Text: 2 Corinthians 8:8-12 9/22/02
8 I am 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.
10 And here is my advice about what is best for you in this matter: Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. 11 Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. 12 For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have.
I wish I had worn these when I was growing up. They are ear-plugs. They are supposed to keep you from hearing noise. I suppose some days my parents thought I had 3 or 4 of these in each ear! They can protect your hearing when you work around tractors, table saws, grinders, huge motors.
They are not such a great idea when I need to hear something important. I’m concerned that the devil is trying to put a few ear-plugs into our hearts on this subject of managing the money our Savior has given us. People think we’re doing these four Sundays because “Synod needs the money” or “Amazing Grace needs the money.” It’s true that both our church family and our synod can use extra offerings. That will always be the case because there is always so much work to do to spread the gospel. But that’s not why we’re talking about managing the Lord’s money. Someone could question why we’re encouraging teenagers to think through their stewardship – after all they can’t vote! But managing God’s gifts has nothing to do with power or rights or voting.
This is about living our life for our Savior – showing him with our lives, including our wallet, how much we love him. Even if our church organization had billions of dollars, we’d still be talking about how do we fight our sinful nature that wants to use God’s blessings selfishly and how do we build up our new man, our faith, that wants to serve God with everything he gives us.
So if the devil is trying to put earplugs into your heart, take them out. There is no hidden agenda, this isn’t a fund raising speech. This is about what you and I can learn from Paul, inspired by God himself, about how to show our love, how to give with joy and thanks. The way Paul put it is
I want to test your sincerity
Paul tests us with money
“I want to test your sincerity” sounds confrontational. It sounds as if Paul wants to put us under a microscope to examine our giving so he can see where we fall short.
This puts us on the defensive because we know we’re not doing the best job in the world. Jesus is the love of our lives. He’s our Savior, our God, our brother – the one we depend on, pray to with confidence. But we are not totally dedicated to him – not if you look at how we live our lives. In the area of money management, what does my spending show about my priorities? That movies are more important to me than my Savior? That I honor cable TV with NFL Sunday sports package more than my Savior? That my cars means more to me than my forgiveness? And even when my offerings are first in my spending, do I give with joy and gratitude or a sense of obligation, duty? Sin stains everything I do, including my offerings to Jesus.
The Holy Spirit directed Paul to dedicate two chapters in this letter to the Corinthians to talk about their offering to the believers in Jerusalem. The saints in Jerusalem were suffering a famine, and they were poor to begin with. The churches in Turkey and northern Greece were sending an offering to them to help them out. The people in Corinth had been some of the first to promote this offering, but they got side tracked and the offering still wasn’t done. Paul was encouraging them to complete it.
He first told them about the Christians in northern Greece – a province called Macedonia. Those Christians were very, very poor – some of them had to beg for food. Despite their extreme poverty, they all begged Paul to let them be part of this special offering. Paul wrote 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. (8:2-4) Their love for Jesus and each other shined through their offerings.
Using them as an example, Paul urged the people in southern Greece, the people in Corinth, to finish their offering. He wanted to be very clear though. I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. You know the cliché “Put your money where your mouth is.” Paul is saying the same thing. How we use the money God gives us shows how sincerely we love him. God’s grace moved the Christians in Macedonia and in the United States to beg for the chance to give to others, to be generous beyond their ability. Will we do the same?
Paul knows we will pass
Paul knew the Christians in Corinth would respond with sincerity. He used a word for testing that in the New Testament always implies confidence that we pass the test. Paul knew the Corinthians would pass this test, just as I can be sure that you will pass this same test.
How can I be so sure? 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. It starts with the grace of Jesus. I don’t know if this would came as a surprise or not to Joe Chapman, but Jesus owns Peoples First Bank. He owns Bay Bank and Tyndall Federal Credit Union also. He owns all the gold and diamonds. He keeps the dark matter of the universe in his back pocket and all the stars are his fireflies. He has more power in his little fingernail than all our Hydrogen Bombs put together. You could say he is rich.
But he put his riches in a sock and stuck it in a drawer. He lived as a human who was poor. Jesus depended on others for food and housing. When the soldiers came to nail him to the cross, he didn’t franticly throw open his dresser draw to pull out some of his power and push them down. He let them crucify him. When the Father blasted him with all our sins, Jesus didn’t cry out, “This isn’t fair. I am innocent! I am your Son!” He took the heat, he bore the blows. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.
He did this to make us rich – rich beyond our wildest fantasies. So that you through his poverty might become rich. If Mastercard thinks being able to see your daughter graduate from college is priceless, what would they say about forgiveness of sins? How can you and I put a price tag on what it means that my children will be in heaven forever because of Jesus? What would we be willing to give to talk with Jesus himself for the rest of eternity! What would the toll charges be for having a hotline to the Creator of the universe, 24/7? What’s the price of having a heart at peace, because our sins our God, God’s love is here, and through every joy and pain in life, the Lord will carry me. We are filthy rich, wealthy beyond imagination – thanks to Jesus living and dying in our place.
And we know this! Like the Corinthians, we know the grace God has shown to all of us. Jesus himself lives in our hearts. We’ve experienced first hand how much God loves us because he has adopted each of us into his family. His love compels us to respond. Forgiveness is just too great of news that we could pass up a chance to show our love for Jesus.
The Corinthians knew God’s grace also. Because they knew, Paul knew they would pass his sincerity test. They had run into roadblocks. Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have the desire to do so. They had raised their hands first the last year to do this offering. But the in-fighting and lawsuits and SIN in their church family had detoured them. Their problems made Paul write his first letter to them. They had responded, corrected many of the problems. Paul gave them advice now in his second letter. 11 Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means.
Good advice for us also. The devil wants to put roadblocks in the way of our showing our love, by giving us wrong motivation – for example whispering in our ear that we should give because Amazing Grace or WELS needs the money! In two whole chapters about this offering, only 2 verses mention the saints in Jerusalem were in need. The rest of the chapters talk about important managing ideas and motivation and how they were carrying out the offering. Offerings are never about need. They are about showing our love to our Savior.
What’s really important in offerings?
Neither was Paul’s stewardship program or ours about increasing how much we give. Dollars are not what is important. The Lord has plenty of dollars – he doesn’t need the ones he’s loaned us. Read the entire Bible – not once will you hear the Lord say, “I want you to give X amount of dollars in your offering.” But you will hear him talk about our hearts, our willingness to serve him. 12 For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have.
The Lord doesn’t compare the amounts we give. “Johnny gave this much. Greg 20% more. I like Greg’s offering better!” No! Willingness, sincerity of love – that’s what makes an offering pleasing to our Savior. If we are giving out of love, if we are giving out of joy and thanks for his forgiveness, then we will give a percentage of our income that honors our Savior, that tells the whole world how much we love Jesus. This kind of offering is acceptable to our Savior.
This is the grace of our Savior. He doesn’t have a $5,000 club – “These are my platinum Christians.” If the Lord blesses me with a $1 allowance and I give him a dime because I love him, he’s going to love my offering just as much as the family that makes $1,000 a week and they put $150 into the offering or the widow who gives 2% of her income. If the willingness is there, the offering smells sweet to our Savior.
If you look at what Paul teaches us about offerings, you’ll see the three most important parts of any offering – of money or time or abilities. God’s grace in Jesus creates our love for Jesus which makes us willing to give to him. Grace, love, willingness – these are what count.
What do we do now?
As a church family, we want to encourage each other to give willingly, out of love for Jesus and his grace to us. To do this, as your pastor and the elders and church council, we are asking each of us to spend this week reflecting on God’s grace to each of us, all his blessings, and after praying about it, decide what percentage of our income we want to give to the Lord to spread the gospel. Today we’ll give you information and a pamphlet to help with this process. We not asking for any information back about what percentage you decided to give, how much money that will work out to or anything like that. We are asking that you do let your elder know you’ve gone through this process so we can encourage each other. Because as we ponder God’s grace and promises, we will grow in our faith. We make our offerings a conscious decision, based on faith, they will be acceptable to our Savior and better reflect the sincerity of our love for Jesus.
“I want to test the sincerity of your love for Jesus.” None of us need to sweat this test. I know you’ll pass – because we both know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
