christian virtue Such as generosity is grounded in God's. virtue and is simply a reflection of what is ours in God. John said essentially the same thing about the virtue of love when he said, We love because he first loved us. Here, Paul is saying, we give because God has first given to us.
Before we ever get to matters of faithfulness and obedience and commitment in the Christian life, those virtues that we ought to be actively pursuing. Before we ever get to those, we need to take a long, hard look at the character of God and be fully convinced of His virtue and of our utter dependence upon that virtue. We will never love kindness, for example, or lay down our lives in showing kindness to our fellow man if we are not convinced that God is kind. We will never love truth like we should if we aren't fully convinced that God is a God of truth. That he is truth itself.
and that it is His truth that sets us free. We will never be generous with the resources we possess if we haven't come to terms with the fact. that those resources have come to us from another. From a generous God who gives and gives and gives without reluctance, cheerfully and willingly. and with infinite abundance.
The first step then in learning generosity is to develop a deep sense of trust in the generosity of God. If he did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. How will he not also graciously give us all things? Beloved, if God is the God of verse 8. then we can be the generous Christian of verse Mm-hmm.
If we can learn to trust in the abundant provision of God, it will teach us to be generous in our dealings with others.
Well, secondly, we see that this trust in God's provision leads to generosity. Look with me at verse 10. He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed. And for what purpose? For sewing.
God does not give us seed so that we can store it on the shelf in the cellar. God gives us seed so that we will sow it. And the more we sow, the more we harvest. And the more we harvest, the more we have. to share.
Trusting the giver of the seed multiplies our sowing and thus increases our ability to be generous. You see, trusting in the Lord leads to generosity. I mentioned earlier that generosity encompasses far more than mere money. We are to be generous with all the resources we have, money, yes, but also time and service and words and thoughtfulness. Interestingly, verse 10 contains more allusions to the Old Testament.
In verse 10, Paul quotes Isaiah 55 and Hosea 12. both of which use sowing and reaping figuratively. Making the point that God's provision is much more than simply a temporal or material provision. Everything we have. Including our spiritual maturity, our knowledge of the Bible, our love for godliness, our wisdom, all of it is from God.
We were to use all of it generously. as God has generously given to us. That's why Paul refers to it in verse 10 as a harvest. of righteousness. Paul is explaining to the Corinthians that the generosity he's calling them to has to do with far greater things than just.
Relieving the temporal suffering of the saints in Jerusalem. Their material generosity to others is a picture of God's eternal generosity to us, by which He provides us with material blessings, yes, but even better, with eternal spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. God's generosity saves us from hell. and ushers us into the new heavens and the new earth. And perhaps we could Pause and make a point of application here.
It may be that in God's providence, you are not exceptionally wealthy in material terms. And perhaps you feel like this principle of generous giving is not applicable to you. But nothing could be further from the truth. God has given you something. It may be material wealth.
It may be an intellect that can grasp deep and complex truths and make them accessible to those with lesser intellectual gifts. God's gift to you may be a tireless energy in serving others. or a steadying empathy that enables you to give comfort and stability to the hurting. God's gifts are unlimited. Whatever they are.
Material or immaterial, use what God has given and use it generously. Back to our point, though, God is the giver of all these things. God is the giver of everything we have. And as we learn to trust His generosity, we will learn to be generous with the gifts God has given. Trusting in a generous God.
leads to generosity. The next step then in Paul's logic is that this generosity leads to needs being met, actual needs being actually met. Verse 11. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way. And that generosity, verse 12, begins to supply the needs of the saints.
So in God's wisdom, he has established a reality in which the needs of his children are met through the generosity of his children, a generosity which only exists because God has supplied an abundance of resources with which we can be generous. God is calling us to meet the needs of the saints, and He Himself is fitting the bill. This means that My generosity to others is not ultimately an expression of my commitment to God. but rather of his commitment to me. And that makes all the difference in the world, doesn't it?
My generosity is the fruit, not the root, of God's work in me and provision for me. And as this fruit blossoms in my life, actual needs are met in the world.
Now look at the last step in Paul's logical progression through this principle of generosity. First, God shows himself trustworthy by providing an abundance of gifts to us. Secondly, we learn to trust God's provision and begin to generously share with others. Our generosity then begins to meet actual needs of others. And then lastly, this process of needs being met leads to thankful worship.
The latter half of verse 11 says that as Christian generosity meets actual needs, it produces thanksgiving to God. Verse 12 reiterates the same thing. Christian generosity overflows in many thanksgivings to God. Verse 13 says it a third time. They will glorify God because of the generosity of your contribution.
I want us to notice especially how verse 13 elevates generous giving to an act of worship. Verse 13 describes Corinth's offering as a service, which is the word for ministry. Also the word from which we get our word deacon. Verse 13 also refers to this act, this offering as an act of submission to the Lord that springs from Corinth's very confession of the gospel of Christ. This language elevates the generous giving of the church to far more than mere benevolence.
You know, anyone. can give resources to help impoverished, needy people. But when a Christian gives cheerfully and willingly and sacrificially to others in response to the generosity of the Lord and in submission to him and as a confession of their confidence in the gospel of Jesus Christ, that, beloved, is an act of worship that brings about even more worship in the hearts of the recipient. Our book of church order concludes with the directory for worship. In which the various elements of worship are identified and explained, and giving is included in this list of elements of public worship.
See, generosity is not some. unimportant. Addendum to the activity of the church. a merely pragmatic necessity that keeps the lights on. No, church giving is an act of worship.
Because it's a reflection of God's generous grace towards us. The book of church order says the holy scriptures teach that God is the owner of all persons and all things, and that we are but stewards of both life and possessions. That's exactly Paul's point in 2 Corinthians 9: God is the owner. Our church standards say that God's ownership and our stewardship should be acknowledged by our worshiping the Lord with our possessions. Everything we have.
has been given to us from a generous God. Everything. We are simply stewards. When we give as God has given to us, we are worshiping the Lord. And our generosity has the potential of increasing the worship of God in the hearts of those who are served.
By our generosity.
So the whole thing comes full circle. God's generosity to us fuels our generosity towards others. Which results in others giving thanks to God for meeting their needs. It's grace leading to grace, leading to worship of God for His inexpressible gift. What has God given to you?
Material possessions. Abundance. Life An awareness of him. Joy. Gratitude.
He's given you peace. He's given you hope. And He's given us above all other gifts. His only begotten Son. Through Christ.
God's Gifts simply continue pouring forth, don't they? In Christ, we have the forgiveness of sins. We have faith. We have the Holy Spirit. We have resurrection.
We have life eternal. We have joy unspeakable. Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ is God's inexpressible gift. Before I had a concept of money and labor and limitations of personal wealth, I just assumed that my parents had unlimited resources at their disposal.
Somehow magically, there was always the next meal on the table. And presents at Christmas and birthdays.
Somehow there was always a roof over my head and clothes on my back and transportation at my beckon call. You know, that unqualified trust in parents, that childlike faith is just part of being a child, isn't it? Every Christmas, our children draw names and exchange Christmas gifts with each other. Each sibling will give a gift to a sibling. Each sibling will receive a gift from a sibling.
Now, when we started this tradition, all of our kids were young and not gainfully employed. They had no resources with which to purchase a gift for the sibling gift exchange.
So, what do we do?
Well, of course, mom and dad bought the gifts. That's how it works. The gift tag said from brother or sister, but mom and dad were the ones funding the gift exchange. But you know, here's the thing about moms and dads. They love funding the gift exchange.
because they love their children. and take great delight in bringing joy to their children. How easy it is for children to think, my dad will pay for it. How quick children are to rely on their parents' generosity. Come to my house, eat my food, play with my toys.
My parents will pay for us all without a care in the world about their parents' resources running out. Friends, here's the truth that's set before us today. When it comes to the good of his children, Our Heavenly Father never runs out of resources. He will pay for it. It is his delight.
to pay for it. In fact, he has paid for it. through the blood of his son. He has spared no expense. He has withheld nothing.
By way of gracious generosity And the claim he makes on us in light of this divine generosity is that we first trust his generous spirit, and secondly, that we show the same generosity to others that we've been shown by him. Why? Because our reflection of God's generous grace increases the thanksgiving and worship that redound to him when his children imitate the graciousness of their heavenly Father. He is the giver of the of inexpressible gifts. He is in truth the giver of every good and perfect gift.
So let us trust his generosity. Let us imitate. His generosity Let us give him thanks. for his inexpressible generosity. He is a good, good Father.
Let's pray. Or do you have been so Very good to us. Would you in turn give us opportunities this season. and in the year ahead to demonstrate your great goodness to us. Teach us to be a generous people who give to others of the time and talents and resources that you've given to us.
May we be a people who Give in this manner with great cheer. that the world might come to give you the thanks. and delight that is your due. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Okay.
