GIVING: OBLIGATION OR OPPORTUNITY?
Isaac Butterworth
October 17, 2010
2 Corinthians 8:1-9 (NIV)
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.
8 I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. 9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.
I. The Problem with Giving
One Saturday I was working in the yard, and I came walking around the corner of my house. And there was a boy there, on a bicycle. He was wearing Scout uniform, and I’m guessing he must have been about ten or eleven years old. It didn’t take me long to figure out what he was doing. He was selling popcorn. Really, what he was doing was asking for a donation, and, in return, he would give me something that I didn’t necessarily want or need. He was involved in fund-raising. He had a multicolored brochure, a clear plastic bag with money in it -- sales he had already closed, I’m sure -- and a pen handy for writing up my order.
Now, I have to confess something to you. I once turned away a Scout who was selling popcorn door to door. And I have felt bad about it ever since, not because I wanted the popcorn but because I said ‘No’ to a child raising money for a good cause. So, on this occasion, I wasn’t about to repeat my mistake. I bought a box of caramel corn from this Scout. I didn’t even know him. I had to scrounge up the money to pay him. But, for the sake of the young man I once turned away, I made an order with this boy.
But here’s something else I need to confess. I didn’t want to do it. I did it out of guilt and obligation.
Now, there’s something patently unsatisfying about giving because you feel like you have to. Isn’t there? Whether the pressure comes from outside of you, in the form, say, of a duty imposed on you, or whether the pressure comes from within, in the form of guilt -- either way, there is no joy in giving.
We come up on Stewardship Season every year. We talk about the need for everyone to pledge their financial support for the church in the coming year. In fact, already this year we’ve received an estimate-of-giving card -- it came as an enclosure in our most recent newsletter -- and we’re asked to bring it with us next Sunday and place it on the Lord’s Table as a gesture of our commitment to the work of Christ through this church.
But what if we’re feeling pressured? What if we feel like we have to do this because, if we don’t, we’ll feel guilty for not doing it, and, even if we do, it won’t be because we want to, but because we feel like it’s expected? Is that healthy? Is it even spiritual?
II. The Possibility of Giving
Well, the Bible talks about this. In 2 Corinthians, chapter 8, for example, the apostle Paul is addressing a group of people just like us. And he’s asking them to make a financial contribution to a project that is very important to him. He is taking up a collection for the church in Jerusalem, a group of believers who, because of their witness to Jesus Christ, have been hard pressed by persecution and economic reversal. And he wants the churches on the edges of the Empire to contribute to this effort.
In fact, he starts off this chapter in 2 Corinthians by mentioning the ‘the grace that God has given’ to the churches in Macedonia. They’re poor, too. They are facing persecution and hardship as well. But look at what Paul says in verse 2: ‘Out of the most severe trial’ -- he’s talking about these churches in Macedonia -- ‘out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.’ In verse 3, he says they gave all they could, and then some!
Of course, what Paul is doing is, he is trying to motivate the Christians in Corinth to be like their sisters and brothers in Macedonia -- to be generous with their resources. But the problem is, the Christians in Corinth don’t really want to. They don’t want to give up their hard-earned money to help people they don’t even know.
For the Macedonian Christians, it was a matter of grace. Remember how Paul starts off this chapter? ‘We want you to know,’ he says, ‘about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches.’ It seems that God has worked in a certain way on the hearts of the Macedonians, and, as a result, they not only want to give, but they want to give beyond their natural ability. It’s like they trust God to provide for them as they take the risk of providing for others. In verse 7, Paul calls it the ‘grace of giving.’
This ‘grace’ is exactly what the Corinthians don’t seem to have. Now, what you have to know about them is, they are very proud of themselves. If you thumb through the two letters in the New Testament that were written to the Corinthians, you will see that they thought of themselves as very spiritual. They boasted about how great their faith was, and how skilled they were in understanding it and in helping others to understand. Paul is speaking a little tongue-in-cheek when he says to them, again in verse 7, ‘You excel in everything -- in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness,’ and so forth.
But what they weren’t excelling at was generosity. They weren’t inclined to give their money, even to a worthy cause.
Of course, when the Bible talks about the ‘grace of giving,’ as it does here, it’s clear that the Christian ideal is to give from the heart. After all, in the very next chapter of 2 Corinthians, chapter 9, Paul says that we are not to give ‘reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver’ (2 Cor. 9:7).
But what if we’re more like the Corinthians than we are like the Macedonians? What if we’re not cheerful about giving? What if we feel ‘obligated?’ What if our giving is ‘under compulsion,’ as Paul puts it? Does that mean that we shouldn’t give? Does that mean that we should wait until, like the Macedonians, we give because we want to and not because we feel like I have to?
Go back to verse 7, if you will, and notice with me the sequence there. ‘Just as you excel in everything,’ Paul says -- and he mentions faith and knowledge and some other things -- ‘just as you excel in everything [else] ...see that you also excel in this grace of giving.’ Now, notice the sequence. We are urged first to excel in giving, then we are told that the ‘grace of giving’ will follow.
In other words, We grow into the grace of giving -- how? By giving! Giving is a means of grace, just like other spiritual disciplines -- just like worship, just like the Sacraments, just like reading the Bible, just like prayer. It is a means of grace. And what a means of grace does is, it positions us to experience grace. The disciplines themselves are not the grace. I have endured many a season of dry prayer that did not lift me into the presence of God; I have read countless pages of the Bible without hearing the voice of God. But time spent in prayer and in reading the Scriptures puts me in the place where I can experience God. They are the means.
So is giving. Giving is an act of obedience first. We give not because we feel like it -- at least, not in the beginning. We give because God tells us to. And obedience is always a risk. There’s always the chance that we might lose something. But if we will take that risk by placing our trust in God -- by leaving the outcomes to God -- what happens is: we discover that God is faithful. And when we discover that, we grow in grace. Obedience begins more and more to come from within. We pray because we want to. We pore over the Scriptures because doing so satisfies our heart’s desire. We give because we experience joy in giving. In other words, we grow into the grace of giving...by giving!
III. The Path of Giving
Let me suggest something, if I may. No matter what you may feel, give. If it feels like you’re doing it out of obligation, do it anyway. If it feels like you’re doing it simply out of guilt, do it anyway. Even if you don’t want to give, do it as an act of obedience and trust in God. And, in time, there will be a breakthrough. And, if there’s not, you can always stop giving. Right? But offer God the chance to grow you into the grace of giving...by giving!
Try this, if you will. First of all, start where you are. If right now you’re not giving anything to the church, determine that you will give something -- even if it’s just a few dollars a week. Maybe you can start off at twenty-five, or, if not, maybe twenty, or, if not twenty, maybe ten. But start. Make a start.
And develop a plan. Forge some goals so that, over the next few years, you can grow from where you are to where you want to be.
Another thing. And this is for everybody, seasoned givers as well as new givers. Think of giving as a way of walking the PATH of Discipleship:
Pursue your relationship with God by praying about becoming a generous person.
Answer the call to your true vocation by seeing giving as a way of serving.
Be Transformed in your thinking by discerning the ways the dominant culture urges you toward self-indulgence and self-justifying greed.
And nurture a Heart for others by giving as a means of showing the compassion of Christ.
IV. The Point of Giving
Sometimes I think of the world as populated broadly by two kinds of people: some are givers, and some are takers. Some are ‘in it’ only for what they can get out of it. Some are ‘in it’ for what they can give of themselves. The question is: Which type is summoning you? In 2 Corinthians 8:9, Paul says, ‘...You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.’ Paul is talking here about the humiliation Christ suffered by descending to earth to become like us. He did it so that we might ascend to heaven and be like him. He took on our poverty so that we might take on his wealth. He gave up his riches, so that we might become rich.
I hope you will always remember our true vocation. Remember what it is? 1 John 4:17 says, ‘...In this world we are like him.’ Our true vocation is to bear the image of Christ to the world. We are to be like Jesus. And Jesus was a giver.
