Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon March 22, 2009
Eunice Pike has worked for forty years with the Mazatec Indians in Southwestern Mexico. She has learned great deals about how they do their social relationship. Very beautiful people, but seldom they wish someone well. Having heard the gospel, they are hesitant to teach or share it with others. If asked, “Who taught you to bake bread?” the baker answers, “I just know,” implying that he has gained the knowledge on his own without anyone passing it on to him.
Behind this odd social behavior was the strong belief in “limited good.” It is a belief that there is only so much good, so much knowledge, so much love to go around that to give generously, to pass on knowledge, to love much would bankrupt them of these. Even to love a second child would mean having to love your first child less. To wish wellbeing to someone else, to simply greet, “Have a good day” means you give away your own wellbeing, your happiness.
Can you imagine what kind of relational atmosphere would exist in this environment of selfish withholding? Can you imagine if all of us would work out of this belief that there is really only so much good, so much knowledge, so much love to go around?
To sow our lives on the strict principle of conservation on this belief that that there is only so much to go around makes sense if our resources are limited indeed.
For example, it makes absolute sense for too many people not to have more than one or two child for this very reason. They wonder if they would be able to provide the best education, the best experience, the best house to live, the best car to ride to school for their children if they had more than one or two. They wonder if they would be able to love them all if they had more than one or two. To maintain a certain level of lifestyle, to avoid the inconvenience and having to make sacrifices, it just makes sense to do away with just one or two. When this thinking is pushed to its limit, the logical conclusion is to abort babies by simply taking some pills or even to kill beyond the third trimester at whim for convenience. With this logic, God must have been out of his mind to bless Adam and Even and tell them in Genesis 1:27, “Be fruitful and increase in number.” Our so called modern sophistication questions God’s wisdom on this, even Christians do that, after all isn’t there only so much to go around?
This is the accepted and valued pattern of thinking and behavior of today. Christian call is to actively reject this unbiblical and ungodly and unnatural urge to sow sparingly only to reap sparingly.
- Give generously to reap generously.
You may remember the context for this passage from my sermon from last month when I covered 2 Corinthians 8:1-15. The Jerusalem Christians were hit hard by famine and Paul was rounding up Christians in other areas to give generously to meet their needs. In chapter eight, Paul’s encouragement was to excel in giving by patterning after Jesus who even though was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that we through his poverty become rich (1 Corinthians 8:9). Paul is continuing his exhortation for the Corinthians to be generous in giving and he builds his exhortation on further theological grounds.
Paul grounds us to embrace and pattern after the natural law of God, to sow generously to reap generously rather than unnaturally to sow sparingly only to reap sparingly. Farmers know this truth in their heart and they live by it. You may have the best weather outlook with just the right amount of rain, sunshine and temperature, but if you started off on the wrong course by sowing little, you will end up with little harvest. But, if you start off right by sowing plentifully, even if you are hit hard by foul weather, you could still have enough harvest. And, if the condition is right, you will have bountiful in your harvest.
So, much of our spiritual impoverishment might be the direct result of believing there is only so much to go around. The path to the spiritual enrichment is to reject this false and demonic belief, but to embrace God’s truth of right spiritual investment method of giving generously to reap generously.
- Give generously with cheerful happiness for God is the cheerful Giver.
Paul exhorts in 2 Corinthians 9:7 the kind of mindset that is required in giving generously. He gives two negative qualifiers and one positive qualifier in how not to give and how to give.
The first two negative qualifiers are not to give reluctantly or under compulsion. To give reluctantly is to have regret, to feel unhappy in result of giving. You will feel unhappy about giving if you focus on having less or what you cannot spend your money on. To give under compulsion is to give out of sense of obligation. To give because others are giving, to give because you feel you have to give, any of these “should,” “have to,” “since others are doing” yields sense of obligation. Paul says reluctance and obligation are not the right mindset for giving.
Instead, the right mindset for giving that makes God crazy is the mindset of being cheerfully happy in giving. Unless you find reasons to feel cheerful and happy in giving, your giving is not credited as generous giving. If not cheerful, then it is reluctant and obligatory giving.
Where do you base your cheerfulness? You base it on the fact that you are for-given much. In Christ, you are birth into the new identity not as people who must expect God’s wrath, but people who live by God’s abundant gift, his grace. In Christ, you move from being God’s enemies to his beloved who have received his gift of forgiveness.
Deuteronomy 15:1-11 is about the year of canceling debts, in which God commanded, “At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts” in verse 1. Forgiving any outstanding debts at the end of seven years was the act of giving grace.
A commentator says that in giving generously to the poor, the church continually celebrates her own “year of remission” by remembering her deliverance at the cross, while at the same time anticipating her final redemption on that “year of Jubilee” when Christ returns.[1]
To be in Christ is all about receiving God’s extravagant grace who gave his Son freely to die at the cross to for-give us. And, in Christ, we are called to for-give and give freely, generously, not out of obligation or duty. “God loves a cheerful [for-]giver.”
- Give generously because God’s graces you to be content and overflow in good work.
To give generously because generous sowing yields generous harvest and to give generously with cheerful heart, these are both related in that they build on the assumption that harvest will be plentiful.
Paul explains in 2 Corinthians 9:8 why giving generously make sense. It is because God of grace is in the picture. When you hear grace, another word that needs to pop in your mind is gift. When you hear grace, you think gift.
This God who bestows us his gift as his beloved is “able” God to ensure “at all times, having all that you need… abound in very good work.” “At all times” means none of those limited guarantee, but unlimited, unrestricted guarantee that cannot be revoked. It is perpetual and constant.
In Greek, “having [what] you need” is autarkeian which means contentment. So, literally, it would read, “having contentment.” God’s abundant gift of grace results in godly contentment. Contentment is the sense of wellbeing that comes from feeling that you have “enough of everything” (NRSV).
Not only does God’s gift, his grace gives us the feeling that we have enough of what we need, he gifts us to “abound in every good work.” Here, we see God’s purpose for our lives. While the world wants you to store for yourself, your own family, God’s purpose is that you overflow in good work, good morally and generous in spirit; good work that become ministry.
Why give generously? It is because you have God who relates to you in Christ as his beloved; he gifts you his grace to abound, so that you would always have enough of what you need and to feel content and so that you overflow in good and generous work of blessing others with generously giving of yourself.
Indeed, you can expect plentiful harvest when you sow generously because God of grace is generous to you.
- Give generously for it is the expression of your righteousness grounded in God’s righteousness.
Paul in 2 Corinthians 9:9 quotes from Psalm 112 which describes a person who is righteous and blessed by the Lord. Psalm 112:9 reads, “He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor, his righteousness endures forever.” Here, we see a connection between generous gifts to the poor and status of righteousness. Psalm 112:5 further describes this generous spirit and act of a righteous person; “God will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice.” And, going back to Psalm 112:1, this righteous person is described as, “Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands.”
Here is the connection between giving generously with being righteous. A person who fears the Lord is a person who takes God seriously and allows God’s word to make claims upon him. Not only does this person take God’s word seriously and is claimed by his word, he delights and enjoys in God’s commands. And, this trusting in God’s word as truly life giving and living it out become the expression of righteousness. And what flows out of this trusting and living out is generous giving. Another word, when God grips you with his word and have you abide in Jesus, you begin to walk in his Spirit. And, when you walk in the Spirit of God, righteousness is manifested in the way you care for the poor, in the way you give generously.
To this righteous response, God’s response in Psalm 112:5 is, “God will come to him.”
- Give generously for it generates thanksgiving, praises and glory to God.
Last thing, the reason to give generously is because it generates thanksgiving, praises and glory to God.
2 Corinthians 9:11 says generous act prompts “thanksgiving to God” and verse 12 “overflowing in may expressions of thanks to God.”
Paul also frames giving generously as in “obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ,” which then becomes a reason for others to praise God in verse 13 as well as for the reason of their “generosity in sharing.”
What happens ultimately in your act of generosity is that we point people to God’s “surpassing grace, “his incredible gift” and we bring glory to God.
- Conclusion
Hosea 10:12 says, “Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you.”
There will be couple opportunities that are coming to respond to God’s call for you to be generous.
- March 27, Friday: "Bring Your Own Friend" Barbecue... The Family Life Group will provide the dinner, you bring your friends and your donation… all donations will be given to the Mercy Ministry.
- March 29, Sunday: We will collect donation for the Mercy Ministry.
- April 4, Saturday: We are going to host dinner for House of Prayer church in Chicago who serves the Homeless people.
May the Lord enable you to fight to sow generously this week.
[1] Hafemann, Scott J. “The Theological Ground and Purpose of the Collection (9:6 – 15)” In NIV Application Commentary, New Testament: 2 Corinthians. By Scott J. Hafemann, 367. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, © 2000.
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