Philippians 4:10 I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. 11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength. 14 Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles. 15 Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only; 16 for even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid again and again when I was in need. 17 Not that I am looking for a gift, but I am looking for what may be credited to your account. 18 I have received full payment and even more; I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.
Introduction
Ancient Joy vs Modern Grudging
Have you ever experienced anything like this:
2 Corinthians 8:2 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.
Can you relate to that? You’re in abject poverty – you can’t even begin to pay your bills, you’re not even sure where your next meal will come from, you might lose your house, and this joy wells up inside you that drives you to give way beyond what you can afford? Way beyond just a tithe? In the book of Acts, baby Christians wanted to give money to the church so badly, but they didn’t have any money, so they were joyfully selling property and bringing the money to the Apostles. That’s how it was back in the time of Solomon, when he was going to build the Temple. First David gave huge amounts of his own wealth, and that inspired everyone else.
1 Chronicles 29:6 Then the leaders of families, the officers …, the commanders … and the officials … gave willingly.
Then it goes on to describe the massive amounts that were given. And when it’s all counted up David says:
13 Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.14 "But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this?
They were overjoyed that God enabled them to give so much to such a monumentally important work, even though none of them were worthy of that honor. So when we look at those examples of people being so happy and joyful about giving such large sums of money – even out of extreme poverty in the case of the Philippians, and then you compare that to the giving in the church in the United States, where we live in one of the wealthiest, most comfortable cultures to ever exist, and we don’t even tithe. We don’t even give the baseline minimum floor that God required of the poorest ancient Jew – 10%. In the average evangelical church, we give an average of between 1 and 2% of our income. Half of the people in evangelical churches in the United States give nothing – not even 1%. And if we subtract from that the money that was grudgingly given or reluctantly given or given without joy, then the numbers are even smaller.
God says, “I have richly prospered you. So now, worship me and express your love for me with whatever amount is in your heart to give!” and we say, “Oh, ok – here’s 2%.” You can imagine the angels in shock at that response. Once in a while a pastor comes along and pries a few dollars out of our clenched fists by keeping a bunch of guilt and shame on us, but what good is that? God doesn’t want any money that is grudgingly or reluctantly given. If I end up making you feel guilty tonight so that you start tithing – or if we put this recording on You Tube and it went viral so that every single Christian in the United States heard it and felt so guilty that they started giving a full tithe every week for the rest of their lives – if that’s all that happened, I would have fallen well short of my goal tonight. What does 2 Corinthians 8:2 say? Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing guilt welled up in rich generosity. No, that’s not what it says.
2 Corinthians 8:2 Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy … welled up in rich generosity.
The only outcome I’ll be satisfied with tonight is if we make some progress toward that. How did those people have so much joy that made them love to give? And how can we get that joy? Paul wants to help us with that, and so he’s going to show us in this passage what is so beautiful and good and delightful and profitable about giving generously. He finds the best joyful givers imaginable, and then shows us what’s so amazing about their giving from 4 different angles. And in this whole section he never gives a single command. He doesn’t want to command us to give, he wants to inspire us to give. He wants to ignite a joy in us that will move us to want to give like the Philippians. So as you listen tonight, pray, and ask God to open up your heart wide to love what you see when you look at these people’s giving.
Outstanding
And when I refer to them as the best joyful givers, that’s not an exaggeration.
15 Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only.
They were the only church in the world that would support Paul at that time – from the very beginning. When he refers to the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, literally it’s, in the beginning of the gospel. Paul marked time in his life and in his relationships with people by the progress of the gospel. Instead of referring to the year, or the time when so-and-so became governor, or anything like that, Paul thought in terms of when the work of the gospel first got started in an area. So way back when the gospel first got a start in the region of Macedonia (that region where Philippi and Thessalonica were), when Paul left that area, he needed support, but no one would support him…almost.
15 … not one church shared with me … except you only.
And every one of those churches in that region talked it over, looked at their budget, had a meeting: “All in favor of supporting the Apostle Paul with a gift?” “All opposed?” “The nay’s have it. No funding for Paul.” That’s how it was in every single church except the one in Philippi. And it’s interesting – Paul never rebukes any church for failure to support him. He certainly could have.
1 Corinthians 9:14 … the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.
That’s pretty clear. Preaching is the type of thing that requires a man’s full time to do it properly, and so God wants the norm to be that preachers devote their full time to preaching. And of all the preachers in the world, no one was more worthy of support than the Apostle Paul. So I believe those churches were wrong not to support Paul, and yet, when Paul decides to teach some principles about giving, instead of rebuking the churches that didn’t support him, he writes to the one church that did support him and says, “Let me show you what’s so beautiful about what you did.” And he starts by pointing out how unique and rare their generosity was.
15 … not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only. 16 for even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid again and again when I was in need.
Thessalonica was just a few days’ away, and Paul only stayed there a few weeks. So Paul shows up in Philippi, preaches the gospel, some of them believe and are saved, Paul leaves, then he’s off to Thessalonica, and by the time he leaves there a few weeks later, the Philippians had sent him money multiple times. The point is, this is a brand new baby church plant – just weeks old, and they are already out-giving every other church. The Philippians weren’t like those people who become Christians and then need 10 years of spiritual growth and discipleship before they get around to tithing.
Review
Last time I told you that this passage teaches three aspects of giving that made the Philippians’ gift such a beautiful and wonderful thing – I realize now there are actually 4, not 3. Last time all we got to was the first one – giving out of love and concern.
Philippians 4:10 I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me.
Giving is a beautiful thing in God’s sight because it is such a clear expression of the most important thing – love. There is no love without giving. And all our giving should come from love. When you put your check in the offering at church, or send that gift to the missionary, it should be an act of worship, it should be an act of obedience to Jesus who commanded that we not neglect the tithe, and it should be out of a desire to see that ministry flourish. All that should be true, but it should also be personal. You should give out of love and concern for the people who will be benefitted. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians to urge them to be generous in support of the poor church in Jerusalem, he said this:
2 Corinthians 8:8 … I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others.
The size of their gift was a true measure of their love. It’s easy to talk about how much we love people, but the proof is in the amount box on the check. Love that is unwilling to give and that never costs you anything isn’t love. And giving that isn’t motivated by love isn’t true giving. That’s why God loves cheerful givers and not reluctant givers. But when you give cheerfully, that is greatly pleasing to God because it shows you have that you-first, I-care-more-about-your-needs-than-about-my-own-comfort kind of attitude. And it’s a truly beautiful thing – beautiful and delightful in the eyes of God.
So that was the first motive, now let’s move on to the other three. We’ll take them one at a time. The first one was love, the second is ministry partnership.
Give for Ministry
That was another factor that made the Philippians’ gift so beautiful – it was a partnering with Paul in the work of the gospel.
14 Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles.
That word share is koinonia – partnership. Paul was suffering for the gospel, and for them to join up with him as partners in that suffering meant they were partners in the gospel ministry.
Philippians 1:4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now
They were partners in the gospel, not because they preached, not because they participated in the events, or set up chairs, or anything like that. They were full partners with Paul simply because of their financial support.
Ministries Depend on Giving
The work of the kingdom of God is expensive – especially now in the NT era. In OT times, all they had to do was keep up the Temple and support the priests – that’s what the tithe was for. But now we not only have the expense of churches and supporting pastors, but we also have the added expense of missions. In the OT it was “come and see,” but now in the NT it’s “Go and tell,” and so we have travel expenses and all the other costs associated with reaching all the nations with the gospel. Fulfilling the Great Commission costs a lot of money, and God’s way of funding it is by putting it in the hearts of his people to support it, and moving them to give so that everyone is participating – not just the preachers.
And so Paul was excited about the financial gift from the Philippians, not only because it was an expression of their love, but even more because the way they expressed their love. They didn’t send flowers, they didn’t give him a “world’s greatest missionary” mug. They expressed their love for him by supporting the only thing that mattered to Paul – the work of the gospel. So he gets this money, and he rejoices greatly in the Lord, not because now he doesn’t have to go hungry today, not because now he can make his rent payment – but because this money means more people are going to be able to hear the gospel.
So we should be moved to give, not only out of love for people, but also by our desire for the progress of the gospel. And for that to happen, it’s important that we understand that the work of the gospel does depend on our giving. Sometimes you hear preachers talk about how God does not need our money. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, he doesn’t need to be funded by us, and so we should just give to worship him, rather than thinking that ministries depend on our support to be effective. All of that is true except for that last part. Worship is a great motive for giving – we’ll see that in a few minutes. But desire to fund ministry is also an important motive. God does own the cattle on a thousand hills, and the hills under a thousand cattle, but God’s preferred way of delivering all those riches to us is through the sacrificial, faith-filled giving of the saints.
So much so that God will actually allow a good ministry to fail if people don’t give. God grants us the honor of real participation – the dignity of real causation. It’s not like a father putting his child on his knees and pretending to let him drive the car, when in reality, if the child turns the wrong way, the father will just take the wheel and correct. No, it’s not a pretend participation. God doesn’t just let us pretend we are funding a ministry, but then if we are unfaithful he steps in and just rains down cash from heaven. No, our participation is real - so real that God will let really good, important ministries succeed or fail based on the faithfulness of the giving.
I just wonder what the world would be like if the church in the United States were like the Philippians. If we gave like them, or like the people in Acts or the Israelites in 1 Chrn.29 – or for that matter, if we would just give the bare minimum and tithe – what would this world be like? There are churches – many churches, that would reach far more people with the gospel, more souls would be saved, more marriages would be healed, more people would learn to love God far more deeply, more people would have victory over sin – they could do all that and would do that if they just had more money. That’s certainly not true in every church, but it’s true for a lot of churches.
There are churches where the sermons are nothing like what they should be, because the pastor doesn’t have proper time to study because the people won’t give enough to provide him with a full-time salary. So instead of studying, he has to work a second job. And as a result, everyone who goes there has to suffer spiritual malnutrition. That’s horrible, and yet God allows that kind of thing to happen, because he wants us to have real participation – for our giving to really matter. And in order for it to really matter, that means if we don’t give, things really will go bad. You know your dad is letting you drive the car for real, not just pretend, if a wrong turn crashes the car. God allows our giving or not giving to really matter in huge ways.
Give some thought to all the best things your church is doing, and think about the fact that your giving enables that. God wants his people to have the joy of knowing that they were a part of a great work.
Get in on the Action
And this is such an exciting truth, because it’s a way you can get in on the action of ministry work that is way out of your reach otherwise. The pastor of the church I’m going to right now does a lot of things I could never do. It used to be that whenever I saw I guy like him, I would just feel guilty because I wasn’t doing the kinds of things he’s good at. But there’s no need for me to feel guilty. Each week when I give my offering, I’m participating in that ministry and every other ministry our church is doing.
If you support a missionary, in God’s eyes you are just as responsible for those souls being saved as the missionary himself is. Give as an expression of love toward the person, and also give to support gospel ministry. Whatever ministry you have a heart for – support that financially and in God’s eyes you are actually an equal partner in that ministry.
The objective of everything is for the Lord Jesus Christ to receive more and more honor and worship, right? That’s the purpose of all of human history. That’s why everything exists, it’s the highest imaginable goal. And you do your part by bringing him as much honor and worship as you can in your life. But that’s all you can do, right? Wrong. You can double that. If you support a missionary who brings one person to the Lord, then now, because of your money, instead of just getting your worship, Christ is being honored by your worship and that other person’s worship. You can double up your worship just by giving some money. And if your missionary support results in two other souls being saved, you’ve tripled the amount of worship!
A Good Deal
I grew up as a penny pincher, and if there’s one thing I love, it’s getting a good deal. I love getting good deals, and I hate getting a bad deal. I hate spending $1000 on something, and end up stuck with this thing that’s only worth $200. But if I paid 200 and end up with something worth 1000, I love that. I love getting a good deal, and if you’re the same way, then you’ll love giving to ministry, because it’s the best deal there is, because you give something that is temporal and what you get in return is eternal.
You see, all your money and possessions are like Monopoly money. Monopoly money only has value within the game. Once the game is over and you put the box away, those dollars have zero value. But imagine if there were a way, while you’re playing Monopoly, to use those Monopoly dollars to purchase a real car or a real house or some other thing outside of the game. Would you be willing? You have $50K of play money in the game, and a car dealer tells you that you can have a real $50,000 car if you give them that play money. The catch is, if you do that, you can’t buy Park Place. You won’t be able to put the little plastic hotels on your properties in the game. In fact, you’ll probably lose the game, because it will take all your play dollars. But on the plus side, after the game is over, you’ll have a real $50K car. Would you make that sacrifice?
That’s what you’re doing when you invest in ministry. You’re taking the worthless, temporary play money of this world and using it to get something of eternal value that you’ll still have even after it’s game over for this world. Here’s how Jesus put it:
Luke 16:9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
How do you use worldly wealth to gain friends in eternal dwellings? By using that money to finance the work of the gospel. You give money to the work, people get saved, and those people will welcome you into heaven when you arrive. Evidently, when they get to heaven, God is going to tell them it was you who financed that work, so that when you arrive in heaven, those people will throw a welcome party. And you and they will be buddies in heaven forever, because they will know that they are there because you were willing to invest some of your Monopoly money so they could hear the gospel.
Investing in the gospel is the best deal there is. And Paul wants to teach that principle to the Philippians so they will have proper joy about their own gift. He wants them to see the full beauty of what they’ve done in sending this gift. He wants them to have the joy that you have when you walk away after getting a really good deal on something.
So when you get your paycheck, and you write your offering check – 10% or 20 or whatever it is, then you look at what’s left – how does that feel? Does it feel to you like you now have less? Do you walk away from the offering box feeling like, “Ok, that money is gone. Now I have to get by on less”? Is that how it feels – kind of the way you feel when you find out you overpaid for something or you lost some money? Or do you walk away with that feeling you have when you just got a steal of a deal?
If you bought a house for $200,000, then after the deal is done you find out that there are some oil rights connected with your property, and so it’s worth a million dollars – you don’t walk away feeling like you’re poorer because you handed over 200K. You feel like you are way ahead – as long as someone lets you know what that land is worth. That’s what Paul is doing for the Philippians here. He’s saying, “Let me tell you how much this ministry land you just bought is worth.” Every dollar you put in the plate is such a great deal – you’re walking away with a steal. And the happier you are about that, the more your giving glorifies God, because it shows that you care a lot about the things he cares a lot about.
Ok, so the Philippians gift was beautiful and pleasing to God because it was an act of love, and also because it supported the ministry of the gospel. Now a third reason it was beautiful: it was acceptable worship.
Give for Worship
Giving to God is Essential to Worship
18 I have received full payment and even more; I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.
The terms fragrant offering, acceptable sacrifice, and pleasing to God are all OT terms describing worship. Most people associate worship with singing. But singing is never directly called worship in the Bible. Praise is, and singing is a great way to express praise, so I don’t want to downplay the importance of singing praises, but technically, singing is never directly called worship. Giving, however, is. In fact, the very first act of worship ever recorded in Scripture involved giving to God. And not only did it involve giving, but as far as we know, that’s all it involved. That’s the only thing that happened – two men came and gave gifts to God.
That’s recorded in Genesis 4, and it is not just mentioned in passing. It’s provided at the very beginning of the Bible to teach us one of the most fundamental truths about worship that we could ever learn. It’s an account of the first to human beings ever born into this world – Cain and Abel. But it’s not a biography. It only tells us of one event in their lives. There’s only one thing we need to know about Cain and Abel. Here’s the story of Can and Abel: they were born, grew up, and one day they both came and offered worship to God. And God accepted the worship of one, and rejected the worship of the other one. And so the purpose of this account is to teach us, right in the opening pages of the Bible, the difference between worship that God accepts, and worship that he does not accept.
That’s a hard concept in this culture, because most people in our culture think that all worship is acceptable – especially if it’s heartfelt. Most people think that if they get up on Sunday morning, drag themselves to church, stand up and sing from the diaphragm, and faithfully do that every Sunday, they are doing God a favor. They are going out of their way to worship and therefore it’s automatically acceptable in heaven. Many Christians have no idea that there is such a thing as unacceptable worship. But the very first account of worship in the Bible teaches us that not only does God reject some worship.
Genesis 4:4 … The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.
And the reason God accepted Cain and his worship was because of the way Cain offered his gift to God. And the reason God rejected Cain and his worship was because of the way he offered his gift. So you see that giving to God is an essential component of worship. We see that from beginning to end in the Bible. We see that with Cain and Abel, we see it throughout the OT worship system, we see it throughout the NT, and we see it in the book of Revelation where the 24 elders worship God by laying down what is no doubt there most precious possessions – their crowns. Whether it’s an OT Jew having to purchase a lamb or ox to sacrifice, or people in the church selling their property and giving it to the church, the Philippians’ gift, the 24 Elders in Revelation - the costliness of the gift offered to God is always a key aspect. Remember when David wanted to worship God during a plague, and the owner of that site offered to donate it to David? And David’s response was "No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing." (2 Samuel 24:24) Giving is always a key aspect of worship, not because God needs money, but because we need money. We offer God our money, not because it’s valuable to him, but because it’s valuable to us. And that’s how you express love – by giving that which you treasure. The point of worship is to honor the one being worshiped. And one of the primary ways to honor someone is to give them gifts of great value to you. In the ancient world, if you were a wealthy person and you presented a cheap little gift to the king, it would be an expression of disrespect and distain and you would probably lose your head. Kings would not accept cheap gifts, and neither will God. That’s why God would never accept crippled, diseased animals as sacrifices.
It’s interesting, in the Old Testament Law there are instructions and regulations for something known as the free will offering. The free will offering was never commanded, nobody ever had to give one to God, but if you wanted to, he could. However, there were regulations. If you gave a free will offering, it had to be proportional to your income. Isn’t that interesting? You would think, since a free will offering is not required, and it is above and beyond the ties and all the required offerings, that it could be any amount you want. But that’s not the case. It had to be proportional to your income or it was unacceptable and illegal. God would not be mocked by meager offerings. The amount itself didn’t matter – just that it was proportional to your income. It had to be of value to the giver.
One pastor made the comment during a worship service, “You can sing until you are horse, and have tears streaming down your face, but until you give your money, you’re just playing games.” Not very many pastors would have the guts to say that, but it’s true. If your love for the Lord stops short of your wallet, that’s not true worship.
So giving to God is an even more fundamental aspect of worship then singing. When the pastor says, “We’re going to worship God with our offering now,” that’s not just a churchy way of saying we are taking donations. And when they say, “We are going to take an offering right now, right in the middle of our singing time, to show that, in a way, giving your money really is a form of worship” – that’s backwards. It would make a little more sense if they interrupted the offering with a song and then gave an explanation, “Believe it or not, singing can also be a form of worship just as much as giving.” What I mean by that is the connection between giving and worship is much more obvious in the Bible than the connection between singing and worship.
So giving is worship. But not all worship is acceptable to God. Not all offerings are acceptable to God. If you sorted through some of the offering checks in the plate at church, some of those checks would be acceptable worship and others would be unacceptable - rejected by God.
So what makes an offering acceptable or unacceptable in God’s sight? Well, if we go back to Cain and Abel, we see something very interesting. What was the difference between those 2 offerings? Some people say that one was an animal sacrifice and the other one was a grain offering. But I don’t think that’s it, because God commanded both animal and grain offerings in the law. Here’s what made them different:
Genesis 4:3 …Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. 4 But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock.
Abel offered God the first and the best. Fat portions and firstborn. But it says Cain just brought some of the fruits of the soil. Not the firstfruits - just some. “Why does that matter?” It matters because in order to give firstfruits to God, you have to really trust him. Because what if you give him your firstfruits - but then you don’t have enough left over to get by? Writing that offering check first, before you pay any other bills – that requires faith. It doesn’t require any faith to meet all your own needs first, pay all your bills, and then give some leftovers to God. So the difference in the 2 offerings was faith. And we know for sure that’s the right interpretation, because of Hebrews 11:4 By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. You see, it wasn’t a matter of animal sacrifice versus grain offering. It was a matter of Abel giving in a way that required him to trust God, and Cain giving in a way that required no trust.
That’s why God loves a cheerful giver. Giving reluctantly shows a lack of trust in God, and so it’s not acceptable worship. Giving joyfully shows full faith in God, and God loves that - he loves a cheerful giver. He does not love a reluctant giver.
So the Philippians had offered worship to God by sending this gift to Paul, and he writes them back with the exciting news: that worship was … acceptable to God! And not just acceptable, but thoroughly pleasing. That’s the idea behind the term fragrant offering - a pleasing aroma, enjoyable to God. This had to have been such an encouragement to the Philippians. The wording Paul uses is almost identical to the way he described the sacrifice of Christ himself in Eph.5:2.
Ephesians 5:2 … Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Conclusion
So those are the three aspects of their giving that I mentioned last time that made their gift so beautiful. But what about the 4th one? The 4th one is absolutely critical, because there is one major obstacle that could still prevent us from having the kind of joy we need to give like this. What do you do if you hear all this, and still, instead of joy, there’s just guilt and ongoing reluctance? “I know I should tithe. I know I should want to push beyond the tithe. I know I should be doing all this, but … I’m afraid. I’m at the cusp of financial ruin as it is. I can’t even pay my bills as it is.” You look at your financial responsibilities, and you try to imagine getting by on that much less, and it’s just too scary. If God says you absolutely have to do it, then you’ll do it, but it’s not going to feel happy and joyful. Knowing that it’s an expression of love, and that it’s really, truly enabling gospel ministry that wouldn’t otherwise happen, and that it’s pleasing, acceptable worship – all that is moving you in the direction of joyful giving, but the fear is still holding you back. How do you get over the hump? That’s what the 4th principles is all about, and that’s where we’ll pick it up next time.
Discussion
Name the top 2 or 3 ministries at your church that you are especially glad to be supporting.
