Today we are into the subject of GIVING TO GOD. [Read 2 Cor 9:6-15]
Giving don’t come naturally to most of us. We prefer to be at the receiving end.
• Yet the Lord did say that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Not that receiving is not a blessing, but giving is MORE of a blessing, relatively speaking.
• There must be something about GIVING that we need to know.
The first thing I need to set straight is this - God does not need your money.
• Do not see it from the point of need – the church needs money, the work of God needs financing… That’s a wrong perspective.
• When I was young I had this wrong perspective. The church then was financially tight and canvassing for funds. I want to give but I am not rich. So I pray to God to make me rich, so that I can give to the church. But such a thought only caused me to think of myself as valuable, indispensable and that God needs my money.
• It was in a retreat that God corrected me, quite directly: “I do not need you to earn for me. If you do not give, I can still get it from somewhere else.”
The truth is, God owns everything. And that includes your life.
• I like the way C. S. Lewis puts it in MERE CHRISTIANITY: “When you argue against Him, you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the branch you are sitting on.”
• When you argues with Him, even the breath you take to argue with Him comes from Him.
God is self-sufficient. He does not need anything.
• The psalmist sets it straight for the people in Psalm 50:7-12
7 "Hear, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify against you: I am God, your God. 8 I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings, which are ever before me. 9 I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, 10 for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. 11 I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine. 12 If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
• When the issue about paying taxes arose and Jesus wanted to pay the temple tax, He could even produce a coin from a fish’s mouth (cf. Matt 17:27).
There must be something more about GIVING that we need to understand.
• God wants us to give. It is the teaching we find in both the OT and the NT. We are called to give generously and cheerfully.
• If GIVING is not about God wanting FROM us, because He has a need, then it must be about God wanting something FOR us in the act of GIVING.
• God wants to bless us in the act of giving! Giving is not meant to be for His good, but for our good.
There is something about the act of giving that is more important than the gift itself.
IT KEEPS OUR FOCUS ON GOD, OUR TRUE PROVIDER
2 Cor 9:8 “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.”
Imagine this, I give you my wallet and say, “Take it and bless someone with it…” The feeling is awesome, right? You can go for lunch afterwards and treat everyone to a great meal. You can pay for your own and sponsor someone to the retreat in June.
You have at your disposal that which does not belong to you and yet something you can use to bless others! That changes the way you handle money.
When we give, we are using what God has given us. That’s the right perspective.
• God will not demand from us what we do not have. But He wants us to use what we have, that which He has given us.
• Giving breaks the grip of greed in our heart. It disarms the power money has over us. It forces us to acknowledge God as the true PROVIDER of what we have.
Man has the tendency, over time and after a lot of hard work, to think that he has earned it all. This is natural but it’s not the full picture.
• The strength that we have in earning our pay cheque, the good mind and the steady hands, the healthy body and the ability to work, all comes through God’s grace.
• The act of giving reminds us that we are living under God’s grace, just like the birds of the air (Jesus said in Matt 6:25-34). The birds do not worry and they don’t store up but the Lord keeps them.
• When I give, I am expressing my confidence in a God who cares for me, just as He cares for the sparrow (cf. Matt 6:25-34).
• Notice Paul’s emphasis with the words ALL and ends with EVERY. God owns everything and provides it all. All that we think we own actually belongs to Him.
• When we give, we are not giving what belongs to us or what we own. We are giving what God has placed in our hands.
That makes us stewards of what God has entrusted to us, while we are on earth.
• We brought nothing here. We bring nothing with us. The best way to handle this “temporary loan” that we have is to INVEST it.
• As stewards, we are responsible for what we have. One day we will give an account of how we handle it when we stand before God.
Paul went one step further, telling us that God blesses us with more when we give.
• 2 Cor 9:10-11 “Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.”
• God blesses the givers. In that sense, I cannot afford NOT to give.
Verse 11 leads me to my 2nd point – 1st is giving keeps our focus on our true Provider
IT MAKES US CHANNELS OF GOD’S BLESSINGS
2 Cor 9:11 “You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.”
We become channels of God’s blessings when we give.
• The picture is very clear. God is providing the needs of people THROUGH us. He is supplying what they need THROUGH people who have received from Him.
• He wants to give you more so that you can do more. Our generosity will not result in a loss but a gain.
• Giving is an investment. You are not losing what you give away. God uses it to accomplish His will.
2 Cor 9:12-13 “12This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 13Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.”
People recognises it as a blessing from God, because God’s hand is in it.
• The boy who gave up his lunch of 5 loaves and 2 fishes did not expect his lunch can feed over 5000 people. You just need to place it in His hands.
• That explain why Paul uses the metaphors of sowing and reaping. You sow a few seeds, you can expect a harvest. The harvest is God’s work.
• That’s why Paul says in 9:6, “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”
This is our calling. We are blessed to be a blessing.
• God told Abraham in Genesis 12:2, “I will bless you... and you will be a blessing”.
God’s blessings will flow THROUGH us when we start GIVING.
• Don’t focus on getting. Focus on giving and you will be getting.
• Prov 11:24-25 “One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. 25A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.”
Think about this: We are all blessed because someone gave. We are what we are today because someone sacrificed.
• Let us be givers. If you choose to hold it in your hand, that’s all you have.
• If you let it go and let God bless someone with it, you will be amazed at what God can do with it.
• And you will find yourself blessed because you did it.
