The Father’s Joy in Cheerful Givers

Sermon Transcript

Well, I’m really glad that we’ve reached this oft-quoted section of Second Corinthians Chapter 9 in our series on generosity. We’re five weeks in. Congratulations. You’re almost done with this series. But this particular section in verse 6, this verse I’m glad that we can quote it and teach it because it needs to be put in context, because we need to extract it from the mouth of the televangelists and put it here in its proper context. Because I know you’ve heard it quoted to you and if you’re back in the cable days like the old folks, you couldn’t avoid it. If you wanted to surf the channels you had to pass, you know, certain channels, and you’re going to hear this quoted at you often. You see it there printed on your worksheet, verse 6, was always quoted and that is if you “sow sparingly,” you’re going to “reap sparingly.” But “whoever sows bountifully,” then you know what’s going to happen. You’re going to “reap bountifully.” You’re going to unleash. You’re going to unleash the prosperity in your life. You’re going to sow that vow of faith. Right?

 

I see someone in this room (speaking mockingly with audience laughing) who is tied in poverty. But this promise right here is going to free you from your poverty. Over time, you’ve tried to budget your way out of this poverty. But here is the covenantal promise of God. If you would just send your money into my ministry, operators are standing by, you can have God bountifully provide you a harvest of financial prosperity. That’s right there. This is not my opinion. It’s God’s Word. If you sow bountifully, maybe a $1,000, we don’t need your pocket change. We don’t want $10 or $50 from you, right now a $1,000 vow of faith. That’s what you need to do. Some of you can do $5,000. There are high schoolers in this room right now who can give $5,000. You know where to find that money. $5,000. You send it in and God can multiply. What are you driving right now? Are you happy with what you’re driving? God can change that in a heartbeat. Are you okay living where you’re living? Is one house enough for you? God does not want you living the way you’re living, hand-to-mouth, paycheck-to-paycheck. You read God’s Word right here. What does it say? Prosperity. Bountiful prosperity. All you have to do is sow your seed of faith. Sow it, not sparingly. Bountifully. (end of mocking)

 

Right? You’ve heard this have you not? I don’t have to put on my, you know, impressions here. I just need to tell you. (audience applauding) Don’t applaud that. That goes against everything I’m trying to teach you this morning. (audience laughing) Here’s what I’m trying to tell you is that if you’ve been with us for the last five weeks there’s no possible way you can take that passage and try and think that someone on channel 40 has the right perspective on this. Channel 40, that means nothing to you. You cut the cable a long time ago. But you do understand that people who want to make this something that is about your prosperity and if you just give a little bit more to this ministry or that ministry or your church that you’re going to go from, you know, middle class to upper class, that is not what this passage is about.

 

I mean you know where we’ve been every week. We’ve reminded you this is about a famine in Jerusalem, and this is about giving and helping and sacrifice and selflessness. It is not about a selfish tool about trying to move myself into upward mobility financially. That’s not what this is about. And this is certainly not about some preacher using a passage to try and twist your arm, because the very next verse says in Second Corinthians Chapter 9 verse 7, this is not about compulsory giving. This is not about you being someone who’s being forced to do something. It’s about willingness. This is about cheerful giving. It’s not about you being, you know, somehow threatened that you have to get this gift in. And then if you just do that then you have this. I mean, there could be nothing in this text about you having some transactional relationship with God. I mean, if there’s anything about this that’s been relational, I mean, it’s going to get to this particular passage about your relationship with God that God loves a cheerful giver. This is about relationship not only with God but with the people in Jerusalem whom we should be caring about. If we’re in Corinthian sandals, we’re going to know this is not about that. This is such a distortion, such an abuse of God’s Word that I don’t even need to keep going and telling you what it doesn’t mean. You should know what it doesn’t mean if you’ve been with us in this series.

 

So it’s helpful that we at least just address the fact that though you have heard this abused, and surely you’ll hear it abused again at some point, that we know now that we’ve reached verse 6 in context, that you know what it doesn’t mean, but we need to lean in to figure out what it does mean. And that’s what we should spend our time doing this morning, because there is something going on here and some of it won’t be easy, I think, on the surface to understand even that phrase that seems to roll off the tongue and be so, you know, agreeable, that God loves a cheerful giver. That’s a great line in Second Corinthians Chapter 9 verse 7. But even that kind of has some thorny problems to it. So we need to figure this all out. So let me read it for you first, verses 6 through 11 in Second Corinthians Chapter 9. Follow along as I read it for you from the English Standard Version and see if we can’t make sense of all of this in its context.

 

What does this mean? Very important that we know what it doesn’t mean, but it’s even more important that we learn what it does mean. The point is this: something very important about this which is not just the first couple of lines in this agrarian illustration. It’s about an agrarian illustration, for sure, which is used in a lot of ways in the New Testament about sowing and reaping. We read in Galatians, we read it here, a lot of different ways this is applied, the gospel, you know, doing wrong things and catering to the flesh. Here it’s about generosity. And it says the point is this, “whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will reap bountifully.” Is this about getting rich? Is that what this is about? Keep reading. Now we’re going to deal first of all with how this is done. What does it mean to sow, what does it mean? “One must give as he’s decided in his heart.” And that’s a recapitulation, a summary of what we’ve already talked about. But it’s put in a nice, terse way, a nice compact way. “Each one must give as he’s decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” That seems really sweet, but that’s some simple concepts that I think evangelicals really struggle with. And I think I’ll make that clear in just a second.

 

Verse 8, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you.” I hope he means money by that, right? That’s what the televangelists are hoping, assuming you don’t keep reading in the context which they never make you turn to any of these passages, they just quote them to you. But that’s what if someone turns to this passage, that’s what they hope that’s what it means. God is able to make all grace abound to you, “so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” I’m not excluding the fact as you’ll see from the quotation in Psalm 112 that’s about to show up here, which I have already quoted part of Psalm 112 in this series, and it is a great psalm and I’m going to tell you we’re going to get there again this morning, but he’s going to quote verse 9 in Psalm 112 and certainly it may include your finances. But he’s saying God is going to provide, graciously provide, things to you so that you’ll have “all sufficiency in all things at all times you may abound in every good work.” That’s the harvest that God wants to produce in you. Good things, good works, doing good, “as it is written.”

 

Now this is the point that he here, the pronoun “he,” is the one who’s doing good works. That’s what Psalm 112 is all about. That’s a great psalm. And we’ll see in a minute why this is the psalm that clearly, humanly speaking, comes to Paul’s mind. Clearly the Holy Spirit is obviously guiding this whole thing, but it says, “he,” the generous one, “has distributed freely,” that’s what the generous person does, “he has given to the poor.” If someone needs something, he’s ready to do it. “His righteousness endures forever.” That’s not God. This is the generous person. His righteousness keeps on flowing. It keeps on going. It even lives beyond his life on this earth. Now “he,” this is a different “he,” this is God, “who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food,” clearly, in the context we know that, God’s the one who does that, “will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.”

 

Now again we see back up in Second Corinthians Chapter 9 verse 8 good works, and now we see righteousness. If you really want to get technical about what we’re talking about in terms of the “bountiful harvest” up there, the “reaping” in verse 6, we know that the word that Paul wants to use here is righteousness. We want more righteousness which again is always about others. It’s always about good for God. It’s always about the glory of God. It’s always about greatness somehow out there as it relates to being a godly person, holiness, it’s very, you know, spiritual in terms of doing good as opposed to grubbing and greedy and selfish and materialistic. Clearly that’s not the context. So I want to increase in the harvest of my righteousness. I want to abound in every good work, to quote verse 8 and verse 10. Second Corinthians Chapter 9 verse 11, “You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.”

 

So every way certainly can and does at times include your finances, but for what reason? So you can buy a boat, get a bigger house, right? Have a Rolls-Royce, or get, you know, a personal jet like the guys who are pitching this stuff on TV? That’s not the point. It’s not about, you know, spending it on your pleasures to quote James Chapter 4, this is about your righteousness. This is about the quote from Psalm 112 that you would be someone who is doing righteous things and abounding in more good works, and in receiving a harvest of righteousness. Okay.

 

We have to start with the last five words of Second Corinthians Chapter 9 verse 7, “God loves a cheerful giver.” I want to start there because this is really the carrot that is hung out in front of us. And it’s not a carrot at all for a lot of evangelicals because they have no place to put this in their theology. And it may sound like my whole first point is some kind of a parenthetical section, some kind of sidebar, but please bear with me in this. Indulge me in this little section here because I think we need to think this through as Christians who are going to absolutely affirm the evangelical gospel. We believe in the “euangelion,” the good news. And the good news, as you know, is that we are sinners and that we because of God’s grace can be declared righteous through the imputation, the accrediting of God’s righteousness in Christ. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us, right? This is Romans Chapter 4 that we are counted as righteous before God, right? We don’t have it and then we have it, just to speak in terms of human time. Right? And now all of a sudden we are declared righteous. And that’s based on God’s grace through faith. That is what we believe. And therefore you have it or you don’t have it, on that we agree.

 

So the problem with this is when I start to give a seven-week series on generosity you can read this and say, well, what carrot is this at all to say, “God loves a cheerful giver,” right? If I’m going to take giving and say cheerful giver, just use that as a rubric or a title, or an umbrella or a heading for the good giving that’s described throughout Chapters 8 and 9. Of course, this is horizontal giving to people over here in Jerusalem who need it, which has become the paradigm for all the giving that we do horizontally. But we also have to talk about vertical giving which clearly is the kind of giving that we give to God through our church in the New Covenant age, the New Testament age. So we realize giving has to go on and we want to do that well. And if we’re doing that well and we’re saying this just in terms of this whole thing about generosity, yeah, God loves the good giver, the good giver who does it right with the right disposition, the right motives, the right way.

 

Okay, that’s great. But some of us say, well, we’re evangelical Christians. I’m in Christ. God loves me as much as he’s ever going to love me because I’m a Christian. I’m accepted. I’m accepted fully in Christ. He loves me in the beloved and so I’m loved. And so what does that matter? I don’t have to be a great giver to be loved by God. It says right there he loves a cheerful giver and that’s great but I have no place to put that. How is that a carrot for me? I don’t have to stretch to be loved by God. Can you start to see where this is nothing? How is this a motive for me? And I want to say we have to fix this problem because it needs to be a motive for you. And the word “love” here is part of the problem.

 

So we need to start with this. And I’m going to take the word out in the point because you’re going to look back at this and I don’t want you to stumble at this if you find these notes six months from now. So let’s write it down this way. And we’re going to take the phrase “cheerful giver” and I’m going to kind of expand it to the whole concept of what we’ve been dealing with in Chapters 8 and 9 of Second Corinthians. And give me the latitude to word it this way, okay? Number one, “Know God Takes Special Joy in Good Givers,” right? I’m just using that to summarize these five words. Right? “God loves a cheerful giver.” God takes special joy in good givers. Now, that’s not going to shock you when you read it six months from now. But the words are, “God loves a cheerful giver.”

 

Now, you may be coming in here five weeks into this series going, yeah, but he also loves a mediocre giver too and I’m fine being a mediocre giver because, you know, I’m giving, you know, I’ll be an okay evangelist and I’ll be a really good usher and maybe, you know, I’ll serve in Awana. I’m just not going to stretch on this giving thing because I just need this, I need all my money. So I’m just not going to letter in giving, so…. And then I’m going to say, oh no, but God loves a cheerful giver. Yeah, I’m an evangelical Christian. I’m loved as much as I could ever be loved by God because I’m a Christian. God looks at me and he sees Christ. Do you know how much God loves Christ? He loves Christ to death. He loves Christ. So I can’t be any more loved than that. So what does that mean? I don’t know what it means, but it doesn’t mean, I mean, it doesn’t really mean anything to me. Matter of fact, I could be a terrible giver and God would still love me.

 

Do you see the problem here? Okay. Three things. Let’s just work through this. It may sound complete like where is he going with this? Let’s start with this. Number one. Letter “A.” Yes, God loves all people. And by that I mean all our contemporary humans on the planet. Yes, God loves all people. Okay. Jot that down. It would be worth jotting down. This is going somewhere. Trust me with this, right? Yes, God loves all people. In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew Chapter 5, here’s what Jesus says. You should “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Why? Because then you’ll “be sons of your Father … who makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rains on the just and the unjust.” That word, by the way, is the same word translated as “righteous and the unrighteous.” Okay, I’m going to be a chip off the old block. I’m going to be just like God if I love my enemies. So these are the enemies of God but he loves them.

 

Let’s start with this now. There are two ways the concept of love is communicated to us in the Bible. Okay. The first way is this way, and this way is that God is looking after the good of his creatures. In his human creatures, let’s put it this way, his interest is for their good. He makes sure that the rain falls on their crops. He makes sure that the sun shines on them. He is looking after them. He is a God who is the caretaker of his human beings in this generation. So that is his love. And in that sense, I’m going to say yes, God loves all people. And that’s one way we use the word “love” in the Bible. Now, if all you listen to is 70s love, you know, music on XM radio or whatever, you’re going to just look one-dimensionally at the word “love.” You’re going to miss the point. Love in the Bible can mean that kind of commitment to someone’s well-being. And in that sense, we can say the Bible talks about God loving all people. Yes, God loves all people.

 

But then jot this down. If we also know there’s another side that the Bible speaks of, another definition. The word “love” is big enough to encompass something about the feelings of God. Now trust me, I believe in the immutability of God. I believe in the impassibility of God. If you’re a theologian I believe all that. He’s not driven and swayed by emotions in that sense. But we’re made in his image, right? And I know that he has feelings. I can quote Genesis Chapter 6 verse 6, right? He regretted he made man. He feels grief in his heart, that whole concept there in that passage, because of their sin he was grieved to his heart, his “Lēḇ,” his heart. So here’s the idea that may be anthropomorphic to some sense but it’s giving us a sense in which God feels a particular way. Jot this down. Psalm 5. In Psalm 5, here’s what it says about the wicked. Psalm 5, “evil may not dwell with you.” You do not delight in the wicked. “The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord abhors bloodthirsty and deceitful men.”

 

Okay for you to say God loves all people, you’re right to say that if love is defined, as it is in Scripture sometimes, as his intent to look after people and to intend good, to look after the well-being of people, and that is love. Okay? But to say, you know, he feels peachy about everybody on the planet, right? To use love in that sense, no, I can’t say that. “The Lord abhors,” it says here, “bloodthirsty and deceitful.” So someone who was just thrown into jail last night because they raped someone and is sitting there in the Orange County jail, God is not going to say I just love that guy. That’s not God, right? He “abhors bloodthirsty and deceitful man.” Someone who ripped you off. Someone who has gotten into your savings because they’re out there, a con man who called you up and ripped you off? No, God abhors that, right? He hates evildoers.

 

Now, this is not the Sunday school distinction that you learn when someone said God loves the sinner and hates the sin. That is not what I’m saying, I’m saying love is a word that we can talk about in terms of yes, he looks after the well-being of his creation, his creatures. Right? But when he looks at these people like in Psalm 2:4, he holds these people who hate him, God, and hate his anointed Christ and he says he “holds them in derision.” Now does that mean he doesn’t look after them? No. He “sends his sun on the evil and the good. He calls them our enemies, “love your enemies.” They’re our enemies, right? But he’s saying this like God, it’s not like I’m out there trying to take my revenge on them. And currently, God is not taking his revenge on them. They “are storing up wrath,” to quote Romans Chapter 2 for the day of God’s wrath. But right now he’s taking care of them in the sense that he’s looking out for them. He’s at least maintaining their lives right now. So these can both be true at the same time. God can hate the sinner. He can hate the sinner, right? He can have the Genesis 6:6 response to them and also be the one who’s causing his sun to shine on them. And in that sense, you can say that’s a definition of God’s love for them.

 

Okay, second, Letter “B,” okay? Yes, God has a special redemptive love for his people. That’s a different kind of love. Now let’s talk about it from an Old Testament perspective. Jot this down and if you’re deft in the Scripture and you get there quickly, Deuteronomy Chapter 10 verses 14 and 15. This is the last book here of Moses, and he’s about to hand the baton off to Joshua. Joshua is about to go into the Promised Land. Moses is recapitulating the law. Deuteronomy, that’s what it means, the second giving of the law. He’s going to talk about it, expand on it, commentate on it. And here he’s saying about God two things, verse 14, listen, “Behold,” to Yahweh, “to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.” So who owns the pink slip on the earth? God does. And all the things in it, all the things. Read the last five Chapters of the book of Job, even the mountain goats that are birthing up in the mountains, right? These are God’s animals, right? Everything in the earth, right? Everything. Read Psalm 50. All of it. “The cattle on a thousand hills.” Everything out there. To the flies, to the kangaroos, to the giraffes, to the cockroaches. All of it owned by God. Including your neighbor. Including the people in jail. Including the people getting the, you know, the Nobel Peace Prize. Everybody on the planet. Everybody is owned by God. That’s what it says. Okay?

 

Next line, Deuteronomy Chapter 10 verse 15, “Yet the Lord sets his heart in love on your fathers,” that’s the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, “and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.” Right? Here they are sitting there listening to Moses giving the second, you know, telling of the law as they’re about to march into the Promised Land under Joshua. You are a special group of people, as he goes on to say in the book, not because you’re greater than everybody else, not because you were smarter than anybody else, and not because you were bigger in number than anybody else. Just because he chose to set his love on you. So he has a special covenant relationship with you people, this group of people, the offspring of Abraham. And I believe, as Romans Chapter 11 says that calling and that covenant are irrevocable. And God has a plan for that group of people.

 

New Testament now. God has in this age an international organization where he’s calling people into this relationship. And now he has this relationship in the New Covenant where he now calls people into an adoptive relationship. It doesn’t matter if you’re from Israel, it doesn’t matter if you’re barbarian, Scythian, slave or free. It doesn’t matter who you are, right? You enter into this relationship and God’s covenant is set on you. He calls you to this. And then let me quote this one for you, Romans Chapter 8. And I quote this advisedly and I picked this one. I could go to several passages, verses 38 and 39. Here’s what Paul says, God says, “I am sure that neither,” here’s a list now, “death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Think that through now. I have a kind of love as a Christian in Christ, a love from God that’s in Christ. So God’s love in Christ is different, this adoptive love in Christ. And I am now in Christ. And because I’m in Christ, I have this love from God on me, and nothing will separate me from that.

 

And the first thing on the list is very big. It’s called death. Now there’s something that’s going to separate your neighbor if they’re not a Christian from God’s love. The sun rising and the rain falling and all his provisions. Right? And it’s talked about, Paul wrote the Thessalonians and talked about the fact they’ll be separated from God, from the glory of his power, all the riches and all the things. It’s called “outer darkness,” where there’s “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” God has “appointed for man to die once, after that comes the judgment.” And so God will take his love, that provision of good, that interest in their good, that looking out for their well-being, and he will take it away. It’s the passive judgment of God. And so there will be a time when his love is not on them and he’ll say, okay, done. But for us, never. That is the redemptive love of God placed upon every individual who is in Christ, and that love will never go away.

 

Now that’s where a lot of evangelicals stop. We read the book of Romans, we crescendo into Chapter 8 and we go, oh, fantastic! And then we write best-selling Christian books about it and we say this. We make this categorical error. Everyone has an A+ in Christ. Everyone has an A+. Everyone. Hey, I may be a really cruddy giver, but guess what I have in the giving department? I took the subject of giving with Christ. I have an A+. A+. Do you know why? Because Christ is an A+ giver. You know what I have? A+. You know, if you’re a cruddy giver, guess what you’re getting with God, a cruddy grade. Does that mean you don’t go to heaven? It doesn’t mean that.

 

Letter “C.” Those things are true. Yes, God loves all people. Yes, God has a special redemptive love for his people. But God also has a special love for our obedience and it is contingent on our obedience. This is the part evangelicals struggle with. You cannot conflate our adoptive, secure love that we have that is given to us in Christ and say that somehow that means that when God looks at me, all he sees is Christ and I can be terrible at all kinds of categories in my sanctification and it doesn’t matter. Because if that’s the case then God can say things like this to us in his Word, “God loves a cheerful giver.” And you can say that’s a great platitude but it doesn’t mean anything to me, because guess what? I get an A in that category anyway. A+. Because you know this series, I can take it or leave it if Pastor Mike preaches on this. He can preach a 55-part series on this. That doesn’t matter. I don’t have to take a single note. I don’t have to give a dollar more. Matter of fact, I don’t have to give a dime to this church. I don’t have to give a dime to anybody in my small group. Ever. I get an A. And if I give something I can give reluctantly and under compulsion. It doesn’t matter. God’s going to love me as much as if I were a cheerful giver. That’s a categorical error. “God loves a cheerful giver.” Or let’s put it this way, the point that you wrote down. God has a special joy when you give well and you need to embrace that. That is the truth. It’s a carrot hung out for you. And guess what God thinks of your giving if it’s not good. (raspberry sound) That’s what he thinks.

 

Some of you have adopted children. You may have made the commitment to those kids, you’re my kids, I give you my last name, you’re in my family. And you may be saying to them when you bring them home, I unconditionally love you. I love you unconditionally. And you know what? I know what you mean and I believe you. Now let me take all my little computing devices and all my thermometers of love, and I’m going to come move into your house for the next month and see how your love is toward your five-year-old adopted child. And I’m going to see that it’s just A+ all month long. Never ever does it just not be A+, A+, A+, A+ because those adoptive children are never going to disappoint you because you said to them, you told them unconditional. Yeah, I get it. The ownership, let’s just put it that way as crass as that sounds, just like we are because it is crass, if you want to put it that way, you are the slaves of Christ. We are owned by him. Redemptively. Twice owned by Christ. Yeah. We’re owned. We’re his. Right? There’s no gift receipt here. I’m always going to be his. It doesn’t mean I please him every day.

 

In John Chapter 15 verse 10, Jesus said, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I’ve kept my Father’s commandments and I abide in his love.” There was a kind of love that he was clinging to in his relationship with the Father because he perfectly kept the Father’s commandments and Jesus is saying, hey, you’ll abide in my love if you keep my commandments. Now think about that. What are you talking about? I know there’s clarity because of the next verse. “These things I’ve spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Here’s the thing about you and your loving relationship with God when you are obedient versus disobedient. First John Chapter 1 makes this clear. “When we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.” There’s something about that, and there’s perfect harmony there. You’ve noticed the title of this seven-part series. I called it the Joy of Generosity, and of course, I was looking forward to verse 7 of Second Corinthians Chapter 9, when everything is firing on all cylinders and you are the generous Psalm 112 kind of giver, you are joyful in this, right? You are glad to do what God asks us to do, and you’re even leading into this sacrificially and you find joy in it. And you’re an obedient Christian. Some of you may say I’m not very good at this, and you may say I’m not interested in moving forward. Well, that’s a foolish thing to say because you should want to abide in his love. You should want to have what comes with abiding in his love, which is the joy that comes with a great fellowship with God.

 

In First Thessalonians Chapter 4 Paul talks about the instructions that he gives them. “We ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you’re doing, that you do so more and more.” You keep the instructions that I’m giving you, the Apostle Paul says with the authority of Christ, that you’ll do it more and more, that you’ll please God more and more. That’s why I put that sanctification booklet on the back of the worksheet. I think I used the word “aggressive,” but that’s the website. The booklet is in our bookstore called Just Sanctification. It’s just a little booklet. I wrote that in response to a bestselling book that basically said the last chapter was, I think, entitled Everybody Gets an A+. Not everyone gets an A+ when it comes to your sanctification. And I talk about it in one of those little chapters about the fact that we can please God or we can displease God. He can take joy in us this week, or we can grieve him this week. And until you get that you will never have Second Corinthians Chapter 9 verse 7 mean anything to you. The last five words of verse 7 will never be a motivation for you to be better at giving. Never. But they should. There’s something here for you to have God say I love cheerful givers. There has to be room in your theology for that to mean something.

 

Or a verse that I’ve quoted already in the series Philippians Chapter 4 verse 18, he says, “the gifts that you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.” What if the Philippians said I don’t want to send any of those? Well, I guess there wouldn’t have been a gift, an offering, it wouldn’t be fragrant, it wouldn’t be a sacrifice acceptable to God. It wouldn’t have pleased God. Yes, that’s the difference. You have an opportunity to do something that God would say oh, that’s a fragrant offering. Man, that’s such an acceptable, pleasing sacrifice to me. You can make that difference. God loves a cheerful giver, which I think represents all that’s been dealt with here in these two chapters.

 

All right, let’s get back to our passage, Second Corinthians Chapter 9 verse 8. If we can handle that truth, we’ll get back to verses 6 and 7 in a second but let’s just look at what this giving looks like. Obviously it’s about, you know, what is the reaping? I kind of tried to read this with some emphasis, verses 8 through 11. What is the good, what’s the harvest? And I pointed this out, good works and harvest of righteousness. But let me give you a heading and then we’ll give you four quick sub-points, okay? Number two for your outline, you need to “Know Good Giving Produces Real Good.” There’s good that comes out of you doing some good giving, which obviously is about proportion, and it’s about things that we’re going to deal with here. But I want to deal with all the things that in Second Corinthians Chapter 9 verses 8 through 11 are pointed out about the good that it produces. If you start leaning into generous giving with the right perspective that we’re going to read about in verses 6 and 7, then what’s the good that can come out of this?

 

So this is another carrot. The carrot is it’ll really please God and what’s the good that can come from you being a more generous giver? If after this seven-part series you’re a better generous person what’s some of the good that’s going to come? Well, let’s start with verse 8, “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” So let’s just deal with that. You’re going to abound in every good work. There’s so much in the New Testament about good works, I think of Colossians Chapter 1, good works, doing good works. So do you have the second point there? There’s the heading. Here’s the first sub-point, right? It fulfills your purpose. You can put this in parentheses now. Good works. That’s one part of your purpose. And I’ll just put down next to that Ephesians Chapter 2 verse 10. And that passage, I know you know it, it says, “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that you should walk in them.”

 

So let’s just picture it this way. He’s put a series of good works out there that he wants you to walk in. Now, I don’t mind watching YouTube as long as it’s someone else’s kid trying to play T-ball. They are 4 or 5-year-olds, they take a swipe at the tee ball, it dribbles off the tee and they run in every direction. I don’t mind if it’s someone else’s kid. They run to the car or they run to the dugout, they run to chase the ball down. That’s fine. But I don’t want my kid doing that. And if I’m the coach, I don’t want any kid doing that because there are some bases and even they’re five or four, I want them to learn to go to first base and then second base, and as long as they’re still looking for the ball, go to third base and if no one’s looking, go to home plate, right? That’s the whole point. You have to touch all the bases.

 

And here’s what I’m saying about this. God has set out a set of good works for you to run in, and you’re called to touch all the bases. And some of you are saying, because you have never even thought about the fact that you would really please God. God would just have a special joy in you being a good, generous giver. And you’re thinking, wow, can I do some other things because I don’t want to part with any of my money, or I’ll just do a little bit here. I’m just saying this, do you understand that you cannot touch all the bases in the good works that God has purposed for you to do if it doesn’t include some giving. It has to include giving. If giving is not a part of the repertoire of what you intend to do in your Christian life you’re not touching all the bases because for every Christian it’s going to involve giving. Well, if I had a bag of seed that was 300 pounds of seed then I could afford to give some. It doesn’t matter. Didn’t the widow’s mite prove something to us about this, the two copper coins? You could have a three-ounce bag of seed. You could have a three-pound bag of seed. You can have a 13-pound bag of seed. It’s not about how much you start with. It’s about you just having something and all of us have something and it’s about you giving, and everyone is supposed to give. And if you don’t give then you’re not touching all the bases of good works. And that’s what Second Corinthians Chapter 8 and 9 really are dealing with.

 

And just jot this down. I’ve already touched on this in previous sermons in this series, but Matthew 10:42, all of it is not just going to get the applause of God, which I think we’re touching on in the last five words of verse 7, but it’s going to be rewarded eternally. I know everybody in the televangelist world wants to talk about the here and now rewards, but remember, even a cup of cold water, you will not lose your reward. And that reward in that context is the eternal reward. God is going to eternally reward you. There’s something beyond in the next life that God is saying I’m not going to forget your good works. Certainly First Corinthians Chapter 3 reminds us of that. All right, it’s going to fulfill your purpose, and your purpose is to do good works, touching all the bases and it’s going to include giving, it has to. You can’t cut that out of your good works repertoire.

 

Secondly verse 9 and the beginning of verse 10. Look at our passage in Second Corinthians 9. Do you see it there? “As it is written.” Now he’s going to quote Psalm 110, at least the ninth verse of it. He says this, “He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor.” Who was that? The generous man. “His righteousness endures forever.” Now God, “he who supplies seed to the sower,” he supplied you some seed, “and bread for food,” he’s feeding you, “will supply and multiply your seed for sowing.” Okay, let’s just stop there. We’ll read the end of verse 10 in a second. That is reminding us that God is going to supply for the person who is like the Psalm 112 person who is actually saying, yeah, I have no problem, I’m open-handed, I’m not greedy, I’m ready to share, I’m ready to lend, I’m ready to give. And you know what? That’s because he cares about righteousness. And righteousness is about saying, yeah, if there’s a need then I’m going to meet the need. Okay.

 

Psalm 112. Let’s go to Psalm 112 and just get this in context. Psalm 112. Psalm 112 is such a great text. We need to read the whole thing. All right. It starts with the word “hallelujah” which is translated “praise the Lord.” Right? “Hallēlouia” the Lord, praise the Lord. What for? Well, because of the blessing that is upon the man who fears the Lord. “Blessed is the man who fears the Lord.” Right? What does that guy look like? He “greatly delights in his commandments.” Why do you think, humanly speaking, the Apostle Paul thought of this passage? Well, he’s just talked about “God loves a cheerful giver.” Giving is the topic on the table. Godly people should give. That’s what God wants, generous Christians. Christ is the model. We saw it in Second Corinthians Chapter 8. We’re going to end in Second Corinthians Chapter 9 with “the inexpressible gift” of Christ. Christ is our model, the second Chapter of Philippians. That is our model. So we are called to do that. We should be happy. We should “greatly delight in his commandments.” And so it is that God loves when we’re saying, hey, God wants us to be generous, I’m happy to be generous, I’m cheerful in my generosity.

 

Well, what’s that person like? Well, God just blesses that person. That’s the whole point of this psalm. “His offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.” Oh, it is about being rich then I guess. Well, that may be part of it. Why? Because righteousness, “his righteousness endures forever.” Righteousness. You don’t imagine a materialistic, greedy hoarder as a righteous man, do you? Do you ever see a righteous, hoarder, greedy person? That’s not how you define righteousness. Righteousness is going outward. Righteousness is trying to do good. So obviously the wealth is not there so that he can build more silos. Right? This is about someone whose righteousness continues on. The “light dawns in the darkness for the upright; he is gracious, merciful, and righteous.” That’s not to himself, right? He’s gracious, he’s merciful, he’s righteous.

 

Verse 5, “It is well with the man who deals generously and lends.” Do you need something? Here it is. Do you have a need? I’m generous. “Who conducts his affairs with justice. He’s not trying to get an angle on this. He’s not trying to get into your pocket. He’s not trying to rip you off. “For the righteous will never be moved; he’ll be remembered forever.” That’s what he means by his righteousness, right? It will endure forever. It keeps going. “He’s not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord,” in part because he’s seen God continually providing. Just like you as a parent watching your kids be generous. You want to continue to provide for that kid. And God does too. Not so that you can spend it on your pleasures, but you can continually be supplied for more good works. And that’s the picture. You’re “not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid, until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.” God is just plowing for this guy. And why?

 

Because Psalm 112 verse 9, “he’s distributed freely,” here’s the quotation, “he’s given to the poor,” if there’s a need, he meets it, “his righteousness endures forever.” Bottom of verse 9, “his horn is exalted in honor.” He is remembered, right? The picture of this man’s strength is remembered. Now, “the wicked,” can’t handle it, verse 10, “sees it and is angry; he gnashes his teeth and melts away; the desire of the wicked perish!” But this guy, he greatly delights in the commandments of God. And the thing that is recapitulated throughout this text that’s reprised over and over again, he’s a generous man, a generous man, a generous man, and a generous man who is not afraid. Do you know the reason that you will not be as generous as you could be if you let it and that is fear? You’re afraid. And the righteous man who’s ready to keep his commandments, who deals generously, who gives, who distributes freely, isn’t afraid.

 

That’s why if he has a three-pound bag of seed or 300 pounds of seed, he is ready to give and not worry. Well, what if I give here and I won’t have enough? They trust in the Lord and they’re not afraid. The first thing, it fulfills your purpose. Number two, it supplies you. That’s what happens. When you’re a good giver what’s the goodness produced? God then he’s just prompted to supply you for whatever good deeds are coming next. He will take care of you. He will meet your needs so that you will be generous. Which, by the way, Philippians Chapter 4, that great statement about the gifts that you sent are a “fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.” Here’s what Paul does in that passage just as a good pastor reminding them of that connection between not being afraid. The very next verse. Do you know what Philippians Chapter 4 verse 19 says? “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Wait a minute. You just gave me a gift. Paul just wants to remind you how pleasing that was to God. And just remember this God will take care of you. It’s a Psalm 112 paradigm. Just remember that. You didn’t have any need to be afraid. When you give just know, it’s okay, God will take care of you. Of course you didn’t give to get rich, right? You’re not listening to the televangelists. You didn’t give to get rich but you gave. And when you gave of course you can trust God. You’re not afraid of bad news. You’re trusting in the Lord.

 

Thirdly, back to our passage, bottom of Second Corinthians Chapter 9 verse 10. And he will “increase the harvest of your righteousness.” Beginning of verse 11, and “you will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way.” I just think the opening of this to harvest of righteousness and enriched in every way to be generous in every way, I just think the broadening of this is helpful to say, okay, this kind of takes us back to where we were last time in terms of your reputation. I mean, there is something about this when we often talk about spending the extra dollar, when I talk about going the extra mile and staying the extra hour, we can talk in the series has been about spending the extra dollar, right? Lending or giving or when I’m meeting a need. But there are other things and the “every way” helps me in that. Enriched in every way.

 

God does things to the people who are generous in providing them not only with more to give, more time, efficiency, more energy, more everything. God loves to supply. And in that sense, he strengthens the character, the generous character of people. I mean, he supplies a harvest of righteousness. You won’t just be known for the one facet of generosity financially. Let’s just put it that way. You’re not going to be known just for that one thing. You’re not going to be just the benefactor of the money. If you become a generous person with your finances, trust me, he will enrich you. The harvest of your righteousness is going to be more than writing checks. You’ll be enriched in every way to be generous in every way. I just think that’s an expanding promise. He’ll make you stronger, more spiritually mature, conditioned as a Christian to be useful.

 

And then the last one, the fourth one, the very last line in verse 11, “which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.” Now, I just want to tease you with that because that’s where we’re going to go in verses 12 through 15 and so we’ll leave that for next week. But the idea of thanksgiving, that should be obvious. I can state it obviously that when you give to meet needs, right? I mean, people are going to say, oh, we’re so grateful for that. Even corporately, right? When the church does well corporately, you give to God vertically, at the end of the year, trust me, the church is like we did it. We ended the year well. We’re able to move on and think about more ministry and positive ministry and plus ministry and then when you give to someone individually and their needs are met, they get through that tough time or whatever the issue was or they’re jobless, trust me, everyone gives thanks to God. We’ll unpack that much more next week. What a good thing that is.

 

But let’s get to the beginning of this. Let’s end where this started which I think is probably one of the most instructive things about what it means to be a good giver. Second Corinthians Chapter 9 verses 6 and 7. “The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will reap bountifully. Each one must give as he’s decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” In that section, those two verses, are really about the definition of good giving. We’ve seen what good giving does. We’ve seen kind of the carrot that’s hung out there for us in terms of the product of good giving, and the God who says I love that, I have a special joy in that. But let’s talk about three things here in this third point. The variable, it’s like there’s a spectrum here. So I’ll put it this way. Number three, “Know the Amount of Good Depends on You.” And there are three sliders if you will, like a sound board, three sliders that are all going to be in various positions as you give. Okay?

 

Let’s start with the first one. “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” When you think about how much you give, of course it has nothing to do with the actual number on the check or the PushPay, or however you give. Or however, if you’re going to give money to a friend in your small group. It’s not about the money, it’s always about the proportion, always, as we learned earlier in the series. But that proportion of how much you’re willing to part with really is connected to your love. And you need to realize that when John 15:13 says, “greater love has no one than this, that [Christ would] lay down his life for his friends.” Because there is nothing more you can give than your life. So let me give you two illustrations. One is vertical, one is horizontal. But I think both of these illustrations will help us to recognize there needs to be some sense of bountiful giving sparingly or bountifully, you need to decide, as you decide in your heart. So there’s a slider there. Are you following this? What does good giving look like? Right? Know the amount depends on you. So the amount of good, how much, what percentage am I going to give to my friend, to the church, to the person in need, to the church?

 

So that picture is going to God or going to my brother in Christ, that picture is going to be the slider of good which is based on love, right? Because love is often measured by what it costs. And so that’s the proportion of what I have. You have a three-pound bag of seed. You have a 300-pound bag of seed. It’s all about the proportion there. Okay. Let’s think of it this way. And the illustration may help. And this is, you know, 0 to 60. But let’s look at this. Let’s think about Second Chronicles, it’s also over there in Second Samuel. David numbers the troops. It’s a fiasco. There’s a plague. You may know the story. But at the end of this the plague stops and he’s there on the threshing floor that would eventually become the Temple Mount. And Araunah owns this thing and there are oxen and a cart. And David wants to worship God because the plague stopped and so he wants to buy it. He wants to buy the place and he wants to buy the oxen and the cart. He’s going to burn the cart and he’s going to burn the oxen to sacrifice to God. He wants to worship God.

 

So it’s dramatic. People have died all over and, you know, he’s the king and this is your property. You can picture all of this. And so David says, hey, I want to buy this property. I want to buy the cart. I want to buy the oxen. And Araunah goes (raspberry sound) you’re the king and this has been a really dramatic period of time. Take it. It’s yours. I mean, I’ll give it to you. Do you remember what David said in that situation Sunday school grads? Do you remember? Here, I’ll quote it for you. First Chronicles Chapter 21. Here’s the telling part, verse 24, “I will not take for the Lord what is yours, nor offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” Okay. That sounds very noble but I hope you can connect with this. Because if you’re going to come to church, let’s just picture we’re in the old days when you didn’t have all these electronic ways to give, and the only way you could give was when the bag was passed you either put cash or a check or gold coins in the bag. Let’s just say it, right?

 

And so the bags are being passed during offering and as you’re about to put a check in there because you’ve heard good sermons on giving so you know you need to give. So you have a good job. You’re about to put a check in the bag. And as you pull out your check there’s some guy sitting next to you who you’ve never met before. He’s wearing a suit and a tie so you know he’s a visitor. And all of a sudden now as you pull out your check the guy leans over and says how much are you putting in there? And at first you think it’s none of your business but for some reason you think, I don’t know, the guy’s dressed nice, whatever, I want to tell him. You say $250. He said, you know, just keep your check, put it back in your pocket, and he pulls out $250 in cash and gives it to you. Just put that in. Okay.

 

Now let’s just think that through for a second. You’ve come to church. You want to be an obedient Christian. You’re giving a percentage of your income that week to God. You’ve written a check, you came prepared. I just want to think there’s going to be a little battle between the spirit and the flesh in your life at that point, am I right? I hope you’re going to feel just a little bit dirty, if you’re going all right, I’m going to go to Best Buy on the way home from church today. I got my offering check; I could buy some speakers for $250. You’re going to feel a little dirty. Am I right? I hope you’d say to this guy no, sir, this is my offering. I’m not going to give my offering to God with your money. Why don’t you just put it in there? That’s your money. He says, no, no, I’ll give mine too but I’ll just cover your offering today. You go no, this is my offering. Because you’d have to say it wouldn’t really be an act of my devotion and love for God, it wouldn’t be worship if I’m letting you pay for it. This is from MY bag of seed, right? I’m doing this. This is why it needs to cost you something. This is why you need to feel it. This is why it needs to be something from your bag of seed that God has supplied you. And that’s where it starts. And so good giving starts with an expression of love and it costs you. Okay.

 

I think that’s a good starting place. That’s vertical. What about horizontal? In Genesis Chapter 23 Abraham’s wife dies, Sarah dies. And of course, he’s a nomad at this point, going through the Promised Land but didn’t own any of it yet, 2000 B.C., and he wants to bury his wife, of course. But he doesn’t own any of the property. He comes to the cave of Machpelah, and he’s like I want to buy a burial plot for my wife; I want to honor my wife and bury her in a spot that I own. Well, he goes to do that. He has a good reputation at this point and Ephron says to him, you don’t have to buy it. I’ll give it to you. Same scenario, different though now. And Abraham says the same thing. I’m not going to let you give me this. I’m buying a burial plot for my wife. I’m going to pay the full price. Now, that may be a little bit harder for you to refuse, but if you are I think in the right mind trying to honor your wife and you go down to El Toro Cemetery and you say, okay, you have your Kleenex and you’re going, you’re buying a burial plot. And you say how much is this? They go eight grand and you start writing out a check. And then here comes that guy from church in his suit. He goes, oh, let me take care of that.

 

I might be like, oh, all right, saved eight grand. And then from that day forward every time I go and visit my wife’s grave, I’m going to think I didn’t even pay for that thing. Some dude I didn’t even know came up and paid for that thing. I just think maybe I wouldn’t feel quite as filthy, but I think I’d feel bad about that. I think there’s something sweet about Abraham saying I’m not, I’m not…. You may argue there are other motives involved, but I think there’s something to that. So when you have love for your neighbor, your person in your small group, your sub-congregation, even your next door neighbor, and you want to meet their need, you want to love, as it says in First John Chapter 3, and you have compassion for them, and you open your heart and you give to them, and you don’t love just in words and in talk, but in deed and in truth, it should cost you something. So love is proportional in that sense. And I want you to think that way and think, okay, I should feel it. And that would be good. That’d be a good place for us to start. Good giving is proportional and driven by love. Good giving is proportional and driven by love.

 

Verse 7. Look at this passage again. Second Corinthians Chapter 9 verse 7, “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion.” Okay. So let’s put it this way. Good giving comes in relation to willingness. Now, how willing are you? Well, you’ve been preached at now for six weeks on this. You think well, it can’t be completely voluntary because I, you know, have been barked at now for six weeks about it. So I guess I better do it. But the more we can be willing toward this the better it is. The good giving has to be driven by willingness, willingness with a heart that’s willing and deliberate. This is my decision. I’m not reluctant. I’m all in on this and not under compulsion. I’m fully resolved. This is my choice. Volitionally my choice. Okay.

 

Two people are going to the same wedding. Person one is heading there, slaps his forehead, goes, oh, I didn’t get a present. I didn’t get a present. Well, let’s just say this isn’t a day when there’s no, like, gift registries. And so this young couple, they’re young, they have nothing. And it’s like, yeah, I think I need to get them something. Somebody is going to see. I can’t show up without one. So you pull into, you know, some store real quick, and you run down the aisle and you grab something, and then you run down the aisle where the bags are because you don’t have time to wrap anything, and you have to grab the tissue paper, and you hope it all matches, and you throw it together in the car and with sweat dripping off your forehead, you get it all together and you just write on the bag from Tom or whatever, and then you show up.

 

And then there’s person two. They’ve been praying about this wedding and they have been praying for this couple. They saved up some money for a gift. They thought about what would be perfect for this young couple. They thought through their lives, bought the present, they wrapped it, carefully wrote out a card. Just think about it, person two shows up at the same time as person one. They both walk up. They both at the same time drop their present on the gift table. Someone’s observing that and it looks the same, person one, person two. They must love this couple. They’re both bringing their presents. Clearly, one is under compulsion and reluctant, right? I didn’t want to stop and get that present. He didn’t have time for that. He was afraid of what people would think if he didn’t show up. The other one, love. The other one willing, the other one deliberate, the other one thoughtful. There needs to be a willingness. That’s good giving, right? Willingness. Not reluctant, not under compulsion. God sees that even when other people can’t see that.

 

And then lastly, joy, cheerfulness. “God loves a cheerful giver.” And maybe you’ve been around the block in the Christian life. You’ve heard people preach on this before. There is a hapax legomenon here, a vocabulary word in the New Testament only used once. And it’s the word that if you were to transliterate it, we get the English word “hilarious” from it. “Hilaros.” Hilaros is the Greek word only used once in the New Testament and it’s the word that’s translated here “cheerful.” So, you know, you can make more of that than you should, but it certainly is a pretty strong word for like going back to Psalm 112, which humanly speaking, I think there’s the connection “greatly delights.” You don’t just delight in keeping it, you greatly delight, right? Go back to First John. Right? “His commandments are not burdensome.” Not only are they not burdensome but I greatly delight in keeping his commandments. When it comes to generosity I’m happy to give. I’m happy to give. If we can get there that’s a slider. Like how happy can I give? How happy can I be to part with my income? That’s going to be hard to do, but the slider of like sacrifice of love, the willingness and the happiness in it, those need to be pushed up like a soundboard tech, pushing up all three of those sliders as far as I can put them. And it needs to be something that I think about.

 

Which, by the way, in a future sermon I’m working on for you all, I said that the word “Charis,” the word for faith, is ten times in these two chapters. There may be no lexical etymological connection to that, hilaros and charis, but there’s certainly a definitional kinship, and it’s a tight one between that word charis and the word hilaros, as we’ll see in a future sermon. What a great word to end on here. It ties back to the title the Joy of Generosity. And in that sense that’s a great place to be. When our hearts can be driven by love, it can be willing, and it can start to find the joy in doing what God asks us to do, producing more thanksgiving to God. Let me just say this. There are people in this church. They sit right here in front of me. They have quietly, generously, sacrificially sown into, let’s just think first vertically, to this church, they’ve given faithfully. And who knows, they may have proportionately given sacrificially, it may not have been the biggest checks, but they’ve given faithfully to the church, to the programming of this church.

 

Some have given the non-compulsory stuff that’s not even required like the building projects or the school across the street or the scholarship funds, you know, or are they work to put, you know, the radio ministry out across the country. They’ve given to things that have been promoted here, they’ve given to people in their sub-congregation who were without a job or had medical bills that they couldn’t meet. They’ve given to neighbors who have slab leaks or they’ve done things with their money that have been generous. They haven’t blown trumpets, they haven’t sought any reputation, they’ve just given and it doesn’t matter what the amount is, but they’ve given faithfully year after year after year. And here’s the thing, the harvest of righteousness that they have really started to reap, they don’t even know it, they can’t even see it. They’ve seen maybe a little bit of it, but God has seen every bit of it, and some of it won’t even come in this lifetime. It will follow them. And I know that because in First Corinthians Chapter 3 we always focused on the wood, hay and straw and always worried about that. But all of that getting blown out of the way produces the visibility of the gold, silver and precious stones. And that’s the stuff that the righteous act, the harvest of righteousness reveals and it shines.

 

And it reminds me of that Hebrews Chapter 6:10 verse, “God is not unjust so as to overlook your work,” in the things that you’ve done, the service that you’ve given to the saints. God is just keeping track of it all. And he’s providing that connection of the sowing and the reaping. The good gifts that are given are reaping a harvest of righteousness that we’ll be able to see one day. We can’t see the full extent of it now, but I just want us all to try to lean into that. As Paul said not for the sake of the budget, not for the sake of the provision, but for the sake of what is credited to the people who engage in it, which in this case is just the most attractive thing about this passage that God loves when that happens in the hearts and lives of our people. May that be true of all of us.

 

Let’s pray. God help us all to advance in this in a way that would please you, that we could see, if not the harvest of the righteousness that comes from it but at least in the joy, the disposition, the fellowship, and just a place where needs are met, not just in the budget of the church, but in the lives of the people around us. God let us just see your love here tangibly on display in this church and in our relationships.

 

In Jesus’ name. Amen.