Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon February 1, 2009
God’s been incredibly gracious to me these days for capturing my heart and growing it to fight for the faith. There has been this deeper stirring inside of me that says there’s got to be more for my marriage, for my parenting, for my calling as a pastor, for my flock, you guys. So, I’ve been fighting for the things that are worth fighting for with God’s help.
One of the ways I’ve been fighting these days for my marriage is to fight for true fellowship as husband and wife. Biblical fellowship happens when God takes the center stage of our conversations. So, I’ve been sharing intentionally with Lyn what God’s doing in me. And, Lyn’s been doing the same. By sharing deeper about what God is doing in us, we’ve been fighting for authentic fellowship in our marriage.
So, it was during these conversations last couple weeks I shared with Lyn my reflection on what we are missing. What we are missing is the element of living on the edge beyond our comfort zone. Living on the edge as in doing things that are difficult, that requires determination and perseverance and stretch me to the breaking point, that unless I learn to depend on God and unless I learn to walk with God and work with his enabling power, things won’t get done. Am I engaged in the things that will stretch my faith? Am I engaged in the things that will make me uncomfortable because it requires deeper trust in Jesus? Am I engaged in the things that require boldness? Am I engaged in the things that deeply matter to God?
How much boldness, courage, and faith do I need to love myself, pamper myself? Not too much! We don’t need to live on the edge when life is about creating comfortable and exclusive cocoons for ourselves and for the select few individuals we may care. Everybody does that, Christians or not.
But, as Christians, we cannot simply engage in creating comfortable spaces for ourselves. That’s not the way Jesus went about living. 2 Corinthians 8:9 says, “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.” Now, this is what I am talking about when I speak about living on the edge. Living on the edge that demands boldness, courage, perseverance, patience, deeper trust in God of hope and transformation… living on the edge happens when you and I live beyond the comfort zones of ourselves.
God has highlighted for me last year in the month of December one specific area that he wanted us to work on that will require from us sacrificing our time, effort and money to take care of the poor. Last year, I took Mike, Adelaide and Sarah to a church called, House of Prayer in Chicago. It is a church ministering specifically to homeless people. And, this coming Saturday, we are going to have an opportunity to prepare dinner for about 50 people and bring it to the church to serve the homeless while celebrating God’s grace with them in their vibrant worship service.
God wants us to live counter-culturally. While everyone is scrambling to take care of themselves in recession, we as a church is going to take a baby step to come out of our cocoons to live out God’s love for the poor. It’s going to require generous giving of our time, energy, effort, money and it is going take some good recipes and creativity to serve well.
2 Corinthians 8 & 9 explains what God wants to do through you and me. He wants to raise us to fight for generous giving. In these two chapters, Paul gave reasons why the Corinthians must excel in grace of giving, specifically for the poor living in Jerusalem.
1. Fight to excel in generous giving because God is generous to you.
2 Corinthians 8:9 sums it up for us. God’s call, his expectation, his command to fight for generous giving is based on the reality of what he has done for us through his Son Jesus Christ. “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.”
What is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ? It is the fact that although he was rich as God’s Son came down and took on human body, became poor for our sakes, lived as God-Man subjecting himself to humility, suffering and ultimately facing death on the cross and in three days being raised from the dead by God the Father. Jesus did this for our sakes so that we through his poverty become rich.
Some gravely misinterpret and misuse this verse to argue that God wants us to become rich financially. So, they argue that giving gets you rich. But, this is far from the plain teachings of the Scripture. Jesus didn’t die for us so that we can be all rich people. He died for us so that we can live in his grace to be generous giver. The goal is not about getting rich materialistically, but it is about being generous giver out of God’s abundant supply that meet all our needs; it is about being generous giver as Jesus gave up his rich and took on poverty in order to enrich us with spiritual blessings.
I love how God has more than one way to help us understand the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ for us. How do we go from the status of being poor, spiritually bankrupted, to being rich, saved and delivered from sins into abundant life of Jesus Christ? We don’t go from being poor to rich by the conventional wisdom of working really hard and saving enough to be rich. No, we go from being broke and destitute, from being nobody to the royal sons and daughters of the Almighty God by trusting in Jesus Christ for forsaking his rich and taking on poverty for us.
And, this work of God in Jesus Christ, this grace is the reason for our generous giving. Because God has given us so much, we as his sons and daughters give much out of God’s abundant blessing. Because God is the generous giver, we fight to excel in generous giving.
2. Fight to excel in generous giving because it is your privilege.
Paul highlighted to the Corinthians about the Macedonian churches to illustrate how generous giving works. Paul speaks in 2 Corinthians 8:1 about how the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches manifested in their lives.
Grace of God did two things for them. They were generous out of the most severe trial meaning they didn’t wait until it was safe to give. They were also generous out of their overflowing joy that resulted from their relationship with God. God’s grace enabled them to experience joy and out of this joy, they gave generously.
For Paul, the amount they gave wasn’t important because what mattered to him was how they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability, meaning they gave the maximum they could give and top of that gave even more although it affected them financially. And it was entirely on their own; they weren’t responding out of guilt or grudgingly, but simply in response to God’s abundant grace in Jesus.
Here is what’s remarkable in verse 4, “they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints.” They did it not out of guilt, nor grudgingly, but out of their deep conviction that it was their privilege to share for those in need. English Standard Version, translates NIV’s “urgently pleaded” as “begging… earnestly.” Do you get how different this is? When the Christians from the Macedonian churches learned about the poverty of the Jerusalem Christians, they saw it as their problem that must be addressed. It is like us begging the House of Prayer for us to come down and to share meals with them, to have heartfelt fellowship with them, to share what God is doing in us, because we are convinced that it is our privilege to do so.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8:8, “I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others.” Paul was not commanding them because giving generously isn’t something that God expects out of us. God does expect us to be generous giver because he is the generous giver. But, what Paul was getting at was the spirit of generous giving that flows out of deep and sincere gratitude and love for God’s grace through his Son Jesus. Paul didn’t want the Corinthians to do merely what they were expected to do as Christians. Paul wanted not just duty, but privilege, thankful delight to meet the needs of others that flows out of living relationship with gracious God.
3. Fight to excel in generous giving through the principle of willing and proportional giving
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8:12, “For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have.”
The principle of proportional giving is very important. Even in our midst, we have varying degree of income levels. If we were to measure generous giving in terms of dollar amount, whoever gives more would be considered generous giver. But, Paul tells us that this isn’t the way it works. Generous giving is measured by willingness and proportional giving.
In order to give because God is generous to you and to give because it is your privilege to give, it requires your willingness to give. No one needs to compel or motivate to give, to share, because you are more than willing. And, giving proportionally to what you have equals the plain field. It doesn’t matter how much you earn, you can contribute and share meaningfully and generously if you give from what you have. If you have $100 and you need $50 to meet your needs, to give $20 will be giving 20% of what you have. But, if you have $10,000 and need $5000 to meet your needs, to give $500 although so much more than giving $20, it will be only giving 5% of what you have. What counts is how much you give out of what you have that will please the Lord.
Conclusion
I am very excited to see what God’s going to do as we take baby steps out of our comfort zone and live on the edge where we cannot do things on our own, but we must seek God’s grace and work together.
More I explore God’s word, more I become convinced that fight to excel in giving generously to meet the needs of the poor will not only fulfill our duty as Christians, but it is going to revive us because it is going to move our hearts to deeply rejoice in God’s abundant grace, enable willing spirit, deep gratitude and love for God and to give generously.
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