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NORTH PINE BAPTIST CHURCH
Sunday 8th June 2025
2 Corinthians 9:6-11
“The Grace of Giving”.
Here is a connection I want us to think about.
What our hands do with our money shows what our hearts are doing with God.
Do you ever stop and think about that connection?
What your hands doing with your money.
What you give. What you buy.
Where you choose to allocate your resources.
What your hands do with your money shows what your heart is doing with God.
1 Timothy 6:10 speaks into this connection. Paul warns us that
10 The love of money … not just money, but the love of money …
The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
When we are in Christ money becomes a spiritual issue. Such being the case Paul, in 2 Corinthians 9:6-11, equips us to deal spiritually with this spiritual challenge.
Let’s read what Paul says.
6 Remember this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 7 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 9 As it is written:
‘They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor;
their righteousness endures for ever.’
10 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. 11 You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
As we consider this passage note that Paul never uses “guilt” as a way to get the Corinthians to give. Rather focuses on the grace of giving.
It is very easy for a preacher to make people give more on the basis of guilt.
I could do it by getting some statistics on the average earnings of the people represented in our congregation and then work out what the cumulative figure that would happen if we all gave 5%.
Or I could gather stories of people who were giving 20% … 30% … 50% to the Lord … and guilt you into upping your giving.
It is easy to guilt people into giving. But guilt giving is the opposite of grace giving. Paul is clear … you can’t be giving because you are reluctant or under compulsion.
As verse 7 says God loves the cheerful giver.
Which doesn’t mean that God does not love the uncheerful giver, or the reluctant giver, or the stingy giver.
The point Paul is making is that God loves it when we understand that He is a God who gives cheerfully.
A character of God is that He is a generous God.
When we really understand how this generous God is working in our lives
When we are in an eternal vibrant relationship with our generous God.
That relationship will flow over into generous cheerful giving.
God loves it when that happens. Not because it means He has more money, but because it means we are maturing in our understanding of the power of His work in our lives.
So, as we think about our relationship with God … with Jesus … how does cheerful giving reveal itself? Cheerfulness understands that God uses mathematical reversal.
Perhaps in our lives we have come to the conclusion that the way to have more is to give less.
Ten minus one is nine … and ten minus zero is ten.
So, if you want to have ten instead of nine, you don’t take anything out of your bank account on the first day of the week. Right?
That is true … when you are doing money math at the bank.
The problem with this sort of math is that it leaves God out of the picture.
God’s maths works differently.
We see it in verse 6 Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
God’s math says “You give Me more and you will end up having more than if you give Me less”.
That is mathematical reversal.
Now you could interpret that as an invitation to make it rich. “If I give more of my money to the church then I should get more money in the long run”.
But that is not what the text is saying.
The call to sow generously and the promise the reap generously is not a promise to make generous Christians more wealthy. Rather God is promising to generously provide in the lives of His people far beyond what money can buy.
Have a look at verse 8. God is able to bless you abundantly
… actually a more accurate translation here is God is able to make all grace abound to you …
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.
When we sow generously we reap generously with regards to all grace abounding
Grace is a gift that comes to us through Jesus.
Grace is forgiveness and mercy.
Grace is transformation.
Having life and life to the full.
When we sow generously we reap grace generously.
When we sow sparingly we reap grace sparingly.
Reaping generously the grace of Jesus in all things
Generous grace as I deal with all the things I hate about myself.
Generous grace as I work through all the secrets I hold, and all the pretend.
Generous grace as I see my sin, my failures, my brokenness.
Having all the grace you need in these aspects of life … when we sow generously.
Or sowing sparingly – and reaping sparingly in all things.
Reaping generously the grace of Jesus at all times.
Generous grace in times of doubt.
Generous grace in times of temptation.
Generous grace in times of fear, or frustration.
Generous grace for a specific day you wish could be changed.
Having all the grace you need at all times – even right now … when we sow generously.
Or sowing sparingly – and reaping sparingly at all times.
Reaping generously the grace of Jesus so that you will have all that you need.
What do you need?
Not what do you want?
Right now what is the greatest need you have?
When we sow generously we can believe that God will reap a generous response in our lives. If we are only seeing a sparing response … then perhaps the issue is that we are sowing sparingly.
God promises that we will reap generously when we sow generously.
The promise is not primarily related to the to a puny ideal which we call money.
It’s so much more …
Imagine what your life would be like if every day unfolded where God is making all grace abound to you
… grace abounding in all things
… grace abounding at all times.
… grace abounding so that you have all that you need.
Daily, moment by moment abounding in every good work.
All the money in the world won’t bring that.
Having all our materialist needs won’t bring that.
Sowing sparingly won’t bring that.
But generous sowing will bring about a generous reaping.
A generous reaping that flows out of the abundant grace heart of a generous God.
A relationship with God that fully comprehends mathematical reversal.
When we live that mathematical reversal God promises that He will supply everything we need in every way.
We see promise of God in verse 10
10 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.
There is increase. There is enlargement. There is harvest.
God’s supply that will endure. Not just for now, but for eternity.
Wealth doesn’t endure forever.
It may start with hardworking parents who build up some wealth.
They leave it to their children who have seen the hard work and appreciate it.
Who leave it to their children who didn’t see the hard work and begin to indulge.
Then the next generation has seen their parents indulge and follow suit … soon the legacy of wealth is gone.
It happens in 3-4 generations.
Now compare that to the harvest righteousness. I know that my great grandfather’s great grandfather was a Christian … my three grand-children are all expressing a faith in Jesus.
That is 9 generations of Christian legacy … a legacy of righteousness.
Materially not even my grandfather passed on anything of financial wealth.
But I know which legacy I would rather have. That’s the harvest of righteousness which is being spoken of here.
The harvest of righteousness comes … and it comes in many ways.
The promise of eternity with God … that’s part of the harvest.
Sinners becoming saints … that’s part of the harvest.
Forgiveness in failure … that’s part of the harvest.
Mercy in the presence of misery … that’s part of the harvest.
Enemies of God becoming brothers and sisters of Christ … that’s part of the harvest.
It’s all part of sowing generously … and reaping generously. A harvest which cannot be given a material value.
As we see these truths it becomes very evident.
God is not sparing in His relationship with is.
Indeed, in Romans 8:32 we read that that (God) did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all.
God did not hold His Son back … even though God knew He would have to pour out His full anger on this faithful child.
God didn't keep His Son just for Himself … there were sinners to be saved and only the Son could do it. How much pain and sorrow God had as He put the needs of sinners before His holy, righteous and faithful Son?
God didn’t spare His own Son. Nor did He show His Son any special favours. Going back one chapter to 2 Corinthians 8:9.
9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.
Jesus was poor.
Mary and Joseph had to borrow the manger in which He could be born.
He had no place to call home and depended on others for His clothes.
One time He had to borrow a small coin when He wanted to perform a miracle, on another occasion a fish had to supply the coin for His taxes.
When Jesus died, they had to borrow a grave in which to lay his body.
He had no place, nothing of his own.
Jesus entered into the poverty of human existence and held back absolutely nothing, not even His own life.
On the hill of Calvary … on a rugged, bloody, cruel cross … Jesus poured out everything He had.
He went to the limit for us.
He was obedient to death, even death on the cross.
Now that is giving. No reserves. No half-measures. No conditions. No holding back. Giving it all so that we could have eternal life in Him. Giving all in obedience to God the Father.
Not sparing in any way … for us.
When we see this generous grace in our lives part of our response to this grace will be good stewardship and generous giving.
Last week, when we were looking at Malachi 3:6-12, I said that the era of tithing is over.
The laws which call for 1/10th from every single person.
The law which was applied to the whole nation.
The era of that law is over. The biblical principle that now applies to our giving is succinctly describe in these verses.
What this means is that the responsibility for stewardship and giving has moved from being a national law.
By that I mean if you are born an Israelite then you will do this
… even if in your heart you are reluctant
… you will do this.
It was a national law.
And there will be people … like some of the Pharisees … who will use this law to big note themselves as being more spiritual because they even tithe the herbs that grow in their garden.
They act that way because it was a national law.
But that has now come to an end. Our stewardship and giving is now a personal response that flows out of our own personal relationship with Jesus. As 2 Corinthians 9:7 says Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give …
God leaves this all up to each one of us.
No guilt giving.
No specific number or percentage.
But the grace of giving.
How you respond to the financial needs of the church. That’s your choice.
How you respond to the many Christian and worthy causes. That’s your choice.
If you want to use your giving to big-note yourself. That is your choice.
If you are giving reluctantly and under compulsion … not cheerfully … that is your choice.
What you think others should give … that isn’t yours to judge.
The motives we might presume of others … that is also not ours to judge.
No guilt. All grace.
Each one of us decides. As we make that decision we do so listening to these verses which have equipped us to understand that, when we are in Christ, money becomes a spiritual issue.
What your hands do with your money shows what your heart is doing with God.
If we are sowing sparingly … is it because we haven’t really seen the generosity of God?
It isn’t guilt question, but a grace question.
If our lives are sparingly reaping grace, is it because we are sowing so sparingly in our relationship with Jesus.
Again not a guilt question, but a grace question.
If we are reluctant, or giving under compulsion, what is this saying about the way we understand the work of Jesus.
Could we perhaps have fallen into the guilt of giving, rather than the grace of giving?
We cannot underrate what is happening in this text. For its not primarily about giving money to the church. Rather it is an ongoing calling to keep assessing what our hearts are doing with God. What is happening in our relationship with Jesus?
And the way we use our money and finances is a biblical way to assess that relationship.
It isn’t guilt question, but a grace question.
Prayer
