Dead Sea Giving
2 Corinthians 8:7-9
April 7, 2013
The Dead Sea is called the Dead Sea for a reason: it's dead. This is because of its salt content. It is the saltiest body of water on the planet, nine times saltier than the ocean. It is so salty that no fish can live in it. It is so salty that sailboats don't sail on it — and this is a big body of water, 10 miles by 50 miles. You'll never see a wave runner skimming along the surface of the water. You will never see people building vacation homes on its banks. It's desolate.
The only people who like the saltiness of the Dead Sea are tourists to Israel. It's impossible to sink in water that is that salty. As you can see from these pictures, you can do a crossword puzzle or read a book in the Dead Sea and you don’t need a raft. Tour buses drive there, people put on swimsuits, and they go bobbing. Just don’t swallow the water!
What’s interesting about the Dead Sea is that there is fresh water continuously flowing into the Dead Sea. The Jordan River and several other streams feed into the Dead Sea. But the Dead Sea has no outlet. And because it has no outlet, the fresh water comes in and sits there idly, and the hot desert sun evaporates it all.
For the next few weeks, my hope is that we can help us to stay away from becoming a Dead Sea person. What's a Dead Sea person? This is a person who receives fresh blessings, fresh resources, fresh provisions from God on a regular basis, but has no outlet. Dead Sea people never channel any of those resources to other people in their lives. My hope is to challenge you to become a generous or more generous person. To become more like a river than a dead sea. Rivers take the water from upstream and channel it downstream. I'm going to challenge you to take the blessings you receive from God, and channel them downstream into the lives of other people.
We're going to take a look at a section of scripture from 2 Corinthians 8. The source of generosity is God. Our role model for generosity is Jesus Christ. Let’s see what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 8:7-9 ~
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'm 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.
Why does Paul say "For your sakes Jesus became poor?” Paul wants us to understand what Jesus did for us, and why we should be generous. In Philippians 2:5-8, Paul explains ~
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!
That's where it all began. Jesus was in heaven enjoying community with the Father and Spirit, and He chose to give that away so He could come and live here. Jesus not only left the perfect love, power and joy of heaven, but he also humbled Himself and became a servant. He also took on our nature and became a man, and lived a 33-year life as a Palestinian peasant, first as a humble carpenter and then as an itinerant Jewish rabbi. He healed people, taught God's word, and sought to transform the world.
Finally, He also humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross. Ultimately, Jesus laid down His life for you and I. He paid for our sins, so we wouldn’t have to.
Looking back at 2 Corinthians 8:9, notice Paul said, 9 so that you through His poverty might become rich. He did all this so that you could become rich. “Rich in what way?” Most importantly, spiritually rich. Rich in terms of a relationship with God. If Jesus ultimately hadn't given up his wealth by laying down his life at the Cross to pay for your sins, God would not have been able to offer you the gift of forgiveness. If Jesus hadn't laid down his riches on the Cross, God wouldn't be able to offer to you the opportunity to receive the gift of his salvation today — membership in His family with brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit living in you, an eternal home in heaven. These spiritual riches are yours through Jesus, who, in a sense, purchased them by discarding His heavenly status.
But God doesn't just give you spiritual riches. In Romans 8:32, Paul wrote ~ "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not, with him also, graciously give us all things?" I have no idea what Paul means when he says "all things." I just know that this God who wants to bless my life by giving me Jesus has a whole lot more in store for me as well. Remember in John 10:10, Jesus tells us He wants to give us life and give it to us abundantly!
So, how do we respond to God’s generosity, the generosity of Christ, who gave it all away for you and me? Are we living life with an overwhelming sense of gratitude? The more consistently we express our gratitude to God, the more likely we are to follow in Jesus' footsteps, treating Him as our generous role model. Unfortunately, the opposite of that is also true, a lack of gratitude will result in a corresponding lack of generosity.
When we lived in Michigan we would ride our bikes over to the Baskin Robbins for some ice cream. Invariably, Debbie and I would ask the boys for a taste, and there were times they would look at us, like we were asking for all their toys.
Some of you know how your kids react. They pull back and say, "You already ate your ice cream." At this point moms and dads say, "You ungrateful child. Who gave you that ice cream? I could buy 100, I don't need yours. I just want you to show some gratitude by giving me a bite."
There is a huge connection between expressing gratitude and generosity. If we want to become more generous people, we have to recognize our blessings come from God, who is tremendously generous with us. The more we believe that and remind ourselves of that, the more consistently we will express our gratitude to God, and the more generous we'll be with others.
We have to work at being gracious. It just doesn’t come naturally. Just look at innocent children playing. “It’s mine! It’s mine!” That’s the mantra for kids and often times for adults, as well.
But, you see, our role model for generosity is Jesus; and our motivation is love. In verse 8, Paul says, I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. Paul’s challenging the Corinthians to be more generous, but he doesn't do it by demanding things of them. He tells them, “I’m not commanding you.” Paul knows you can't force people to be givers. Generosity has to come from within. People have to be motivated to give. So, Paul says, I’m going to test the sincerity of your love. Love is the motivation for generosity.
When he was writing this, Paul was collecting money for the Christians in Jerusalem who were very poor. So, as Paul traveled from city to city, from church to church, he would collect an offering for the believers in Jerusalem. He was about to come to Corinth and take an offering, so he wrote to them in advance. Why should they generously give to this fund? Paul supplied them with an answer ahead of time: Do it for one reason . . . love.
But love for whom? Verse 8 doesn't say. Maybe he's talking about love for Christ. If you really love Jesus, then you'll give to other people. Maybe he's talking about love for himself. I'm the guy who pointed you to Christ, so if you really love me, you'll participate in my offering. But I think Paul has the poor Jerusalem Christ - followers in mind. If you really love these brothers and sisters — even though you've never met them, then you'll give.
Many of us assume we would give more if we had a bigger income. But in truth, we would give more if we had a bigger love, because income never drives giving. Love does.
When we don’t give, we assume others are giving, so I don’t have to. Our excuse is that people give generously because they have a lot of money to give away. If I had more money, a bigger income, then I'd do the same thing. But that sort of reasoning is wrong. There are stingy people and generous people at every pay grade. The difference is experiencing the love of Christ.
Now, let me stop for a second, because there are some of you who are getting a little squirmy in your seats. You’re getting a little mad, maybe you’re wondering who am I to tell you about accepting the love of Christ, especially right after communion. I’m not saying you don’t have love, that you haven’t experienced the love of Jesus, or you don’t love the people here or in distant countries. What I’m getting at is ~
HOW MUCH OF CHRIST’S LOVE AND GENEROSITY HAVE YOU ACCEPTED? Sometimes that’s the bigger question. I don’t doubt anyone’s faith in Jesus. I wouldn’t do that, but I wonder how much of Jesus have we accepted in our lives – because this should lead us to life change. We all struggle with that in life. I’m not pointing fingers at anyone. It’s a struggle for all of us.
Basically, Paul’s saying to the Corinthians, who are pretty affluent – Are you affluent Corinthians going to let the dirt poor Macedonians out-give you? That question comes from verse 1-2 of chapter 8. If you let that happen, it won't be because they have bigger incomes. It will be because they have bigger hearts.
It’s great to watch people who have worked hard to excel, whatever their field. It may be a surgeon doing a delicate operation. It may be an athlete or a musician; an actor, maybe a student, or a maintenance worker, a teacher; you see it doesn’t matter what they do, it’s a matter of the heart. How much of our heart do we put into the things of life?
Paul wanted the Corinthians to excel at something more. In verse 7, Paul said, Just as you excel in everything — in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness, in your love for us — see that you also excel in this grace of giving. He’s saying: You Corinthians are good at a lot of stuff. Unfortunately, giving isn't one of them, so I want to challenge you to put as much effort into excelling at generosity as you put into excelling at other stuff.
If Paul spoke to you today on this topic, what would he say? “You're really good at sports, but you're not that great at giving." Would he say that? Would he say, "You're really good at business? You're a great manager, but you're not really great at giving.” Would he say, “You're a really good teacher? or You're really good at computers. You're really good at photography. You're really good at throwing a party. You're really good at video games, watching sports, or whatever it is, but . . .
But you're not that great at giving.” I’m sure you put in a lot of time and effort to excel at something. But how much time and effort to you put into excelling at generosity?
I’d like to stop here and give you 4 ways to become more generous. But something is stopping me from doing that. Some of you are saying . . . WHEW! Glad to hear that, but we’ll be talking about generosity for the next few weeks, and I want you to come back. I believe God wants you to come back, because we all need to hear and learn more about being generous. We really don’t talk about it enough in the church. We don’t like it because it gets personal.
So, let me wind down with this ~
How is God calling you, not your neighbor, but how is God calling you to give to His church, to build the body of believers and to build those who are not yet here?! I know this is very personal and we don’t always like it, but we need to take that extra step and grow in who Christ is calling us to become.
