A SWEET SOUND TO A PROSPERITY GOSPEL PREACHER: “You will be made rich.”
- 2 Corinthians 9:11a – “You will be made rich.”
- As most of you know, there is a heretical teaching that God’s purpose in your life is to shower you with material and financial blessings. Under this teaching, signs of monetary success are proof of closeness to God. They are signs that you are one of God’s anointed and that He is giving you His very best.
- Examples of this. The story of Rod Parsley twisting the passage in James. The recent Twitter feed on famous pastors wearing ridiculously expensive tennis shoes. The incident with the Joel Osteen protégé buying the Lamborghini and then saying don’t judge who I am by what I do.
- I want to note up front here that this teaching is heresy. It is absolutely not consistent with New Testament teaching on a whole host of issues. I’m not going to take the time this morning to chase rabbit trails about all the ways this teaching is absolute theological and exegetical garbage.
- Let me simply summarize my thoughts on this as we start: if you ever hear a pastor preaching this kind of stuff, you should turn him off, never listen to him again, and advise those around you do avoid him.
- Back to these five words for a minute before moving on. We are going to find out in the rest of this sermon what Paul is actually pointing us toward, but let me talk about the NIV translation for a moment.
- I much prefer the NASB rendering here: “you will be enriched.”
- The NIV translation, while technically acceptable, points American minds in a questionable direction. We tend to immediately go to material prosperity and the phrase “made rich” points us there.
AN ALWAYS IMPORTANT POINT: Context is key.
- Matthew 6:33; Luke 6:38.
- You have heard me say this many times before and it’s worth reiterating here. You always need to look at the context of the passage.
- If you pull out those five words out and preach on just them, you can obviously pursue a prosperity gospel message. “Hey, the Bible says God promises to make you rich! You can enjoy God’s blessings and live well in His favor!” You can preach that, but it requires you to take Paul’s words out of context.
- So I want to look at three important ideas this passage shares that help put those five words in their proper context.
- So could this passage include material blessing from God? Yes, it can. In fact, I think – understood in the proper context that we’re going to unpack momentarily – that God is generous with those give into His Kingdom.
- I think of the wonderful teaching of Christ in Luke 6:38, where Jesus tells us to “give and it will be given to you.” He then goes on to say that God is generous in those blessings.
- I want to say that Karen and I have experienced this in our lives. We have tried through the years to be faithful to God in our giving. While we are not rich, we have not only experienced God consistently taking care of our needs, we have also seen God perform miracles and open amazing providential doors to provide for our financial needs.
- I focus on Matthew 6:33 and Jesus’ promise to care for our financial needs when we put the Kingdom first.
- So there absolutely are promises God has made to us that relate to our finances. But prosperity gospel preachers have twisted them into something selfish and shallow. Let’s look at the context of this 2 Corinthians 9 passage and see what Paul is actually getting at.
FINDING THE LARGER PICTURE:
1. The “harvest” Paul is hoping for is a harvest of righteousness.
- 2 Corinthians 9:10c – “. . . and you will enlarge your harvest of righteousness.”
- Matthew 6:21.
- Verse 10 sets the stage for our passage. Paul begins by talking about the generosity that God shows to the entire world on an ongoing basis. He mentions the seed and the bread. Let’s just focus on the seed for a moment.
- We take it for granted, but it’s an amazing gift that the world works the way it does. You take a little seed and put it in the ground. Water it and tend it. And a few weeks later, it’s grown corn or something else that you can eat. And then there are more seeds to plant and start the whole process over. Isn’t that an amazing thing, though? Stick a seed in the ground, give it some water, and food grows!
- God was the one who created that impressive system.
- Paul says, “Now, if the God you serve created that kind of overwhelming, ongoing blessing in the natural world, He’s going to bless His children spiritually even more.”
- Paul continues in v. 10 on this point and it’s important that we see the harvest that God is going for. Look at the end of v. 10 – “the harvest of your righteousness.”
- The harvest that God is going for here (and remember this is a passage about finances) is not the harvest of huge houses or expensive sport cars or $4,000 tennis shoes. He is aiming for a harvest of righteousness.
- Let’s define “righteousness” for a minute to make sure we’re on the same page. Paul here is thinking about us becoming more like God, being more Christlike, having less sin, and being more “right” in our behavior and thoughts.
- So a big part of the goal in what God wants to produce with our money is us becoming more like Christ. Stop and think about that for a moment because it’s not something most of us think about. Many of us completely separate the spiritual and the financial. Others know that we’re supposed to give to church, but don’t have any thought that their own spirituality is at all impacted by that.
- Yet Paul says here that our righteousness is the harvest that God is going for.
- How would that happen?
- This is sermon unto itself, but let me just throw one key verse out.
- In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:21), Jesus says that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I’ve said it before this way: money is heavy, spiritually speaking. Where you put your money, your heart is drawn by its weight in that direction. You spend on worldly things, your heart is drawn in a worldly way. You spend on spiritual things, your heart is drawn in a spiritual way.
- Let me state again before I transition to the next point that the point of the monetary blessings from God is not to live an exorbitant life.
2. The goal of the harvest is increased generosity.
- 2 Corinthians 9:11b – “so that you can be generous on every occasion.”
- Verse 11 starts with the phrase we started the sermon with “You will be made rich.” Note the key transition phrase in v. 11 – “so that.” This is crucial because it means that we are being told why God would bring these multilayered blessings.
- What is that goal?
- Paul continues, “so that you can be generous on every occasion.” Whoa – that’s not what the prosperity gospel preachers told us. What about the big houses and expensive cars?
- None of that is in mind here. Rather, what Paul has in mind is something like this:
a. God blesses us financially.
b. We use our money in ways that benefit the Kingdom.
c. As we spend on Kingdom things, our hearts are increasingly passionate about Kingdom things.
d. Because of our Kingdom heart, God chooses to bless us more financially because He knows that will lead to even greater Kingdom giving.
- God doesn’t bless His people so they can buy ridiculous luxuries. God blesses His people so that they can give even more to His Kingdom.
- Am I saying that God brings more money into some Christians’ lives just because He knows they will give it away? Yes, exactly.
- Again, I want to emphasize the point of how different this is that what prosperity gospel preachers say. This has nothing to do with living the high life as evidence that God has blessed you. This has to do with giving more into the Kingdom because that’s where your heart is.
3. The result of the generosity is thanksgiving toward God.
- 2 Corinthians 9:11c – “through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.”
- So the harvest of righteousness leads to ongoing, overflowing generosity. What’s the result of that generosity?
- We are told at the end of v. 11.
- Paul writes, “Through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.”
- What does “through us” mean? I think it simply means that Paul and his preaching associates were one of the places where they were investing a good amount of their money. So he’s speaking of the ministry that they are able to do in part because of the financial generosity of the Corinthians.
- How will their giving result in “thanksgiving to God”? They have given, Paul and his companions will preach, and people will be saved and matured. Those impacted people will praise God and give thanksgiving to Him because of these truths that have been brought into their lives.
- So the Corinthians’ giving enables Paul’s preaching ministry which changes lives. Those changed lives will thank God for that change and so the Corinthians’ giving results in thanksgiving to God.
- Again, let me make a note of how unlike the prosperity gospel this is. The focus is on getting the Word out there and seeing changed lives – not only the givers’ lives (v. 10c), but also the hearers’ lives (v. 11c).
- There’s nothing in here about expensive homes and fast sports cars.
- Before I conclude this sermon, let’s go back to the opening statement from the passage: “You will be made rich.”
- We talked at the outset about how that sounds (when taken out of context) like prosperity gospel. Having gone through all this, though, we see how distant from the prosperity gospel this is. It’s not even in the same ballpark.
- Our goal with God’s “enriching” is not becoming a millionaire so we can live the American Dream. Rather, as we’ve unpacked from this passage, God’s blessings on us are more than financial. And when they are financial, it’s not so that I can live an exorbitant lifestyle, but so that we can be an even bigger part of seeing the Kingdom grow.
- In sum, this is not even remotely a verse that, properly understood, prosperity gospel preachers could honestly claim.
A FINAL THOUGHT: Prosperity gospel preachers reflect American culture – imagine the witness that this countercultural generosity could have.
- I want to close with a thought of what this would look like to those around us if we lived it out.
- America is obsessed with money, prosperity, and position. What would it look like to have a large group of people who had money but weren’t consumed by it? Instead, they freely and joyfully gave it toward non-material things. That would get the attention of those around us!
- This matters because even though our culture is obsessed with money, they have also experienced its emptiness. They know that, ultimately, more stuff doesn’t fill your heart. It doesn’t fill your soul. If they saw a group of people with money but using it in ways that both made a difference in the world and brought joy to their hearts, that would be deeply attractive to them.
