I want to talk today about one of those taboo subjects of our age. Money. Well, money itself isn’t a taboo. We’re all happy to talk about money as a general concept, usually related to how little we have or how much more we need. But try asking someone how much they earn, or how much they have in the bank, or invested for their retirement or their next overseas holiday and you’re likely to find them a bit embarrassed or even indignant. It’s worse than asking a woman her age! ’It’s none of your business what I earn’, seems to be the attitude. ’That’s my business and no-one else’s.’
Well that may be so, but God is good. He doesn’t let us get away with such idolatry. He’s put these 2 chapters of Paul’s 2nd letter to the Corinthians here for our benefit; to shake us out of the misapprehension that what we earn is our business and only ours. He wants us to see that our income is the result of God’s blessing of us so it isn’t ours alone. No, it’s first and foremost the Lord’s.
But notice how he does it. Paul is encouraging the Corinthians to contribute to a special collection he’s taking up for the Church in Jerusalem. The Christians there are under severe persecution. Many would have lost their livelihood. Some have been affected by a severe famine in Judaea. And as a result, they’re in great need of financial support. But he begins by pointing to the way another group of Christians has responded to those needs.
1 The example of the Macedonians:
A. Their Context
Their context is extreme poverty and severe affliction. Just like the Jerusalem Christians, they were poor and under persecution for their faith. In fact the implication is that Paul wasn’t even going to ask them to contribute. But he hadn’t taken into account their motivation
B. Their motivation:
The trials they were undergoing hadn’t cowed them. In fact the opposite. They’d resulted in abundant joy. This small taste of sharing Christ’s suffering had resulted in them wanting to go further in being joined to Christ. Now they wanted to minister for him as well. v.4: They begged for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints. They saw the sharing of material wealth as service, ministry.
What’s more, notice what the root of this motivation is: v.5: they gave themselves first to the Lord. It was their total commitment to Christ that led to this sacrificial action.
C. Their response:
was an overflowing wealth of generosity (2-4). They gave according to their means and beyond. They begged for the privilege of sharing in this ministry. They weren’t going to let Paul get away with going on to Corinth without them being able to contribute.
But notice that this response is actually preceded by a more important response. He says they gave themselves first to the Lord. Their desire to contribute arises from a deep commitment to Christ. As we’ll see in a moment, they recognised all that Christ had done for them and so they gave all they had to him. This has to be the source of any reform of our actions doesn’t it? We’re not asked to give to God’s work because it’ll make us worthy of God’s love. That’s the sort of attitude you’ll find in some other religions. I remember when we went to India a number of years ago, it was explained to us that beggars survive in that culture because to give to someone in need is good karma. i.e. you built up moral credit by giving to the poor. But that’s not how the gospel works, is it? We receive credit not by virtue of our own actions but by the death of Christ counted to us as a gift.
But then in response to that gift of life, we’re called to give our whole lives back to Christ. Not to earn credit, but as a response of gratitude and love.
The Macedonians understood how much Jesus had done for them and so they willingly gave themselves to him, heart and soul, mind and strength. And then in turn, they gave themselves to the apostles as those who had brought the offer of this great gift to them. Part of their response to the joy of the gospel was to want to serve the apostles by supporting them in their work.
But that’s just the Macedonians. There’s in fact a much greater example to follow as we think about the whole issue of giving. That’s Jesus Christ himself. Let’s think about his example.
2 The example of Jesus Christ
A. His Context:
Well to say he was rich is an understatement, isn’t it? Phil 2 points out that he wasn’t just rich, he was God, the only Son of God, part of the Trinity. But at the same time he loved us, his fallen creatures. And that of course was his motivation.
B. His Motivation:
He loved us so much that he wanted us to share in his glory as God’s Son. Paul puts it like this: "so that by his poverty you might become rich." (8:9) Phil 2:6-7 says: "He didn’t regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7but emptied himself." Why? So we might be exalted along with him to God’s presence in eternity.
You may remember that when we looked at 2 Cor 5 a few weeks ago it was the love of Christ that was the motivation for us to share the gospel with others. Christ’s love is so great that people need to hear about it. But Christ’s love is equally a motivation for us to support those who are in need. If Christ could willingly give up his position as the Lord of the Universe, as the Son of God, coequal with the Father, how can we even think of holding back our petty possessions from those who are in need?
3 The Case of the Corinthians
Well, that brings us to the Corinthians.
A. Their context:
Abundance (8:14). This is another one of those places where you realise the similarities between the Corinthian Church and us. They were apparently a wealthy church, well educated and enjoying all the material blessings that God provided.
What’s more, they were spiritually rich (8:9). They had every spiritual gift you could imagine. They had good teachers. They were well taught. They had much to be thankful for. Much more, in fact, than the Macedonians.
B. Their motivation:
This should have given them plenty of motivation for giving. So he says in 8:24: "show them the proof of your love and of our reason for boasting about you." Their generosity, if it shows itself will be the proof of their love and the genuineness of their faith.
But also, he encourages them to see that God stands by those who respond to his generosity with generosity in turn. (9:6): "the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully".
Someone has remarked that God is no-one’s debtor. He says here: "God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work (9:8). Do you understand the point there? Why does God bless us? Some people think he blesses us because we’ve been good. The Prosperity Doctrine teachers are a bit like the Hindus. They think that if you’re generous, God will bless you. That’s what 9:11 seems to imply: "You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity". But that’s actually to get it the wrong way round. v8: God first blesses us, not to reward us but to enable us to share generously, abundantly, with others. The enriching that ensues is a spiritual enrichment. Do you remember what Jesus said about using our worldly wealth? "I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes." (Lk 16:9) Here in 9:11 he says our generosity will produce thanksgiving to God through us. So the blessing we receive from God as a result of our generosity is of a spiritual nature related to the glory it brings to God. Oh, and if he does bless you materially as a result, it’s only so you can give even more generously next time.
C. Their response
So how were they to respond? We’ve seen how the Macedonians responded, by begging to be included in the collection, but what about the Corinthians?
Well we discover back in 1 Cor 16 that they had already responded to Paul’s appeal for the Jerusalem Church. There he gives them instructions about setting aside an amount each week. But it seems that maybe their initial enthusiasm is waning.
Does that happen to you? You hear a speaker at a dinner or one of our missions days and you’re inspired to give to their mission. But then as the weeks go by the initial enthusiasm begins to die. You’re no longer so sure you want to give away your hard earned cash? I know the men’s group were inspired after our last Men’s Dinner to raise some money to fund a Prison Fellowship worker, but we still haven’t got any money together. Well, maybe the Corinthians had found the pressures of the immediate pressing in on their well intentioned promises of last year.
So Paul says they need to finish what they started, so that their eagerness may be matched by completing it (8:10,11).
What’s more he says they should give according to their means. 8:12: "Give according to what you have, not to what you don’t have." I think he’s picked up on one of those universals of human character. We’re so ready to look at how well off someone else is and say that we don’t have that sort of wealth and think that that’s an excuse for not giving at all. But no, he says, you give according to what you do have.
And if they’re honest about it, they’ll realise that they’re much better off than many others, like the Macedonians for example.
Then he says they’re to give generously (8:19-20). 9:7: "not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." If you’re giving to God’s work, let it be generously, willingly, cheerfully, knowing that you’re giving to God’s people.
So here are 2 important principles for giving in the Christian context. Give according to your means, according to how much God has blessed you already, and give generously and cheerfully.
Finally he says give as a matter of fairness (8:14). His example is the provision of manna in the wilderness. Do you remember how they were told only to collect what they needed for the day. No one was to take more than their fair share? So everyone would have enough to keep them going?
4. What about Us
Well let’s finish by thinking about what this means for us.
A. Our context
As I just said we, like the Corinthians, enjoy a certain degree of abundance. We live in a rich country. Most of us are on good incomes. We lack for little.
We’re spiritually rich. We have a great heritage of evangelical teaching to be thankful for. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing you can imagine. We continue to enjoy his blessing year after year. At our Vestry planning day last week we were remarking on the great things that have been happening in our midst over the past few years.
B. Our motivation:
So that forms the first part of our motivation. The knowledge that God has provided and is able to continue to provide everything we need. That means we don’t need to hoard our possessions. Our security doesn’t hang on the size of our bank balance or our superannuation fund.
Secondly our motivation is to see God glorified. To bring thanksgiving to God for the way he provides for all of us, whatever our personal circumstances or potential happens to be.
Our generosity with our material wealth will show the genuineness of our love and our faith in God. Do we trust God to look after us if we give away a substantial part of our income. I remember thinking when I was working as an engineer, how much better off my colleagues were who weren’t giving away a tenth of their income to God’s work. But as I look back, I don’t think there’s anything I’ve missed out on that mattered. But I’m sure the money we gave away has made a huge difference to countless people who have heard the gospel through missionaries we supported, or through Tear Fund, or aid agencies or through our local church.
Finally, we’re motivated to give just to see how God might bless us. As I said he won’t necessarily bless us with greater riches, though that might happen if he sees we can be trusted to be generous with them. But we should be watching out to see how he blesses us in other ways.
It’s interesting when we get to this part of the year, when we work out the Parish budget for next year and we discover that it needs to go up by a substantial amount once again, to look back at the previous years when each year the budget has gone up. And what do we discover? As the budget has gone up, that is, as our personal giving to St Theo’s has risen, our ministry has grown stronger. This last year has been a classic example. Last year our budgeted giving went up by some 25% but look at the result in terms of our ministry to children and youth, not to mention young adults. That part of our ministry is booming, as God blesses us for our willingness to give to support it.
C. Our response
So what’s our response to all this going to be? Well, let me suggest that first, we should be following those 2 principles of Biblical giving that we just discovered. We should be giving generously and we should give according to our means. What does that mean for each one of us? Well I’ve put a table in the news sheet so you can work out what your weekly or monthly giving would look like if you gave 10% ( the OT legal requirement) or even 15% which might be a generous response.
But remember we’re to give according to what we have, not to what we don’t have. In other words we shouldn’t be comparing ourselves to others and using that as an excuse. Remember the story of the widow’s mite. She had little but Jesus applauded her gift of 2 small copper coins because they represented for her a generosity towards God and others that the gifts of the wealthy didn’t come near. So think about how God has blessed you and give accordingly.
And remember what happened with the manna. Those who had little, had enough, those who had much had only what they could use. Those who hoarded extra for the next day discovered that by then it was rotten and full of maggots. So trust God to provide for you whatever happens.
Finally, respond with fairness (8:14). In a sense that’s what the Micah Challenge that we’ve heard about today is all about. It’s a response on a national and international level to bringing a bit more fairness to our world. But with our own wealth, we can respond by seeing how we can share that wealth with others so they might share in some of the blessing that we’ve received; so we might use our wealth to make friends for eternity.
Let me encourage you to consider again what your level of giving to God’s work might be so that others might be blessed and that work might continue.
For more sermons from this source go to home.vicnet.net.au/~sttheos/
