Feb 23, 2020
by: Jack Lash Series: 2Corinthians: Paul's Most Underappreciated Epistle | Category: Giving | Scripture: 2 Corinthians 9:6–10
- Introduction
A. I think we reach the climax of these chapters today.
B. 2Corinthians 9:6–10 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And 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. 9 As it is written, “He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” 10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.
1. Now we’ve actually already covered the principle of in v.7.
2. But today we’re going to think about the other two principles in this passage.
a. Verse 6: God richly blesses those who generously give.
b. Verse 8-10: God provides us enough to be generous.
II. Generosity has great reward.
A. For 29 verses, Paul has been appealing to the Corinthians about giving to his collection for the poor in Jerusalem. Now, in v.6, Paul summarizes what he’s been saying like this: “The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.”
1. Paul here uses the analogy of farmers and sluggards. He says that the farmer who diligently sows much seed in the spring will be given a plentiful harvest in the fall.
2. This is a major theme in the book of Proverbs (Prov.10:4; 12:11, 27; 13:4; 20:4, 13; 24:30-34; 28:19). You have the diligent man who prospers and the sluggard or lazy man who squanders away his time and sows very little.
3. And now Paul takes this theme and turns it beautifully to mean something much deeper & bigger, something which isn’t limited to mere earthly things but includes bigger, more elusive treasures like fulfillment and joy and hope and meaning/purpose and real, infinite, eternal love.
4. For many people have plenty of money but are miserable nonetheless.
B. This principle is seen in other places as well.
1. Proverbs 3:9–10 Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce; 10 then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.
2. Proverbs 11:24–25 One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. 25 Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters (others) will himself be watered.
3. Malachi 3:10b Put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.
C. This implies that God is sovereign over our finances.
1. 1Samuel 2:6–7 The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. 7 The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts. (See also Job 1:21)
D. He does this in two ways: The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.
1. The Lord gives.
a. The Lord makes things happen. He opens doors, He inclines people’s hearts to us.
b. Think about the farmer: the Lord is the One who makes the rain come and the sun shine, and holds off the locust and the pest, so that the crops grow.
c. We could spend the whole day telling stories of how the Lord has blessed us with financial provision, in ordinary ways and in extraordinary ways.
2. The Lord takes away.
a. Malachi 3:11 I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the LORD of hosts.
b. Haggai 1:6 You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.
E. We know God is sovereign, but do we really believe that He will bless us more if we bless others more? Do we really believe that “whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.”
1. It’s so counterintuitive that the more you give, the richer you are. But that’s what God says.
2. The question is, Are we going to believe it? Are we going to believe that we are helping ourselves when we are generous, and hurting ourselves when we’re stingy? Because it sure feels like we’re impoverishing ourselves – not enriching ourselves – when we give money away.
3. In Eph.5:28, Paul says that a husband who loves his wife is thereby loving himself, and a husband who doesn’t love his wife is only hurting himself. And so it is with giving. The person who gives to others benefits himself, and the person who doesn’t give hurts himself — even financially.
4. If you want to live a full life, a life of blessing, an abundant life, then you need to give of yourself. If you want to harvest well, you’ve got to sow well.
5. When we are tight-fisted, we don’t primarily deprive others, we deprive ourselves.
F. We can see this in the example of Christ.
1. He spent everything He had for us.“Though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” – 2Corinthians 8:9
2. But He didn’t remain impoverished. He ended up very rich: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” Rev.5:12
3. Why? Because God was pleased by His Son and was determined to bless Him for what He did.
G. And when we love with the love of Christ, we imitate Him. And God is pleased, and determined to bless. And just as there’s nothing worse than having God against you, there’s nothing better than having God determined to bless you.
1. Pr.19:17 Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will repay him for his deed.
2. Matt.25:40 Jesus says, “If you did it to them, you did it to me.”
H. Beloved, our use of money is a real test of who we are and what we really believe.
1. It’s a test of what’s first in our lives, what’s at the center, what rules us, what is our target in life.
2. It reveals what is the end to which we strive, the end to which everything else is just a means.
3. Are we really all about being comfortable and happy in this life? Or is there something bigger we live for? Is there Someone bigger we live for?
III. God provides His people with enough not only to meet their needs, but to share with others.
A. 9:8-10 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. 9 As it is written, “He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” 10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.
B. In other places the Bible tells us that God will supply all that we need. But here Paul says much more. He promises that God will provide all we need to be generous (9:8–10).
C. You see, not only does God promise to bless us if we give, He promises to bless us before we give, in order that we may give. “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.”
D. When we’re faced with the idea of giving, it’s easy to conclude that we don’t have enough to spare, and that therefore we can’t give. How can you give if you have nothing?
E. But WHY don’t we have enough to give?
1. Is it because of fear – we’re worried about the future. We feel like we have to have enough not only for today but for the next few months or years?
2. Or is it because we’ve already spent any extra we might have had? We borrow tomorrow’s wages and spend them today. So we never have anything to give. It’s gone before we have it.
3. Or maybe God doesn’t give us enough to be generous because He knows that it He does, we won’t be generous, we’ll just consume it ourselves.
a. Maybe He’s not providing enough it’s because He knows what we will do with it if we get it.
b. Why should He give us more than we need if He knows we’re just going to spend it on ourselves?
c. Maybe God doesn’t give us more than we need until the necessary generosity is in our hearts.
d. Sometimes not having anything to give is smokescreen, because we wouldn’t give even if we had enough to give.
F. God gives us things so we will enjoy them. 1Tim.6:17 makes that clear.
1. But He also gives them so we can share them with others.
2. We are blessed to be a blessing!
G. If you really want to give, if the heart is full of love and compassion, then we can usually find a way to help.
1. If you really want to give but have no money, if that generosity is in your heart but there’s nothing in your wallet, then what would we do? We would pray that God would give us something so we can give, wouldn’t we? If we don’t do that, it seems like the generosity isn’t there.
H. When we have a generous heart, we begin to expect to be able to help when someone has a need. “God’s probably going to have a way for me to be able to help.”
1. “All things belong to you.” 1Cor.3:21-22; 2Cor.4:13-15, 6:10 All the money in the world is yours.
2. Do you think that if you actually possessed it all you’d be able to faithfully manage it? Of course not. So, God finds others through whom He manages it, but He still controls it all for us, and as soon as we need any, He makes sure we get it immediately.
3. What? How can this be? I needed it last week and it still hasn’t come!
4. Is it possible that you felt like you needed it but you really didn’t need it?
5. He knows your situation perfectly. And if you love Him and are called according to His purpose then He will work out all things for your good (Rom.8:28) – even money. So, if He didn’t provide it, you didn’t need it.
6. The person who really believes that all things are his will never be a lover of money.
7. He’s already got all the money in the world.
8. We are only lovers of money when we don’t believe this.
I. And this is about much more than money. Generosity of spirit, generosity of heart, generosity with our time, generosity with our forgiveness, love, honor, encouragement, generosity with the gospel.
1. We expect to be able to provide for the needs of others when we are confronted by them.
2. That doesn’t mean we expect we will have exactly what they want. But we’ll have something they truly need. Peter and John: “Silver and gold I don’t have, but what I have I will give you.” (Acts3)
IV. Conclusion
A. We are given a stark contrast in Scripture between two alternatives.
1. On the one hand, we have the man who is consumed with the love of money, ruthless and cutthroat, willing to do whatever it takes to accumulate wealth, but the object of God’s displeasure and, in the end, His just wrath. He uses people as if they’re just tools. He abuses people as if they’re just obstacles in his way. This man is well-described in James 5:1–5 “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. 4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.”
2. And on the other hand, we have the Macedonians (2Cor.8:1-5) who in an abundance of joy overflowed in a wealth of generosity, begging Paul earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. They not only gave but they counted it as a privilege to give.
B. Two very different pictures. And they form the two ends of a spectrum. And we are all somewhere on that spectrum.
1. The Corinthians seem to have been in the middle.
2. But the bigger question isn’t where you are on the spectrum. The bigger question is where we are headed, where is our target? What is our ambition? - You see, the two models actually have a lot in common. They are both ruthlessly about something. They are both consumed with an ambition.
1. One is consumed with earthly ambition and the other is consumed with eternal ambition.
2. The hymn puts it this way: “One holy passion filling all my frame.” (Trinity, 338) Do you want that? Do you pray for that? Do you grieve over the extent to which you don’t have it? - One of the main reasons people struggle to seek God is because they are afraid of the pain involved in getting there.
1. This fear, it seems to me, comes from one of two sources. Either it comes from a failure to grasp how messed up we are and how much we need to be changed (we are far too content with who we are right now), or it comes from a failure to appreciate the value of the transformation God wants to bring to pass in us. Both were true of me.
a. I thought I was fine – as a husband, as a father, as a pastor. I had little idea of my potential to accidentally hurt people. Now I pray, “Lord, help me not to damage people.” And if you’re a parent and you are not alert to the very real potential to damage your children, and to the very real possibility that right now you are damaging your children, you are blinded by your pride.
b. Imagine a you so filled with Christ that other people ask you to explain the reason behind your obvious hope. Imagine a you which is able to be at peace even when everyone around you is panicking. Imagine a you who cares so much about Christ that Imagine a you who can honestly say, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” and “It is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me” and “His lovingkindness is better than life!” If you have no interest in being like that, you’re probably fooling yourself to think you’re a Christian.