Sermon Transcript:
So before we really kind of enjoin ourselves to the study of the Word of God this morning, I kind of wanted to read this, I don't know what you'd call it, maybe a testimony, which I'm sure is 100% satire, but I think we'll all enjoy it nonetheless. And it says this, For many years, I doubted the power of prayer in the life of a believer. I went to church, I read my Bible, I joyfully did all the things that I was expected to do. But prayer was a different story. It always seemed like a daunting task to me.
Me, bowing my head without falling asleep, kneeling down knowing I might not be able to get back up, focusing on a single thought for longer than 10 seconds. Impossible. But it all changed one Sunday morning. I thought I'd try attending a different church, thinking a change in environment could lead to a change in perspective. I walked in, sat down at a pew in the back, and waited. The preacher, much younger, And much livelier than the one I was used to, walked onto the stage, and as if speaking directly to me, said,
You do not have, because you do not ask. And then quoting some passage about our Heavenly Father wanting to give us good gifts, he said, If God wants you handsome, he will make you handsome. If God wants you driving a Cadillac, he will get you that Cadillac. And if God wants you rich, all you have to do is ask. So as the preacher walked off the stage and the music began, I thought I'd take the preacher up on his promise.
I closed my eyes, I bowed my head, and I called out to God, saying, God, I've never understood this whole prayer thing, but the man on the stage said, All I have to do is ask. And at that very moment, a tall man appeared next to me, handing me a book. His bucket filled to the brim. with cash. And I couldn't believe it. Grabbing the bucket, I jumped out of my seat,
praising God for his immediate answers to my prayers. And I must not have been the only person asking to get rich, because even as I hurried out of the church in my excitement, I had the ushers, the security guards, and even the organist chasing after me to rejoice with me. I mean, prayer works, folks. No doubt in my mind, how else would that basket have had the exact amount of money I needed to post bail? So, all right. Aside from the obvious comedic content.
of what I just read for us, I saw that this week. I wanted to use that story, or whatever you want to call that, to illustrate just two very simple truths that are going to kind of be the launching points for what I'm going to preach on. Truth number one, a lot of well-intentioned Christians have no clue the who or the what or the why as to prayer, as said, whatever that was illustrated.
And truth number two, also, a lot of well-intentioned Christians have no clue why we give, knowing that that was the basket the man received. And so with the desire to speak to both of those realities, what I wanted to do this week was kind of continue what we started a few weeks ago. You know, we kind of took a little aside and we started talking about unity. You know, we spent those few weeks talking about what the church is supposed to be in terms of unity on what Sunday worship and Wednesday night Bible study and just relationships inside the church are meant to be.
And we talked about unity and we kind of did a little chunk of that. And so these next few weeks, I want to do a same little sermon series, little chunk. On those two things, on prayer. And the plan to do that would be, you know, to spend this week and maybe next talking about giving, as our passage we read kind of indicates, and the weeks following talking about prayer. But the reason I start with giving is because I said this last year, kind of the first season I was up here for this, I always wanted to take, no matter where we're at, if we're in Luke, if we're in 1 John, whatever book of the Bible we're preaching through,
I always wanted to make sure there was a time in which I would preach about the worship that we do through giving. And I said last year that I was going to do it every Sunday after everyone's favorite day, Tax Day, which I think was like April 15th or something. So as you can see, we're a little far out from that. But, you know, regardless, I wanted to stick to that commitment. And so at the end of the day, I don't preach on these things. I don't preach on unity. I don't preach on giving. I don't preach on prayer. Just, you know, a prayer schedule or a preaching schedule tells me to do so.
But I preach on it because as I've emphasized each week, these are vital. I preach on it. parts of Christian worship. You know, we don't just preach unity to preach unity. We preach it because that's what Christ called us to do. And we do the same thing with giving, and we do the same thing with prayer. And so knowing all of that and taking that just wonderful introduction in mind, I'm going to take us to our passage of interest this morning, 2 Corinthians 9, verses 6 through 8, which we read before. Now the Apostle Paul, whom we talk so much about each week, in.
this passage, he's giving us some context for kind of everything he just said. If you aren't following what he's talking about, if you aren't following that he's talking about giving, he gives us some context about a chapter before. And so one chapter before, in 2 Corinthians 8, 1, here's the context. He says, and now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. And what I want you to focus on is that first part of the verse where he says, and now. What he's doing is he's translating it. He's translating it. He's translating it. Positioning a train of thought. He's saying chapter 6 or.
or really the first seven chapters, might I say, of 2 Corinthians. He said, I've been talking about this, and now I want to talk about something else, my Christian brothers and sisters. What I want to talk to you about is how God has been gracious to the Macedonian churches. And so our question should then be, all right, well, what's he so gracious about? Verse 2, in the midst of a very severe trial, so something bad was going on, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.
And so what Paul's saying is, here's what I want you Corinthians to know. Here's the new topic I'm bringing up. The church in Macedonia had some crazy things going on, and it brought about giving. And so he brings up the topic of their rich generosity, and he explains why their situation was so intense. He gives it to us in the next three verses. He says, here's what they did. I testify on my own account that they gave as much as they were able, and even being generous. So, in the midst of their severe trial, they gave liberally, entirely on their own.
They urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord's people. They wanted to do this. This is why it's so extraordinary. In verse 5, And they exceeded our expectations of giving. They gave themselves, first of all, to the Lord, and then, by the will of God, they gave themselves to us. They gave themselves to the church, to the Christians around them. And actually, last year at this time, my post-tax day sermon, this was the text I used. And I preached on it to say what our church's giving should be like.
It should match that of the Macedonians. It should be generous, verse 3. It should be free-willed, verse 3. It should be spontaneous. In verse 5, it should be with a desire to please God. That's what true Christian giving is. And that was last year's sermons. And so this year's sermon takes Paul's words in verse 7 immediately. after this, where he says to the Corinthians, so no longer talking to the Macedonians, Paul takes us to the Corinthians and says, but since you excel in everything, and he lists off what they excel in, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness, and.
in the love we have kindled in you, all Christian values, he says, since you're doing so good in those areas, things that I think, personally, our church does a pretty darn good job at, he says, also, see that you excel in the grace of giving. So he adds to their list of commendable values, he says, you are a church of faith, you are a church of speech, you are a church of knowledge, you are a loving church, but that means you should also be a giving church, and he commends them to excel in how they give.
Wouldn't you want to excel in this also, he's saying to them, and so to us, that's a comment that part of our worship to Christ should be to want to excel in how we give. So then as a reminder to do that, it takes us. Let's go back to the passage we started. back to the next chapter he's still talking about giving he's still continuing this conversation and it's from this verse six we're looking at right here i'm going to give us the principle if you have your outline the first little point we have is the right principle and so we're going.
to talk about the christian principle of giving rightly and this is what our whole conversation is going to be based off of for this week and probably for the bulk of next week as well, back to chapter nine verse six here's what paul says should guide christian giving, remember this whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows generously, will also reap generously now this right here is a universal principle what paul is doing is he is.
giving us a a fact he is just telling us a you know an axiom just a truth a truth that's true in investing a truth that's true in the hours you put in at work a truth that's true for working you, out for your grades in school, you know, it's just, it's true, whatever you put in is whatever you're going to get out, that's what Paul's saying, and he also uses the language of a farmer here, because he says, whoever sows and whoever reaps, you know, whoever plants, whoever harvests, and as an agrarian culture, as we would know, and that they would.
know, you know, it makes sense, you know, we got to sow to get crops, we got to plant to get crops, you know, farmers, if they plant not very many seeds by sowing sparingly, then they're just going to reap sparingly, that's part of the process, and so he's using kind of a basic principle of math, just to say, what you put in is what you get out, and on the flip side of that, it'd be equally true, if you're putting in a lot, if you're sowing a bunch, if you're planting a bunch, if you're putting in long hours, making sure the field is well seeded, he's saying, therefore, you can reap generously when the time comes, the.
principle at work, sow sparingly, reap sparingly, sow generously, reap generously, again, a very basic use. Thank you. universal principle, true in all sorts of situations, and that's the principle Paul is using to tell the Corinthians, this is how Christians give. There's no 10 percent tithe talk here. There's no give because, you know, this is what the pastor says, this is what the church says, this is what the envelope that they handed out to you at the beginning of church says that you fill out and say, this is how much of my income I'm giving. He's saying, here's how it.
works, it's up to you on how you give. And really, the logic of the argument Paul is using here is this, and this is pretty big stuff. This goes back to really our prayer of confession I started us with before. He's saying, number one, God is the creator and sustainer of all things in the universe, okay? Number two, therefore, every resource in the universe is his. And so, number three, everything that finds its origin with God would therefore.
be his. And so, it's just, you know, again, that's our prayer. confession. It's the same truth God gives us in Psalm 50. He tells the psalmist and speaks to the psalmist, I have no need of a bull from your stall or of the goats from your pens. For every animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I'm sure you've heard that verse 10 before. Verse 11, I know every bird on the mountains and the insects in the field are mine. If I were hungry, would I not tell you? Verse 12, for the world is mine and all that is in it.
And so he's telling us all this truth about this is God, this is God, this is God. And if all of it's true and all of it's his anyway, then the next point of his logical argument would be, all right, so then why would God need you to give him anything? And I think a lot of times that's what we think giving is. You know, like God really, really, really needs our money really, really bad and he won't make it unless we give him 10%. I think a lot of churches almost preach that for some reason to almost kind of guilt trip or twist people's arms into giving. But.
he's saying that is not the principle which drives Christian giving. I don't need your gifts. I don't function from your gifts. I function because I have everything that is already mine anyways. It's not like he depends on our giving, to which Paul would say, of course, that makes sense. So then giving isn't a give to meet God's need. Giving is, well, I'll go back here. This principle, it's a means of, and the word I'm going to use for this principle here,
is giving is a means of divine investment. It's not meeting God's needs. It's not making sure he's well-funded so the church can, you know, he can keep doing this and that. Giving is meant to be a divine investment. It is a divine investment opportunity. Again, it's what you put in is what you get out. And Jesus uses that similar terminology, believe it or not, in his familiar words of Matthew 6. This is Jesus talking about what it means to give. He says, do not store for yourselves treasures on earth.
If there's ever a point where God was going to say, hey, when you give, make sure you give 10%. When you give, make sure you're meeting my needs or else I'll be left out in the dust. If there's ever a point to say that, he'd say it right here. But instead, Christ uses the investment terminology. Again, I don't want to sound too blunt with that, but that's what he's doing. You can swap out the phrase store up here with the word invest and it would all make just the same amount of sense. Do not invest in earthly treasures that moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,
but invest in heavenly treasures where neither moth nor rust destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. It's Jesus identifying giving as heavenly investment. And he gives the same advice, as we remember, to the rich young ruler, which I might not have up here, but I just have for us. He says to the young man, if you want to be perfect, what does he tell him to do? He says, go sell your possessions, give to the poor, and then what?
What does he say will happen? Does he say he'll get a Porsche? Does he say he'll meet God's needs? Does he say everything will come along happily? No, he says, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And he's implying that in the giving of his funds and the investing of what God wants him to do with his money, he will therefore have reward or return in heaven because of it. The forfeiture of the man's earthly treasures, Jesus says, would in turn yield an abundance of heavenly treasure.
It's an investment. That's the word Jesus uses. And so when the Bible talks about Christian giving, it's always in the context, of making a wise financial. investment. He's saying this would be the smartest thing for you to do is to put your money into the heavenly realms. And again, it goes like this. Does it make more sense to invest in something that has a shorter return with a less amount of return? Or does it make more sense to.
invest in something that has a longer return and will in turn yield more fruitful ROI, to say the least? You know, ask any financial advisor, ask anybody in banking, ask anybody in accounting, and they'll all say the same thing. You always put your money where it has the best opportunity to return to you for a longer period of time with a larger sum of return. And so Jesus would say to us, invest your money with God. Put your money into opportunities that God wants you to. Put.
more money into opportunities that God wants you to. Put more money into opportunities that God, wants you to. Put more of your money into. opportunities that God wants you to. Invest all that you can into God opportunities because whoever sows sparingly will therefore reap sparingly, but whoever sows generously will receive a generous reward. The amount you invest with God is proportional to the amount you will receive back from him. And that's why Paul tells the Corinthians very beginning of verse 6, it's remember this. Put this in your mind. Tuck this away. Make this the most important thing to.
you when it comes to your giving because you will want to remember this. I think we're all kind of the same. We like getting good returns on our money. We like seeing our dollar go further at the store or at the pump or whatever. When I lived in Manhattan, we would intentionally spend more money, probably on groceries we didn't need, to get fuel saver points so that we could therefore save our money. And that's why Paul tells the Corinthians very beginning of verse 6, at the pump. But I can assure you the money, we were spending in the store was not making up for the money we saved at the pump, but it's.
because we like that feeling, and we like knowing that the money, the things we're doing with our money is making it go further, and that's the point. We like seeing our money go further. We like seeing the value of our homes go up. We like seeing our retirement accounts do well, and so with all of that, Jesus would come onto the scene and say, remember this. If you invest it with me, it will go further. It will return more, and it will do better than any earthly investment you could ever make, and that is the key principle of Christian giving. It is not drop your money in.
the basket, drop your money in the box, drop your money in this or that, so you feel good when you leave the church. It is obey God and invest with him because he wants to give it back with heavenly and eternal returns. It's not a command we're forced to do. It's not a rule of the law. It is a gracious operation. It is God saying, yeah, I could have just said, hey, give 10% and that's it. But he's saying, rather, I want you to give and trust to me, and then, therefore, I give it back to you.
And really, just to maybe expound on that a little bit, consider this free investment advice from your pastor. You can tell your other investment people this is what I said. One dollar, and I'm just throwing some numbers out there, so bear with me. One dollar invested in God's kingdom, invested in a means through which Christ said, storing up our treasure bags in heaven right here. Don't store up for yourself. One dollar invested in this means bearing returns for eternity will always outperform $10, $100, $100,000,
a million dollars invested in any earthly investment account because it is compounding for eternity. I took the Dave Ramsey class. did it in high school. I know, you know, compound interest, invest in this, get your money market account, 13%, this, that. All that junk aside, I know that if it has an infinite window of return, it will naturally bear more results. I literally opened a compound interest calculator while I was poking around all this stuff, and I tried to put in the, I thought the maximum amount of digits.
the box could hold when I typed it in was four digits. So I put 9,999 years into it, and it flagged me and said, the longest investment account we allow is less than, 100 years. So it said, if I wanted to run their calculator and compound what I'd get by putting this much money in for this many years, it said, you cannot go longer than 99 years. And I can assure you, God is not capping our investments with him at 99 years.
He's saying, what you store there, neither rot. moth nor rust nor thief or anything can mess with because it is stored in heaven with your heavenly father and so what that tells me yes don't let me say hey don't prepare for your future don't save don't invest in things i'll provide for you later in life and for your kids later in life what i'm saying is is christ is giving us investment advice and saying if you really want to make it go further invest in me and that's what he's telling us to do he says invest in.
heavenly treasures invest where your money bags do not wear out and that's so practical he's not giving us some spiritual like you know image where we can't quite grasp what he's saying he's just saying hey you have two places to put your money here on earth where someday when you're gone or either go to somebody else or that item will break or that item will get destroyed by moth or rust or thief he's saying that's your first option or you put it into heavenly enterprises and therefore that is locked in for your eternal, account. And that's just, that's the words Jesus is using to saying what it means to give.
as a Christian. And so hearing that, what should that make us do? We should be like the Macedonians. It says they urgently pleaded with Paul for opportunities to invest in God. They were bending over backwards for opportunities to put their Christian money where their Christian mouth was. They heard that they could get an eternal return on their investment. And so their interest skyrocketed and putting their money where it could go. They were so excited about it that.
they not only did it till they were, you know, till they were comfortable, but he actually says they did it, let's see, verse three, even beyond their ability. They gave beyond their means. They gave even more than their financial means. They gave even more than their financial means. They, gave even more than their financial advisor. would have probably recommended them to give because they wanted to invest in God. They wanted that return. And so that's what we should be like.
That is what the heart of a Christian is when it comes to giving. It is not checking the box, dropping the check, doing this and calling it good. It is generously giving towards the Lord, knowing it is invested with him, that we will get back eternally more. This life or next, the ROI is infinitely better. And so the Macedonians gave, Paul tells the Corinthians to give, and I'm telling you as somebody preaching the word of God and giving to you what Christ says,
that that is what we are called to do also. And this is where we would say, all right, that's great. That is a novel idea. Thank you, pastor. But I don't have that to give. I don't think I could give like that. I don't think I have the heart to give like that, the trust to give like that. In our confirmation class this morning, we talked about the heart of a Christian. We talked about spiritual gifts, and it talked about the gift of giving, as somebody who is willing to give generously and liberally to God's work. And you might say, I don't have that gift, Pastor. I clearly don't, because that's not how I function.
Well, Jesus knows that, and that's why he tells us in Luke 6.38, to give us a little bit more incentive, per se, he says this, kind of the same train of thought, give, and you will receive. Receive, your gift, whatever it is you give, will return to you in full, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over and then poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back. And what I take that to mean is, Christ isn't saying,
all right, give me all the money while you're here on earth, and then you'll only see the return when you get to heaven. What he's saying is, if you give, you'll receive back. You know, it's not, a divine slot machine, per se. I'm not saying, you put in is exactly what you're going to give back, but God is not in the business of hindering, us. God is not in the business of skimping us. God is not in the business of saying, hey, give me all your money, and then right when we turn around and need him most, he doesn't provide, but he's saying rather, I'm not just going to meet your needs. I want to give you gifts to the full, pressed down,
shaken together, running over, poured into your lap, and the only way I can explain what that means is by giving you this example. You know, I, of all people, I go to the store, and there's one cereal I want. It is Raisin Bran. I don't know if you guys would have put me as a Raisin Bran person, but that's what it is, but the issue I have with Raisin Bran is when I open the bag, it's 60% Raisin Bran cereal, and it's 40% Raisin Bran air, and you all know what that's like in your chips, your crackers, whatever it may be, and the illustration here is similar to that. Whenever I.
get my Raisin Bran, you know, I get the shaken together and the pressed down part, but I don't get the make. And so what he's saying is, what God's going to do with your gift is he's going to take it like the bag, he's going to shake it so it settles in, so all the air gets out, all the fluff gets out, and it'll settle down, and then he'll pour more back on top of it. That's going to be a full bag of raisin bran when he's done with it. And that's what he's saying with our gifts. He wants to make sure we're getting the fullest extent of it. When we give, he's not giving us the bag of chips filled to the brim with air. He is giving us the solid, shaken, settled, overflowing into your lap bag of returns.
And that's what he's saying here, and that's the illustration Jesus uses to say that's how a Christian's return on their investment is. God shakes the bag. God says, He settles the contents, he gets the air out, and he gives us even more on top of our gift. He doesn't cheat us, he doesn't short us, he wants to give us as much back as our giving allows. And that's why he closes verse 38 by saying, the amount you give determines the amount you get back. And I just want you to think about that as, again, the principle of our giving.
The amount you give is what God gives back. Jesus' own words, this is how we're called to give. I think what this does in my mind is it tells me the fact of the matter is that God wants to, God will bless us with such a vivid description as that gift is of verse 38. He wants to do that. He wants to pour out blessing on us. I'm not saying the health and wealth, God wants to give you a Lamborghini, a Porsche, a new house, that. I'm not saying that.
I'm just saying that what we give and how we demonstrate our heart in giving will then be returned back to us, just as Christ said it would be. It's a biblical principle. Sow sparingly, reap sparingly, sow generously, reap generously. The old. The Old Testament gives it to us in Proverbs 11, 24 through 25. It says, One gives freely and yet gains even more. Another withholds what they think is right, only to become poor.
A generous soul will prosper, and he who refreshes others will in turn be refreshed. Moses said it as well, Deuteronomy 15. Give generously to God and do not let your heart be grieved in doing so, because the Lord your God will bless you in all of your work and everything to which you put your hand. This is the one area or one of the few areas of Christian obedience where we control the blessing God pours out on us,
where we control our destinies when it comes to the blessing God desires to give us. The opportunity is there. The promise is there. The return is there. We just have to decide what type of giver we are going to be. Are we going to be a giver? Are we going to be like the rich young ruler? who said, I can't do it, I love my goods, I love my money, I love my house, I like my car, I like all these things, just how I have it, I'm out. Or will we be like the people in Malachi's time, in the Old Testament, to which God said, bring the full tithe into the storehouse,
that it may be full, test me in this, says God. See if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out blessing for you without measure. And the people who took God up on this promise received that full blessing. He says, God doesn't say this a whole lot. God doesn't want us going around testing him. But he says, test me in this. Give to me and see if I am good on my promise. He's saying, I've already made the promise, now you must play your part.
So go ahead, test me on this. And again, it's a blessing without measure. I think so much God wants to bless us. It's just we are so locked in. We... ... White-knuckle everything we have. Even if we think we have nothing, we white-knuckle it. And the principle still stands. Sow sparingly, reap sparingly, sow generously, reap generously. So to close, just my kind of exhortation to us as a church. I mean, really, we just got through the principle, so next week we'll probably be able to talk about the attitude and the reason.
But to maybe just close talking about the principle. What are we called to do then? How do we put this principle to work? How do we put all this to practice? Jesus said it. Give. Give, and it will be given to you. Give more, and more will be given to you. Give beyond your ability like the Macedonians and see how God graced them. So much so that the Apostle Paul wrote about their generosity to the Corinthians. The best investment opportunity that every single one of us in the room will ever have.
sits always before us to invest it with God. It's not giving to me. It's not inheriting. giving to the church. It is giving funds to God that he already owns. They're already his and saying, here, Lord, this is what I want to sow. So show me the returns that it will get. Here are the funds that I would rather invest in eternity than invest in myself. Here are the resources I want to test you with and seeing how you open the windows of heaven. And so my final.
command, my final prayer for us, even just knowing this principle, is for us to be like the Macedonian church who gave boldly, who gave trustingly, who gave generously, who gave beyond their ability, knowing that in doing so, it showed just how devoted they were to God, that they took him at his promise. We don't get a lot of opportunities to really take God at his promise, but giving is one of them. And so with that in mind, let me pray for us, and then we'll move into our time of communion.
We really just got to introduce this. giving clearly lord i didn't speak to every single facet of it of how you give back of of how you reward us but the truth and the matter is there lord that what we sow we will reap what we plant we will harvest and so the question for all of us here today is lord what are we planting how are we planting how much are we planting not not because we need to give a certain amount lord you aren't commanding us to give certain numbers you want us to give freely but the fact of the matter is if our heart is with you we will want to give generously from.
whatever we have you know we can have no money and yet give generously or we can have all the money in the world and fail to give generously it's not the amount it's the heart behind it so lord let it be our hearts that desire to invest with you let it be our hearts that desire to just put our christian money where our christian mouth is because if we're willing to do that we show that we truly are god's people that we truly truly are god's people that we truly are god's people that we truly are god's people that we trust, promises he gives, not just in salvation, but in the eternal reward promised to us when we give.
And so out of just thankfulness and graciousness of that eternal opportunity, now we'll point ourselves to communion to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior, which made this opportunity possible. And so, Lord, we thank you for this time, and we just pray all of these things in your name. Amen.
