Well in light of “One Sunday” and the climax of our stewardship season, we are pausing this week from our ongoing exposition of Psalm 119, so those of you who get the timing wrong completely and miss today because you showed up at the wrong time, now you’re listening online after the fact, you haven’t missed the next section of Psalm 119. However, we are turning our attention this morning to our stewardship verse and to the surrounding verses that provide its context in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, verses 1 through 15. You’ve already heard our stewardship verse from Matthew this morning, Matthew Turnage, 2 Corinthians 8:9 – “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you by his poverty might become rich.” As glorious as that statement of the Christian Gospel is, we mustn’t overlook the fact that it comes in the context of a challenge to the Corinthian church to remember the duty of radical, sacrificial generosity. Paul points us to the Gospel in this passage to help us understand how we who are its beneficiaries ought to use our time, talents and treasure for the glory of God.
And so to help us think carefully this morning about our giving as part of our Christian discipleship, I want to explore Paul’s teaching in these opening fifteen verses under three headings. First, I want you to see Paul’s teaching that Christian giving is an act of grace. It is an act of grace. Secondly, Christian giving is Godward. It is focused on and ultimately aimed at the glory of God. And thirdly, Christian giving is Gospel driven. It is motivated by, shaped by what God has given to us in the gift of His Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christian giving is an act of grace, it is Godward, and it is Gospel driven. Before we read the passage, rather, we need to pray and ask for the Lord to help us. So bow your heads with me please as we look to the Lord for the help of the Holy Spirit. Let us all pray.
Our God and Father, we bow now before You with Your Word open in our hands, knowing that our hearts are open and exposed in Your sight. And we pray that You would wield the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, with great power in all our hearts, summoning us to faith and repentance, to trusting in, resting upon the Lord Jesus as He is offered in the Gospel, and to that life of generosity and of service to which we are all called as we respond to Your marvelous gift in the cross of Christ. Work by Your Word in our hearts now, we pray, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Second Corinthians chapter 8 at verse 1. This is the Word of God:
“We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints – and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. But as you excel in everything – in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you – see that you excel in this act of grace also.
I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. And in this matter I give my judgment: this benefits you, who a year ago started not only to do this work but also to desire to do it. So now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have. For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have. For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness. As it is written, ‘Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.’”
Amen, and we praise the Lord that He has spoken in His holy and authoritative Word.
Christian Giving is an Act of Grace
James Petty, in his really helpful, excellent book on giving and financial stewardship in the Christian life, entitled, Act of Grace, which is a title drawn from this passage, Act of Grace – The Power of Generosity to Change Your Life, the Church and the World – James Petty gives this sobering account of giving trends among Bible-believing Christians. “There is a large and alarming gap between the amounts Christians are giving and both the provision of God and the needs of the world. We tend to attribute that gap to the high cost of living and the inevitable control of consumerism. We accept giving at two to five percent of members’ household income and adjust our ministry, mission and mercy to fit. But if God has given His people the time, treasure and gifts that are sufficient to carry out all His commissions, then we have a problem. It means that we are holding back a large portion of God’s treasure for ourselves. We are bloated with accumulated wealth, which not only cheats God and deceives us, but has seriously restricted His mission here and abroad. Giving in the United States has been static at 2% of GDP for 40 years. No amount of fundraising expertise, church growth or marketing and media efforts have caused it to budge. Christian giving has dropped by 20% of their income since 1968, while their income itself has increased by 50%. The more we make, the less we give as a percentage of our income. In the average evangelical church, between 9% and 23% of the members tithe. The remaining members give much less so that the average evangelical gives about 4% of his or her income. In other words, something like what happened among the Corinthians has been happening in churches like ours all across the country for at least a generation.
You can see what happened in Corinth if you look at verse 10. Would you look there with me for a moment? Paul says to them, “In this matter I give my judgment: this benefits you, who a year ago started not only to do this work but also to desire to do it. So now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have.” So it seems that a year ago, a year previous to the delivery of this letter, the Corinthians had begun to give and showed real promise, even eagerness in the practice of Christian generosity, but somewhere along the way it had stalled. Their giving dried up. Their generosity faltered. Their eagerness slacked off. And what Paul says here in response to the stalled giving at Corinth, I think offers a timely word for all of us today.
But do notice carefully how Paul addresses the problem. He doesn’t guilt trip them with stories designed to illustrate their failures, nor does he simply command them to do better and try harder, wielding his apostolic authority like a blunt instrument. And neither does he shrug and say, “You know, the Lord will provide,” and so he doesn’t even bring the issue up. No, do you see Paul’s approach? He starts by hitting the grace notes. Christian giving, he says, is an act of grace. The word “grace” is used five times over in these verses – in verse 1, 3, 6, 7 and 9. Over and over it’s used to describe God’s gift to us and the work that grace does in our lives as it overflows in our generosity to others. Twice over in verses 6 and 7, Paul specifically calls Christian giving this act of grace. He is wanting to encourage their generosity by grace, responding to God’s grace, resting upon the supplies of God’s grace in their lives.
And to illustrate for them, the Corinthians, what this should look like, Paul goes to Macedonia. He describes what grace did in the hearts and lives of the Macedonian Christians in verses 1 to 5. Look there please. Verses 1 through 5. “We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for” – listen to this language; isn’t it striking – “in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints – and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us.” What Paul describes here in Macedonia, he says in verse 1, is evidence, it’s a display of the grace of God that had been given among the churches.
So here is what grace does when it gets ahold of the hearts of God’s people. The Macedonians illustrate it wonderfully. Verse 2, “in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in” – what? It’s a surprising piece of calculus, isn’t it? Look at the math problem in verse 2. Severe affliction plus abundant joy plus extreme poverty equals – what? Considering these are severely afflicted people in extreme poverty, we might expect the answer to the math problem to be very little indeed. All their abundant joy notwithstanding, I very much doubt that a professional fundraiser, after a quick glance at this profile of the circumstances of the churches in Macedonia, would go out of their way to pay a visit. I mean severe affliction and extreme poverty – what’s the point? But look at the Gospel calculus of verse 2 again. Do you see what grace has done in their lives? Severe affliction plus abundant joy plus extreme poverty equals, astonishingly, a wealth of generosity on their part. They give, he says, according to their means and beyond their means of their own accord.
Now when he says they give beyond their means, he doesn’t mean that they overextended themselves irresponsibly and went into debt in order to be generous to the church. But he is saying that they gave not just from what they had budgeted of discretionary funds at the end of the month. No, they gave in such a way that they had to make some sacrifices. They had to adjust their spending, tighten their belts, rewrite their budgets in order to accommodate their giving. Giving wasn’t simply factored in as a regular monthly outlay. It was a purposeful and costly endeavor, and they did it, notice this carefully, freely, gladly and without being asked. In fact, he says in verse 4, “They begged us earnestly for the favor of taking part.” They begged Paul for an opportunity to give. They were eager to give. The grace of God had caused such abundant joy in their hearts that these suffering, impoverished Christians were giving both eagerly and sacrificially.
Unlike the Macedonians, however, the Corinthian churches were marked by abundance. Verse 14, “your abundance at the present time should supply their needs.” They were marked by abundance, verse 6. And in verse 7, Paul has sent Titus to minister at Corinth and he says, “We urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. But as you excel in everything – in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you – see that you excel in this act of grace also.” The Corinthians were rich and they were excellent in all the abundant gifts that they enjoyed. They are able, dynamic Christians, living in a major metropolitan city, a hub of commerce and trade and culture for the whole region, and they have prospered. But though they excel in everything, this one area was sadly lacking. The gifts of grace that were evident in their faith and their speech and their knowledge and their earnestness were lacking in this one vital respect. Paul wants them and he wants us to see that Christian generosity is a gift that ought to be evident in the life of a believer right alongside faith and speech and knowledge and all the gifts of the Holy Spirit by which we serve the Lord. Giving is service, it is ministry, resulting from the overflow of God’s grace in our lives. If you are a recipient of grace, giving is a vital, central, basic, natural and appropriate response. To put the issue negatively, a lack of generosity in a Christian heart demonstrates a neglect of the grace of God in that Christian’s life. Grace unhindered in the heart makes Christians generous in life.
That’s Paul’s point. It’s a vital principle for us to get clear, because when it comes to giving we often focus on mere duty only, don’t we? “I should give, I feel an obligation to give, I have a duty to give, and so I screw myself up tight and I make the donation, but there’s little gladness in it. No joy. No gratitude. No eagerness in it.” When the practice of Christian stewardship and giving rests entirely on a guilt trip, it will not likely become a sustained pattern or habit of life and it might even become a source of frustration or resentment or a trigger for rebellion and disobedience. We have to see that grace, the free grace of God in Jesus Christ, is the great motive force, the engine that drives Christian giving along so that duty becomes a delight. The Macedonians begged us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. Having an opportunity to give was a favor done to them, not a favor they were doing others. Is that how you think about your giving? “A favor God is affording me, that I have the privilege and opportunity to give. I’m not doing anyone else a favor.” So they begged Paul to be allowed to participate. They couldn’t wait to give. Giving is an act of grace. Do you see it? Grace generates generosity like this. What is God’s grace doing, producing in your heart? It is producing this kind of radical, sacrificial generosity?
Christian Giving is Godward
Of course it was because of the work of grace in their hearts that the giving of the Macedonians, in the second place, was also wonderfully Godward. It was not only an act of grace, it was Godward. They were oriented toward God, the great Giver. Look at verse 5. “They gave themselves first to the Lord, and then by the will of God to us.” The gifts of financial support, given in response to Paul’s appeals for the relief of the suffering church in Jerusalem, these gifts were only the tangible, monetary expression of a deeper devotion. They gave themselves first to the Lord. There was a personal consecration to God in Christ that marked their lives. In the majestic language of the order of service for the solemnization of marriage in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the English reformer Thomas Cranmer has the groom say to the bride famously, “With this ring, I thee wed. With my body, I thee worship. With all my worldly goods, I thee endow in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
That’s an echo of the deeper devotion of the Christian to the Lord Jesus Christ our heavenly bridegroom. We say to Him who gave Himself for us, “Lord Jesus, with my body, I thee worship. And with all my worldly goods, I thee endow.” Nothing held in reserve. Nothing kept for myself. No area of my life where His claim does not take precedence over mine. We just sang it, didn’t we? “Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise. Thou mine inheritance now and always. Thou and Thou only first in my heart. High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art.” Can you say that today? “Riches I heed not. Thou art my treasure.” You see, when your whole life is consecrated to the Lord, your money now cannot have a stronger claim on your priorities than He does. When your whole life is consecrated to the Lord, your money is all His already; all of it, every dime. That was the perspective of the Macedonians. They gave themselves first to the Lord and because they did, they gave their material resources so cheerfully and freely, limited and meager though they doubtless were, gladly to the God who had given all to them in Jesus Christ.
Christian Giving is Gospel Driven
So Christian giving is an act of grace. It is the overflow of God’s grace gripping and changing us. It is Godward. It is about and it is an expression of our consecration to the Lord Jesus Christ. And finally, Christian giving is Gospel driven. It is Gospel driven. Look at our stewardship text in verses 8 and 9 please. Paul writes, “I say this not as a command but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor that you, by His poverty, might become rich.” The first word of verse 9 is really important – “For.” “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” – it tells us what he is saying about Jesus Christ, provides the grounds or the support for what he has just told us in verse 8. These two verses need to be read together. In verse 8, he is setting the example of other people before the Corinthians in order to call forth from them evidence of their genuine Christian love, demonstrated by their generous giving.
And of course the supreme example he wants to set before them isn’t the generous Macedonians, as inspiring as their story doubtless was. The supreme example of self-sacrificial generosity is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. “For you know the grace” – there’s that buzzword again – “you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In other words, “What does it look like when a person is endowed with the riches of grace? What does it look like when grace suffuses that person’s life and shapes the life and drips from their life and overflows in their life?” Paul says it looks like Jesus Christ. It looks like the cross. Here is the epitome of radical, sacrificial generosity. Jesus Christ crucified. Paul is saying to the Corinthians, “You know, the very best way to get or to recover a generous heart is to get yourself to Calvary and to look long and hard at the cross.”
Notice carefully what Paul tells us about what happened at the cross in verse 9. Look at verse 9 please. First he says Christ was rich – “though he was rich.” His were the riches of the eternal Son dwelling in unapproachable light in the glory of the fellowship of the blessed Trinity, amidst all the praises and adoration of the angels. His were the riches of the divine Word by whom, as John’s famous prologue at the beginning of his gospel puts it, “By him all things were made and without whom was not anything made that has been made.” His were the riches of Lordship over creation, over time, over eternity. There are no earthly riches. Not all the riches of all the ages of the world combined that compare with the riches that belong by right and by nature to the divine person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But Paul says this infinitely rich, unspeakably rich, inherently, necessarily rich, eternal Son of God became poor. How did He become poor? When did He become poor? He became poor when He became a man, born of a peasant family, laid in a cattle trough, from the first moment He drew breath on this world of ours. In this world of ours He was in constant danger of His life. C.S. Lewis said that, “The condescension of Christ in leaving the courts of heaven and coming down to be born of a poor, Jewish maiden is a far greater lowering than if you or I could be reduced to a slug on a garden path.” “Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor, all for love’s sake becamest poor. Thrones for a manger did surrender, sapphire-paved courts for stable floor. Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor, all for love’s sake becamest poor.” He became poor when He became a man.
More than that, He became poor when He gave Himself as a sin-bearing substitute in our place condemned to the hell of the cross that we might be pardoned. God the all-glorious Son, emptied Himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, being found in human form, He humbled Himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. Down into our humanity, down into slavery, down into suffering, down into crucifixion, down into death and the grave He became poor.
Now why? Why would He who is rich beyond all splendor become so utterly impoverished? As perplexing as His self-impoverishment is, the motive is what ought to take our breaths away. Look at verse 9 again. Paul tells us. Why did Christ who was rich beyond all splendor become poor? “For your sake.” “For your sake.” Isn’t that astonishing? “Yet for your sake, He became poor, that you, by His poverty, might become rich.” For your sake, He impoverished Himself and all the terrible humiliations of the cross, all the riches of sonship, of being the heir of heavenly glory, of inheriting the earth, of holiness and happiness in fellowship with the triune God forever. All the riches that are properly His, He surrendered that we might come to enjoy them in Him. We are properly, deservingly poor in the sight of God. Natively poor in the sight of God. All our righteousness is filthy rags. Our religion is unimpressive to God. Our morals, our reputations, our boasts, our achievements – all of it is rubbish. It is dung. It is refuse. We are sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure and without hope save in His sovereign mercy. But He who was rich, inherently rich – rich by nature, rich by rights – He impoverished Himself to elevate us from our spiritual poverty to the heights of eternal privilege and pedigree and position. It is as though the greatest billionaire drained his account of every last penny in order to lift us from the gutter of our destitution and bankruptcy and indebtedness and shame, lift us to the highest heights of wealth and privilege. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who though He was rich, yet for your sake, He became poor that you, by His poverty, might become rich.”
And now Paul asks the Corinthians, he asks us, “Tell me, how can you put a cap on what you will give, the time you will spend, the mental effort you would devote, the energy you would expend in the service of such a Savior?” Can you say, “In light of the cross, I gave enough. I paid my dues and now He has to leave me alone”? When I was a little boy, my mother used to take us to church every Sunday, but my atheist father never came with us and I vividly remember asking him one Sunday morning on the way out the door, as we headed off to church, “Daddy, why don’t you ever come to church with us?” And he replied – I’ll never forget this – he said, “Son, I have paid my dues. I’ve served my time and now I’m done.” How blind he was. Had he only known and understood what Jesus had done for sinners like him, at the cross, he would never have thought in those terms, would he?
Now when we find ourselves at the foot of the cross, when we see what our Savior gave for us, what is our only fitting response? “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. I give it all. I give it all for You. How can I hold anything back?” So as you look at your own heart, as you look at your giving today, let me ask you to do it in light of Calvary. Stay within sight of the cross, and there, while you look at the one who was rich beyond all splendor becoming poor, that you by His poverty might become rich, there ask yourself if you are really giving like the Macedonians or like the Corinthians. Has your act of generosity stalled and your eagerness and fervor in the service of your Savior grown cold? Grace in Christ, grace flown from the cross made them overflow with joy. They gave not just out of their abundance but in such a way that they had to change how they lived in order to do it. They gave until it cost them something.
So let me be as concrete and as practical as I can as I close. You see, from our bulletin we have a $7.8 million dollar budget this year. And it might be your impression that our budget around here is floated by a small handful of very wealthy people who give the bulk of that money in great big donations so that your little gift is just a drop in the ocean that really doesn’t matter. That is, let me tell you, that is simply not true. Did you know that our annual budget runs on an average annual gift of $3,000 a year per giving unit. The average gift of a giving unit in this church is $3,000 a year. Now that’s both encouraging and challenging, isn’t it? It’s encouraging because it means if you can only give a little every year, your little gift is not irrelevant. Our big old budget runs on lots of little gifts. Your little gift really counts. And it’s challenging because probably most of us make more than $30,000 a year and can likely give more than we do.
So let me ask you, when was the last time you made an adjustment to your lifestyle in order to give more generously to the work of the Gospel in the local church? When last did giving really cost you anything, really cost you something? Maybe you come to church without any thought about giving at all. Maybe you’ve set up an automatic payment plan online and you haven’t adjusted it in years. It’s out of sight and out of mind. Even though the Lord has actually prospered you and your family income has grown considerably. Maybe you think giving is only actually about keeping the lights on around here and so whatever scraps of leftover cash you can throw the church’s way is good enough.
Let me invite you back to Golgotha, back to Calvary. Let me invite you to look at the Lord of glory with nails in His hands and feet for you. And let me ask you to think again about consecrating your life to Jesus Christ, about surrendering all you have in His service. Would you take another long look at the cross and say to Jesus, “With my body, I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow. Nothing held back. Nothing kept in reserve. All for Jesus.” “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all.” All for Jesus. Nothing held back. May God help us. Let’s pray.
Our God and Father, we find it difficult to talk about money. It’s a source of enormous stress for most of us. It is a dreadful idol in the lives of some of us. Either the money we wish we had and do not yet have, or the money we have and want to grow, we easily find ourselves living for it. Please will You forgive us and to tear from the throne of our hearts this counterfeit god and to there set apart Christ as Lord, where He belongs. Please would You bring us, all of us, back again to Calvary hill and see the One who was rich beyond all splendor pouring Himself out, becoming poor, naked, hated, despised, emulated, torn, broken, bearing the wrath of God we have deserved. One who was rich becoming poor that we, by His poverty, might become rich. Show us Christ, and looking at Him, help us to give our all, to give our all, to give our very selves first to the Lord that in all things Jesus Christ may have the supremacy. For we ask it in His name, amen.