2 Corinthians 8:1-7:
1 – And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches.
2 – Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.
3 – For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own,
4 – they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints.
5 – And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will.
6 – So we urged Titus, since he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part.
7 – But just as you excel in everything-in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness, and in your love for us-see that you also excel in this grace of giving.
2 Corinthians 9:6-8:
6 – Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
7 – Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
8 – And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
There are many things I ENJOY in life — things that are FUN for me — things I look forward to doing. In the Spring, I enjoy jogging down the Rock Creek trail! In the summer I enjoy sitting on our deck and watching the humming birds! In the fall I enjoy biking along the C & O Canal! In the winter, I enjoy reading a good book in front of a roaring fire!
I could go on and on — and maybe by now you too are thinking of things that give you pleasure — things you do when you want to have a good time. Well, this morning I want to see if I can add another item to your “Things I enjoy list.” As you can see by the bulletin, I’m referring to the practice of GIVING your money to God. Now to some of us, ENJOYING GIVING may sound like a contradiction in terms. It’s like the story I once heard about a boy who was going out of the door and his mom said,“Be good dear and have fun!” and he replied, “Well make up your mind mother!” To him BEING GOOD and HAVING FUN were incompatible. And that is the way some react to the concept of ENJOYING GIVING. The two words just don’t seem to go together!
In fact, many of us definitely DON’T enjoy giving…and because of that we’d rather not hear about it from the pulpit. I mean sitting still for a half hour in an uncomfortable chair listening to a sermon is bad enough….but when the subject is giving money to the church…..well, that’s about as much fun as a tooth ache! In my study to prepare for this morning I came across a sermon on stewardship which was titled, “The Most Despised Doctrine In The Bible.” The writer pointed out that other doctrines may irritate us and convict us but no other Biblical teaching causes as much displeasure and resentment as does the doctrine of stewardship.
I think that most people would rather hear a sermon on HELL than a sermon on GIVING! It is interesting to note that it seems that MONEY is the most POPULAR subject in the world when it is spoken of by laymen — but the most UNPOPULAR when spoken of by ministers. It is our BEST CONVERSATION PIECE six days a week, but our most UNPOPULAR topic on the seventh day!
Now,why does talking about GIVING in church make many of us feel so uncomfortable? Why is it such an unpopular subject to deal with here in God’s house?
Well one reason is because the doctrine of stewardship has been soooo abused.All of us are very familiar with TV evangelists and Christian radio show hosts that spend so much of their time asking for our money. We are well aware of the PTL money scandal that took place back in the ’80’s…and of that time a couple years ago when Oral Roberts asked God to strike him dead if we wouldn’t give his ministry millions of dollars by a certain deadline. And we are tired of shenanigans like that.
When I was in college the then popular evangelist Bob Harrington, a.k.a. “The Chaplain of Bourbon Street” came to town on a crusade. I had heard his testimony and read his books….and had grown to admire him so I worked with my BSU peers to spread the good news of his arrival to other college students. Pastors and staff in churches all over the area worked for many months to bring bus loads to hear the gospel proclaimed by Rev. Harrington. Well, the first night of the crusade I arrived early to get a good seat but when Harrington got up to speak, he spent 98% of his time asking for money for his ministry. He even spent about ten minutes challenging little children to reach into their pockets for change to put in the offering plate. Only the last couple sentences of his LENGTHY message had anything to do with the good news of the Gospel.
I never went back to another service. Many of us have had experiences like this and so in our minds talking about giving money seems like a tarnished subject that godly preachers should avoid. But you know…if we were honest with ourselves…we would say that another reason that we don’t enjoy this subject is because…
We love our money too much….We are very fond of our funds….very attached to them….and so the ACT of giving itself is a very PAINFUL experience! We go into a state of deep SHOCK and DEPRESSION when we part with our money. We’re like the man someone once wrote about.
- Once there was a Baptist. He had a very pious look.
- He’d been totally immersed, except his pocketbook.
- He’d drop a nickel in the plate. And then with might and main
- He’d sing, “WHEN WE ASUNDER PART IT GIVES ME INWARD PAIN.”
Well,if giving is such an uncomfortable, unpopular subject….why should we deal with it from the pulpit in the first place? Well….one reason is because…
1. The subject of GIVING has such a central place in the teachings of the Bible.
In God’s written word there are 1,565 references to GIVING or STEWARDSHIP. Reading some of these passages shows us that Jesus had more to say about stewardship and money than any other subject including heaven, hell, salvation, and His 2nd coming! But many of us don’t know this and so we don’t think of giving as a spiritual discipline. One layman whose church was in the midst of a stewardship campaign, said to his pastor: “Pastor, don’t you wish you could skip preaching on stewardship and just keep on dealing with SPIRITUAL matters?”
Well STEWARDSHIP – which includes the GIVING of our money to God — IS a spiritual matter. The Apostle Paul thought of it in that way. He didn’t consider GIVING as UNSPIRITUAL and separate from so-called SPIRITUAL matters. We can see this several times in his writings. For example — turn to I Corinthians chapter 15. Here Paul is talking about the day when the dead in Christ will be resurrected (you don’t get much more SPIRITUAL than that!)…and as he writes, he goes on and on about our victory over death in Christ. Listen to his words starting with verse 54:
“Then shall be brought to pass the thing that is written; ‘Death is swallowed up in victory! O death, where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?’ The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus, Christ. Therefore, dear brothers, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord … [NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT MONEY].”
That’s exactly what Paul says! The 15th chapter climaxes on that marvelous mountain top of the resurrection, and then right on the heels of that he says, “Now, here are the directions abut the MONEY you’re collecting.” You’ll find the same thing in our text for today. In the 5th chapter of II Corinthians Paul is talking about what happens to us when our bodies die. And he talks about the hope that we have for a building not made with hands, eternal in the heavens…very spiritual stuff! And then here he is in the 8th chapter, giving a congregation very much like ours some guidelines about giving money.
My point is that the Bible teaches that GIVING MONEY TO THE CHURCH is a very SPIRITUAL MATTER! In fact, it has rightly been said that if you want to see how spiritual — how godly — a person really is, ask to examine his or her checkbook. So giving is a very SPIRITUAL subject and we need to study it in church and understand it. And then…another reason to deal with this subject is because…
2. ….when we give our money to the local church we experience the blessing of God.
In our text for today Paul reminded us that, “Whoever sows sparingly, will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.” In other words, when we give financially to God we experience God’s supernatural intervention in our affairs. He will respond to our giving by giving back to us….blessing our lives in countless ways, including meeting our financial needs.
So, the money we give to God should not be viewed so much as a debt we owe but as a seed we sow….a seed to grow our trust in God’s willingness to bless us….to take care of us. In Luke 6:38 Jesus promised, “Give and it will be given to you…a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured BACK to you.” In Philippians 4:17 Paul is writing a thank you note to the church at Philippi to thank them for their financial gifts and she says, “Though I appreciate your gifts, what makes me happiest is the well-earned reward you will have because of your kindness.” Paul says here that giving benefits the giver as well as the receiver…because the giver experiences the blessing of God. Now, the word for “reward” in Greek is a banking term that literally means “accumulated interest.”
So Paul is basically saying here that God pays interest. Perhaps he remembered Jesus’ teaching that a hundredfold will be returned to him who gives for the gospel’s sake. (Mark 10:30 ) A hundredfold is 10,000% interest. I don’t know a bank in the world that gives you those rates. But to receive this percentage…this caliber of blessing from God….which is much greater than mere financial reward….you have to first give to Him.
Suppose I went into Chevy Chase Bank and asked, “How much interest have I accumulated?” My banker would reply, “Well, how much money have you deposited?” And suppose I would tell him, “Well, nothing.” He would respond, “Well, Rev. Adams….the rule around Chevy Chase is that you don’t get any interest if you don’t make an investment.” That’s the way it is in the kingdom of God as well. I Timothy 6:18-19 says, “Give happily to those in need and always be ready to share whatever God has given you. By doing this you will be storing up treasure for yourselves in heaven. It is the only safe investment for eternity.”
3. A third reason to deal with this subject is because we-as a local body of Christ-experience spiritual growth and unity when we give.
The context of this morning’s scripture reading is Paul’s attempt to raise money for Jewish Christians in Jerusalem who were literally STARVING to death. These early Christians were in desperate shape due to drought and persecution and Paul was raising money to help them. But I think he had a larger agenda in mind than JUST raising money for the Christians in Jerusalem. You see he had started these churches in the Gentile world. So, he had an investment in them. He wanted the faith of these new Christians to grow and he knew that if they got involved in this offering for these needy people, this is exactly what would happen. I think Paul thought,
“… if I can get these new Christians to give to this needy group of Christians they will grow in Christ because: they will put others needs before their own…and…in giving sacrificially they will have to trust God and so they will learn to rely on His strength.”
But I also think Paul was thinking about how the Jewish Christians were a little nervous about the Gentile Christians…and the Gentile Christians were a little nervous and suspicious about the Jewish Christians. And he felt that if he took this offering from the Gentiles and gave it to the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, it might help to break down some of the barriers, and create a unity in the church. And this ought to say something to you and me.
There is so much more involved in subscribing a church budget than simply paying the bills. Because giving IS something that helps us grow spiritually….and giving together builds our fellowship! In fact, a church budget is a team project from the beginning….we put it together as a team-each committee and program ministry lets us know it’s needs each fall. Through two or three business meetings together, we look at the budget and the plans it involves together…we pray about it and we vote on it….together! And then all year we all sacrificially give together to meet it…we pool our financial resources to achieve a common goal…and it feels GREAT when we succeed-as we have the past three years!
4. A fourth reason to deal with the subject of giving is because when we give our money to the church it brings joy to our Heavenly Father.
You who are parents out there — don’t you enjoy it when your child does something you ask them to do willingly? It feels sooooo good when our children do something we have taught them without our having to force them to do so.
For example, I say, “Daniel, would you mind putting the garbage out?” And Daniel says, “Awwww Dad! I’m on the Internet….e-mailing a friend. Do I have to?” And I say, “YES you have to — now get up there and do it or I’ll close down your AOL account for good!” And so Daniel stomps around gathering the garbage…complaining through clenched teeth the whole time. Well, that kind of response brings me no joy at all! I’d just as soon take it out myself! But what if on the other hand I ask Daniel to take out the garbage and he says, “SURE DAD! I will be happy to! And…after the garbage man comes I’ll even clean the cans. You know, they’re getting pretty rank inside! By the way Dad, you don’t even have to ask me to do this anymore. I’ll take it on as my job. I know the garbage man comes Tuesdays and Fridays….I’ll make sure the cans are always out and I’ll even bring them in that night.”
Now, when Daniel does this….don’t you know I am pleased — PROUD as punch of the great son I have! Can you imagine the joy that brings to my heart?! Well, this is the way it is with GOD! In our text for today it says that He loves it when we are cheerful givers!
When God sees us giving as He has taught us to give…without any sense of reluctance, it brings Him joy because our ACT OF GIVING represents willful obedience and gives proof of our spiritual growth-but most importantly it convinces Him that we do love for Him! In John 14:15 Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commands.” So there are several important reasons to deal with this subject from the pulpit…but what about the title of today’s message? I mean, can GIVING actually bring us PLEASURE? Can it be FUN to give? Well, it actually CAN-as long as we remember some important principles of giving…and the first is this….
1. ….to enjoy giving we must do so SACRIFICIALLY.
To get any pleasure from giving we must give so much that we have to trust God to do so. C. S. Lewis once said, “The only safe rule is to give more than we can spare…if our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small.” Paul said that the sacrificial giving of the Christians in the churches of Macedonia resulted in their great joy. Remember his words in verse 2 of our text? “Out of the most severe trial….their extreme poverty…their overflowing joy…welled up in rich generosity.” In fact, they had learned this lesson so well….that sacrificial giving is fun…that verse four says, “they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints.” These impoverished believers had discovered that it IS fun to give sacrificially because when we do so, we link ourselves up with God’s supply line. When we give to meet the needs of others, He lovingly provides for our needs and that’s fun!
A very wealthy man once stood before his congregation to challenge the people to tithe. He shared his testimony saying,
“I have not always been a rich man. In fact there was a time when I was very poor. A number of years ago, I attended a church service and heard the preacher speak about trusting God with all that you have. I had only $20 to my name and it was in my pocket. That morning, I decided to take that preacher at his word and I put that $20 in the offering plate, and walked away from that church putting all my trust in God.”
He concluded by saying,
“If I were to put all of my money in the collection plate today, it would be over a million dollars!”
With those dramatic words he sat down. An elderly lady in the church was sitting behind him and when he sat down, she leaned forward and whispered in his ear loud enough for everyone to hear, “I dare you to do it again!”
Well, in essence that is what God says to us in Malachi 3, “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse….Trust ME…test Me in this and see if I will not open for you the windows of Heaven and pour out on you a blessing until it overflows.” In other words… “Try this…bring ALL the tithes into My house…..give to Me so much that you have to trust Me to do so and see if it is not fun!” When we offer to God that which costs us nothing, we miss out on a great deal of JOY. And then…another principle to remember we must remember if we want to enjoy giving is that…
2. …when we give our money we are actually turning something that is temporary into something that is eternal.
Money is only paper…it is a temporary thing…but — when we give it to God’s kingdom it becomes much more than that as it is turned into things that last forever. J. Wallace Hamilton said “Stewardship is that divine alchemy by which money is transmuted into men — and material possessions exchanged for the eternal riches of mind and spirit.”
As I alluded to earlier, a common complaint when people hear that the pastor is going to preach on stewardship is, “Why doesn’t the preacher preach the gospel and not preach on money?” I could think of a couple of answers to that statement but the bottom line is this: there is no such thing as preaching the gospel without preaching money. Money and the spread of the gospel are closely linked. One reason we have not done more in the spreading of the gospel around the world is that we have not had more money with which to do it. Churches cost money….ministries are expensive….proclaiming the eternal truth of the Gospel requires financial resources.
You see when we give money to the church those pieces of paper that you put in the offering plate are used to provide: SS curriculum and to pay mortgages and utilities and salaries so that this can be a place where we teach people the ETERNAL truth of the love of God. Money makes this TEMPORARY place possible. But here in this temporary place people become Christians….ETERNAL destinies are determined here.
Giving money is a way of making temporary things eternal. My father pastored the First Southern Baptist Church in Dover Delaware for 27 years. I remember hearing that before my dad came to this church….in the early years when that church built it’s first building, they arranged with the contractor to build it in three stages. At each stage the church would have to pay a third of the construction costs. As the end of the second stage approached, church leaders realized they were $10,000 short so they began to pray. And on the morning of the last day….the day the sum had to be paid in order for construction to continue….they were still short $10,000. The pastor was about to leave for the meeting with the contractor to share with him the bad news when there was a knock on the door. He opened it and found a stranger standing there. The stranger introduced himself and said,
“I’m a member of another church here in town and I know that you are building a new church over there on South Little Creek Road…..well, this morning while I was in the shower God told me to sell my private plane and give you the money. Here is a check for $10,000.”
Now think about this…..by now that plane would probably have rusted into nothingness….that was over 30 years ago. But by selling it and giving the proceeds to that church, this man turned that plane….that temporary thing into an eternal thing. As a direct result of his gift, a church was built on South Little Creek Road in Dover, Delaware and for several decades now it has been a place where eternal truth has been taught. Hundreds and hundreds of people have met God in that place! Who can calculate the impact on eternity that church has had and will have in the years to come!? And all of this because a man gave some money….Can you imagine the pleasure that gift has brought to him in the years since!
3. Another principle to remember in learning to enjoy giving is the importance of getting our inner motivation to give right.
Jesus taught us that it is wrong to do RIGHT things for the WRONG reasons. Remember what He had to say about people who prayed just to be seen praying or people who fast and then made themselves look awful so everybody would notice that they’re fasting or people who went into the Temple to make their offering and they sort of SPUN their money so that it would make a lot of noise and people would notice them giving? Giving is the right thing to do but it is wrong to do it just to be seen.
Giving like this takes all the fun out of giving. A couple of years ago Miss Canada, TARA PAAT, gave up her title just 12 days before she was to compete in the MISS WORLD contest. She said that she did this because she objected to being photographed with the other contestants feeding South Africa’s hungry and homeless. She said, “They just brought in enough food and blankets for about 20 people so they could film us giving it out….when there were these other kids standing crying and screaming pulling on me to give them something.” She resented giving for the wrong reasons. It upset her so much she gave up her title of Miss Canada.
There are a lot of people who don’t enjoy giving because they give for they wrong reasons.
a. SOME GIVE OUT OF DUTY.
Duty is a marvelous virtue but it can be awfully joyless. Some churches require their deacons to tithe. It is their DUTY to do so.Can you imagine a prospective deacon — in the interview process — asked if he or she would be willing to tithe if elected. And he says “Well if I have to. I guess I will.” Do you think he is going to have fun doing so? Of course not! He’ll grind his teeth every week as he writes the check. Tithing out of DUTY is no fun.
b. OTHERS GIVE BECAUSE THEY’RE AFRAID NOT TO.
They’re afraid of what God would do to them if they didn’t give! It’s like the man who parked his car outside a store in a run down area of D.C. A young boy who was watching, came up and said, “I’ll watch your car for a dollar.” The man said, “Why, it’s right here outside the market. What could happen to it?” The boy said, “Well, somebody might put SAND in your gas tank.” The man said, “I had the feeling I was looking at that SOMEBODY so I gave him the dollar knowing it was nothing more than protection money.” Wouldn’t you hate to think that God is like some petty racketeer who’s going to mug you if you don’t kick in? Would it be fun to give to God if you thought of Him in that way?
c. ANOTHER FALSE OR IMPROPER MOTIVE FOR GIVING IS GREED.
Some preachers peddle the idea that if you give, God will make you financially rich. I heard one say, “If you want to be a millionaire, give God $100,000 — He can figure out what that is a tithe of.” That sort of stuff is like making God some sort of big heavenly slot machine that’s been fixed. No — to get any pleasure out of giving we have to have the right motives! Which leads me to my last point.
4. To enjoy giving, we must put it in the context of our love for Christ and our commitment to Him.
This must be our motivation. Did you notice what Paul said about the Macedonians in verse 5 of chapter 8? Look it up. He said, “First they gave of THEMSELVES.” And you know, that’s what God really wants! He’s more interested in your HEART and your MIND and your WILL than He is in your bank account. You see, there’s a sense in which until you have surrendered yourself to GOD without any reservation, every request to give creates a spiritual crisis.
I heard about a man who was going to bob a dog’s tail and he didn’t want to hurt the dog, so he just cut off an inch at a time. There are lots of Christians who live and give like that. Every time they’re called on to give or do anything, it creates another crisis. Well to get rid of all that we must SURRENDER OURSELVES TO GOD! Out of our love for Jesus, we must turn our whole life and every part of it — over to HIM….and in the giving of ourselves, everything else, including giving our money to His church, becomes nothing but an implementing of what we’ve already done! Now, on the surface LOVE seems like such a weak motivation compared to LAW or DUTY or FEAR. But only the gifts given out of LOVE enrich the giver.
So,it IS possible to actually enjoy giving….but to do so: we must give sacrificially; we must remember that giving to God is actually turning a temporary thing into something eternal, and we must get our motivations to give right….we must give out of our love for God.
You know about a half hour ago our ushers came forward and passed plates around this room and we put our monetary gifts in them and we called that time “THE OFFERING.” But I think it would be more accurate to call that time “AN offering” because it is not the only time we give to God in worship. In fact, right now….at the end of this service is another time of giving. Because it is in these moments that we give God our lives.
This morning is God calling you to participate publicly in this “OFFERING?” Is He knocking on your heart’s door…..asking you to invite Him in….if so, then I urge you to let Him in….today make your public profession of faith in Jesus. Give your life to Him today. He could be asking others of you to give yourselves to the ministry of this church…by moving their membership to this local body. Whatever your decision we invite you to walk the aisle and make it public as we stand and sing.