Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Have a seat.
[00:00:03] Well, good morning, everybody. Good to see you this morning, if I haven't met you yet. My name is Craig Jarvis. I'm the lead pastor here at Village Church east, and we actually have been studying through Second Corinthians. We're going to continue our study through Second Corinthians. So if you're just joining us, you're kind of jumping into the middle of a TV series here, but it's easy to catch up. And I wanted to just let you know that because in a few weeks, we're going to actually walk into the last weeks of Jesus. And so I want to encourage you to. That'll take us, actually up to and through Easter. And it's a wonderful study that I've been working on. I'm anxious to get to it, and we'll probably start it in this place and hopefully finish it in our new location. I'm echoing right now, and it's probably irritating you because it's irritating me. So they're working on it. All right. All right. I want to ask you a question. So here's my question for you this morning. Here it is. All right. What is if you've had kids, even if you haven't had kids, like, you've seen people who have had kids. All right, so what is the first.
[00:01:13] What is one of the first words that they said that surprised you that they would actually know? Like, kids come up with words on their own. Like, all right, no swear words or anything, but kids come up with their own words, right? They kind of adapt what they hear. So what are the first couple of words that maybe have surprised you that you've heard? Like, little tiny children, first words that have come out of their mouth. What are some of them? Like, mama would be one, right? Batman. Batman. Would that be one? All right. Yeah, that's definitely somebody with a TV on. Too much. All right.
[00:01:47] Dada would be one.
[00:01:49] One that always amazes me is mine.
[00:01:53] Like, you don't have to teach them this word. It just comes from the seagulls, right? This is from Finding Nemo. You remember this? Mine, mine, mine, mine.
[00:02:01] This is an interesting word that kind of comes naturally to children, and you don't need to give them a lesson on how to figure out this word. They not only know how to say it, but. But they know what it means. That is mine. And then, you know, it's in their DNA for the rest of their lives. Now, thank God that as you get older, you grow out of that, right?
[00:02:25] Yeah. Ask Elon. No, I'm Just kidding. All right. Depending on how many verses you read in the Bible and how you interpret these verses, I want to show you something about scripture that you may not know. Here's some topics in the Bible that are very popular. Baptism. But there are only about 40 verses on baptism. Prayer. That's a big one. But there are only 275 to 300 verses on prayer. How about faith? That's an enormous one, right? Only 350 to 500 verses on faith. How about love? Right. Love conquers all. That's the big one. Only about 600 verses on love. But when you get to finances and material possessions, there are 2,000 to 2,300 verses on those topics. And if you look at Jesus and his parables, half of his parables dealt with financial issues. Now, does that surprise you? It surprises me. Now, unless you go to a church where, like, the pastor is constantly talking about finances, that is not this church, by the way. But this is where we land in 2 Corinthians. We land in a chunk of scripture that deals with this very popular topic in scripture and with Jesus. And my question is, why do we need so many verses on finances and personal possessions? And of course, we already kind of know the reason to that, right? We are always like, our Achilles heel is how to deal with money.
[00:03:58] How much of your life is stressed out because of money?
[00:04:03] Our first response to money usually is not, hey, let me give it away. It's usually, hey, I want to keep more of it because it is mine, right? Mine, mine. That's the theme of the day. Mine.
[00:04:18] It is universally stuck in our brains this way. I watched a politician interviewed, and he thought he was saying a very popular.
[00:04:29] He thought he was saying something that would make people go, oh, yeah, I like this guy. I'm going to vote for this guy. This is a couple of months ago, and they were interviewing him and he said, listen, my whole job is to figure out how I can allow you to keep more of your money.
[00:04:45] Do you need me to say that again? Because when I heard it, I went, say what? Listen, my whole job is to figure out how to allow you to. To keep more of your money. Isn't that interesting? And I'm going, no, dude, I think you have a totally different view of what your job is compared to what I think your job is. You don't allow me to keep more of my money. My job is to figure out how much of my money I'm going to give to you, right? You allow me to keep. Don't you think that's kind of. Maybe it didn't strike you as funny, but for me I was like, allow me to keep money. Tell you who's keeping your money. So. So we get into this section of second Corinthians and this deals with stuff, but more importantly, the conversation doesn't begin with necessarily a theological view of money. It begins differently. It begins with a view of others.
[00:05:41] By the way, this section that we're going to be jumping into over the next three weeks deals with this very popular verse and I'm just going to throw it up there on the screen right at the get go. It's 2 Corinthians 9:7. We use this quite a bit and we're going to break this apart basically over the next three weeks. So we understand it even better. But the Bible says that each one must give as he has decided in his what church.
[00:06:04] Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly, not under compulsion. For God loves a and let's say it together because it's fun to say God loves a cheerful giver.
[00:06:19] This whole section begins, and we're not going to get to this verse necessarily today, but we will over the next few weeks. This whole section on how we deal with finances begins with how we deal with other people.
[00:06:34] Using your Bible, 2nd Corinthians 8, we're going to dive in in verse one, 2nd Corinthians 8:1, we want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia.
[00:06:47] Now I'm just going to pause here for a second because I need to bring you up to speed on a few things that we have in here. There's a church in Jerusalem that was in trouble. This church in Jerusalem was suffering because they were under great persecution. This was a time when Rome occupied all of the then known world. Literally every road led to Rome, right? This was a time when Rome owned the world, including Jerusalem. This is right after Jesus is crucified. Pilate, a Roman general, is fighting with the Jews of the day and the Jews want to crucify Jesus and Pilate doesn't want to do it because Pilate's going to get in trouble with Rome and there's going to be an uprising and then these Jewish people are going to have a revolt and he's going to lose his head because Caesar's not going to like it when he hears about it in Rome and blah, blah, blah. It's politics.
[00:07:41] Rome ruled the world in Jerusalem.
[00:07:45] Rome was very, very hard on the Christians and not Only that. But the Jewish people were hard on the Christians because they didn't want anyone to follow Jesus either.
[00:07:55] Rome was hard on the Christians because this was the core place of Christianity. It's where Jesus began his ministry. It's where these disciples launched out from. And so in Jerusalem, the government cracked down on the Christians there. There was a food shortage. And if you followed Jesus and you were in Jerusalem, you're probably going to lose your job. You had no source of income, and they had one of the highest tax brackets of all the then known world. It's kind of like Chicago, okay? So it's very much, very similar to us. They were losing their job, they were losing their income. They had to still pay their taxes, and they had higher tax than most other places. Jerusalem Christians were being persecuted big time, not just by Rome, but also from the Jewish people that hated Jesus and hated the fact that Christianity was hijacking the Jewish religion. The Jewish people saw Jesus as a heretic, but the Christians saw Jesus as God's son.
[00:08:57] Paul's ministry, part of his ministry was to travel Asia Minor. What we know now is Europe. All right? He traveled around and he collected offerings so that he could help hurting churches. And the top of the list of hurting churches was the church at Jerusalem. So he was collecting money to take back to hurting churches, Jerusalem being one of them. Now, remember, he's going to Corinth. He's been a pastor there for 15 months. He's traveled around, set up other churches. He hears about what's happening in Corinth. They're struggling with sin in the congregation and sin outside in the world and how to be different from the world around them and how to not be jealous of each other's gifts. There's a lot of upheaval. You can read about it in First Corinthians. It's an interesting read. You can see all of the upheaval that's going on in the church.
[00:09:46] Paul is coming to this church, and Paul is saying, I'm collecting offerings and I'd like to take a piece of your offering and take it to this church in Jerusalem that's really hurting.
[00:09:55] And he uses Macedonia as an example. He said, you need to know in Macedonia, that's the northern part of Greece. Up there, Thessalonica, Ephesus, those areas, we are collecting money and they're being very generous, and we're taking it and we're distributing it. And we want you, Corinth, to have that same kind of heart.
[00:10:16] The problem is these people in Corinth are being persuaded by an enemy of Paul. You remember the super apostles, these guys with the Learjets and the beautiful cars and the houses. I didn't have any of that stuff. But you understand, I mean, they looked at Paul and they said, this guy's always getting thrown in jail. He's always hungry. He's always asking for stuff. He's the worst missionary your church could ever support.
[00:10:42] And Paul is saying, no, no, no. You have to understand. These super apostles are coming in and they got their whitewashed teeth and they'll blind you when they smile. But they are not in love with the gospel. They are. They are throwing glitter at the Gospel to get people to follow Jesus. You don't need to do that. The gospel is clear on its own.
[00:11:00] And so some people in the congregation are withholding their money because they don't know who to support. Do they give the money to the super apostles or do they give it to Paul? Who do they believe?
[00:11:11] And Paul is saying, corinth, listen, church at Corinth, you are missing out on a blessing if you withhold your generosity to help the churches that need help. Paul is teaching the Corinthians to give and to trust God. Now, the northern part of Greece, I explained this Macedonia, southern part, is called Achaia.
[00:11:31] Paul is writing to the churches in Achaia about the churches in Macedonia. And he's saying Macedonian churches, Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, these are all very giving and generous churches.
[00:11:44] And then he says to the church at Corinth in verse seven of chapter eight, but as you excel in everything, in faith and speech and knowledge, in earnestness and in our love for you, see that you excel in this act of grace. Also, Paul is saying that if you learn to be generous with what you have to those who are in need, you will excel in learning a character of grace.
[00:12:13] Charis is the word for grace.
[00:12:16] You just saw grace standing up here on the platform. My daughter's name is Charis. Charis actually means grace. Literally, it means unmerited favor or blessings that are freely given.
[00:12:30] Charis was a normal word to be used in the Greek language. It was used by everybody. But in Scripture, it had a very deep meaning. Here's some verses that might be familiar to you that help us understand how God sees grace in our lives.
[00:12:46] God wants us to be saved by grace. Ephesians 2:4. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved.
[00:13:05] The means of our redemption comes through God's grace, unmerited favor, blessings that we don't deserve. He saves us through grace. He strengthens us with grace. 2nd Corinthians 12:9. My grace is sufficient for you, Paul writes, for my power is made perfect in weakness. God says to us, my Charis, My grace is all you need to to have the strength to live this life.
[00:13:34] He strengthens us with grace.
[00:13:37] He also encouraged us to live in grace. 2 Corinthians 9:8. And God is able to make all grace Charis abound to you so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
[00:13:54] Kind of redundant to use all so many times, but he's trying to make a point. You have all the grace you need so that you can have all the sufficiency you need so that you can in all times, that you have, in all activities that you do, you can abound in every good work. Grace is what we're supposed to live in, and he motivates us by it. 2nd Corinthians 4:15.
[00:14:18] As grace extends to more and more people, it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God. Thanksgiving is eucharista. And as you can see, Charis is right in that word. When you give thanksgiving to God, you're offering a grace back to him. Isn't that interesting?
[00:14:37] The grace of God is seen through the churches in Macedonia in how they give generously to help others in need.
[00:14:47] I read to you again, verse one. We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God. This is how he starts the whole conversation that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. In other words, Macedonian churches are giving generously to help churches like Jerusalem. And because of that, the grace of God is being, like, highlighted, spotlighted, like, you can't miss it. There's something about God's grace that is highlighted when we are generous.
[00:15:20] Interesting.
[00:15:22] How could God's grace be seen in them more than other churches, Macedonian churches? Well, verse two, this is really interesting. For in a severe test of affliction. All right, what are they being tested with? Church. They're being tested with. What's the A word? Abundance. Affliction. They're being tested with affliction. 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. I read this and I'm just going, you gotta be kidding me. Can I just ask you a question? When you are tested with severe affliction, what is your first response?
[00:16:05] Isn't your first response to regroup, to get by yourself, to have a quiet time, to kind of sit down and go over your finances and figure out if you're going to get through this severe test of affliction? Not these guys. Not these guys.
[00:16:18] When these churches in Macedonia, when they went through a severe test of affliction, it resulted in two things. They had an abundance of joy and they exhibited a wealth of generosity to others. When they were afflicted, they said, what else can we do?
[00:16:40] When they were oppressed through a test of affliction, they. Their first response was, how can we help others?
[00:16:47] Does that not blow you away? Like that is not normal. Right.
[00:16:52] Their actions to give generously have demonstrated a small glimpse for others to see the grace of God. And their willingness to give is an act of grace. And I think this severe test, that's an interesting thing. It's not a severe moment. It's not a severe occasion. It's not a severe event. It's a severe test of affliction. Who tested them with this affliction?
[00:17:20] God tested them with affliction.
[00:17:23] And it's not an oppression. It's not to make them. It's not to break them. It's to test them, to see how deep their faith went. They said they were generous. Let's see how generous you are.
[00:17:34] God has an amazing. Like Diane and I talk about this sometime. It's like, all right, if you want more patience, Diane, what should you pray for?
[00:17:45] That's right. Don't pray for patience. You know why? What's going to happen if you pray for patience?
[00:17:52] Your whole world is going to fall apart. Right? God is going to give you tests so that you can learn to be more patient. And that is really difficult. This is interesting. There's a test of affliction to see how deep their faith went. Not just when it's easy chairs and you get a good tax return and you get a bump at pay raise and you get a better job. Not then. No, no, no. The test of affliction is to see, will you live by faith even when you're afflicted.
[00:18:27] Why would God do such a thing? He does it so that we can be stronger, so that we can be more helpful to his kingdom, to his purposes. He gives us these tests in our lives so that we can see the authenticity of what's really in here.
[00:18:46] And look what happened to them.
[00:18:48] Verse 3. They gave according to their what Church.
[00:18:53] They gave according to their means, right? According to their means. That's good. Let's all clap for that. No, don't do it. But, yeah, they gave according to their means. That's good. That's good. They gave according to their means, as I can testify.
[00:19:05] And then Paul says, and they gave. What's the next word?
[00:19:09] They gave beyond their means, of their own accord.
[00:19:16] Not only that, they begged us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the release of saints.
[00:19:23] These guys are insane.
[00:19:25] They're going through affliction. They're going through stress. And their response to Paul when he stands up and says, listen, this church in Jerusalem is really having a hard time, and I'd love to take an offering back. You can give a part of the offering. It'll land back in there. You can trust me. I'll get it to them. We can help. You can help. We can do this together.
[00:19:46] And even when they're in stressful moments, they gave what they promised to give, and then they gave beyond what they promised to give. And then they looked at Paul and they said, please, Paul. What other churches are hurting? Who else needs help? We're begging you. How can we help?
[00:20:05] All right. This is not normal behavior.
[00:20:10] This is an interesting thing. They gave of their own accord. They begged for an opportunity to give to the church at Jerusalem.
[00:20:17] How did they get to this level of faith?
[00:20:20] Well, everyone is made in the image of God. Let me just take just a little sidebar here. Everyone is made in the image of God. So everybody understands the joy of giving, right? You understand the joy of giving. If you didn't understand the joy of giving, your Christmases would look terrible.
[00:20:37] Everybody understands the joy of giving, right? It's good to get something under the Christmas tree, but don't you really live for, like, putting something under there that somebody really wants? And then you just sit back and you wait and they open the gift and they go, I really wanted this. And you're going, yeah, that's good, right? Everybody understands. Hitler understands the joy of giving. Like, it's built into our DNA that there is something in us that understands the joy of giving to somebody else.
[00:21:07] I saw interviews after the hurricane Helene went through, and there were people down there and they were helping, and they left their jobs and they traveled to North Carolina. And our kids are going to do that, too, by the way, this summer, which is why we're auctioning off the kids at the end of this service. But they're trying to raise money so that we can go and we can help those folks. Many of them are still Living in tents today. Did you know that they're still living in tents after this hurricane? They would stick a microphone under people's noses and they say, why are you leaving your job?
[00:21:37] Why are you here cutting up this debris and helping people you don't even know? You've never met them before. And their answers are always the same. It's always, well, it gives me such a good feeling, right?
[00:21:51] That's absolutely true. Because we're all made in the image of God. There's something in us that knows it's right. And it's good to give to people who are in need.
[00:22:03] The difference is, for the follower of Jesus, we don't chase the feeling.
[00:22:09] The difference is we find our greatest joy in living out God's generosity simply because we love God, which helps us love others.
[00:22:19] We see this opportunity to give generously as a reflection of God's generosity that he has given to us. So we give when it's convenient and we give when it's difficult. We give when our lives are good and we give when our lives are stressful. Look at this up on the screen. Motivation for giving is not to receive a fleeting joy. Motivation for giving is a result of a deeper joy.
[00:22:41] The joy of knowing Jesus as our savior, the joy of having a relationship with God. Because of that, we church, we get a greater feeling of.
[00:22:52] Of joy when we give because we are reflecting the very heart of the One who gave to us.
[00:23:02] No external situation in our lives can ever hinder that drive to show God's generosity to others.
[00:23:08] So I want to just. This is the sidebar, and I want to just ask you this.
[00:23:13] Maybe God is allowing your current trial so that what God is calling you to do right now, maybe even more glorifying to him if you do it right now.
[00:23:27] I don't know what you're going through. I don't know what situations God has you walking through right now, but whatever it is, maybe this is a moment that he is using so that you can understand a deeper joy than you've experienced before. A deeper faith in the act of giving.
[00:23:44] Look at verse four again. They begged us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief.
[00:23:49] The saints.
[00:23:51] Giving according to your means is obligation. Giving beyond your means, that's generosity.
[00:24:00] Giving according to your means is obligation. It's up on the screen. Giving beyond your means, that's generosity. And the goal in giving is to demonstrate the generosity of the One who gives to us. These saints needed relief, so they begged earnestly for an opportunity where the Macedonians could help them.
[00:24:22] So my question at this point is, how does a person get to this level of understanding of generosity? Listen to this in verse five. And this not as we expected. But they gave themselves first to the Lord, and then by the will of God to us. Get that? They gave first to the Lord, and then by the will of God, they gave to us. They gave first what they had decided to give, and then they gave even more than they were expecting to give. This is the difference between obligation and generosity.
[00:24:56] Generosity is giving when it pinches.
[00:25:00] Generosity isn't always from your overflow. Generosity is your heart giving of your wealth above and beyond what you might expect you're able to do.
[00:25:12] Have you ever noticed in our culture how giving is almost an expectation?
[00:25:17] Like, we look at rich people and we go, oh, yeah, you gave a million dollars, but you own a trillion. Good for you, right? Don't we do that so often? Oh, yeah, Elon. Yeah, he's giving away a lot of money, but he's worth a lot of money. He just lost half his worth. I think this past week, nobody shed a tear because he's worth more than all of us put in this room combined.
[00:25:39] When a billionaire doesn't give to the needs of others, how does the general public respond to them? Not good, right? We expect people who have money to be generous. Do you know why we do that? Because there's an expectation we carry in ourselves as images of God. We should be generous. Why aren't they being generous?
[00:25:59] And then we do. Unfortunately, the comparison thing, the GoFundMe app, is built on this idea. We expect others to be generous. So we write up stories and we say, here, this is my situation. Would you like to give? And people we don't even know come along and they give to our needs and our cause as strangers will give based on how a person will write out their needs.
[00:26:23] America is even built on this. Your tax return has a line for this. Like, america expects you to give away some stuff, and then you can use it as a tax deduction. Right? Our culture is based on the fact that all of us should be giving something.
[00:26:44] But the churches of northern Greece, I want to tell you, are getting nothing back. Rome didn't allow for a tax deduction. No, no, no.
[00:26:54] There was nothing these guys were getting back. There were no tax breaks. There's no prestige. No. Nobody looked at them and said, oh, you're being very generous. They got no press. There's no Internet. They can't throw a Facebook page up there and talk about their generosity. They get nothing in return.
[00:27:13] Simply a demonstration that they were living out a grace that originates from God's own character.
[00:27:21] So Paul uses them as an illustration for the Corinthian Church in verse seven. But as you excel in everything he says to the Corinthian Church, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in earnestness, and in our love for you, see that you excel in this act of grace also. In other words, Corinth, you cannot grow in your faith unless you learn this discipline.
[00:27:46] If the Corinthian Church was to continue to grow properly, they must learn the habit of giving generously. They had to learn to give when it hurts.
[00:27:58] I want you to know one other thing.
[00:28:01] This is not a command.
[00:28:03] This is not like the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt, thou shalt not. None of that stuff. In fact, look at the next verse, verse 8. I say this not as a command. Isn't that interesting? I'm not telling you to do this. There's no verse I can pull out and say, if you don't give generously, especially when you're in stressful moments or in need or affliction or anything, then you're a bad person. He's not doing that at all.
[00:28:31] He's literally saying, I'm not saying this as a command, but to prove the earnestness by the earnestness of others that your love is also genuine. Pinching is the beginning of generosity.
[00:28:46] Giving when it's not logical to give is a formidable picture of God's love.
[00:28:53] Giving when it's not logical to give is a formidable picture of God's love. You can see it up on the screen there.
[00:29:03] Being generous until it pinches is proof that your love is genuine. They need to be able to gauge how much they love others by measuring how much they give to others.
[00:29:16] And do you know, by the way, this is how Christ's love is gauged toward us. Listen to this verse in Hebrews 12:2, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
[00:29:38] I love this verse, and maybe you've never seen this verse before. This verse is an incredible verse that every Christian should memorize because you know what the word joy there really means.
[00:29:51] What is the joy that was set before Jesus that he would endure the cross, despising the shame, and go through it and find joy in that endeavor? What is the joy that Jesus did this for? What is the joy? Church us Put your name There for the joy that was set before him for you.
[00:30:14] You are the joy that he despised, he endured. He despised the shame. And he sat down at the right hand of God. He went through the mocking, he went through the shame. He went through the separation from God. He went through the pain, he went through the death. Because the joy was you. He was giving his life for you. Salvation was offered to you. The joy was found in finding you and me.
[00:30:39] God's heart is a genuine heart of love.
[00:30:43] And it's demonstrated to us in how he gave. You already know this because the most popular verse in the Bible speaks of this quite clearly. For God so loved the world that he see, it's right there.
[00:31:00] For God so loved the world that he gave. And what did he give his only son? That whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. A giving heart asks, what will I get in return? But a generous heart asks, how can I bless someone today?
[00:31:24] Have you ever noticed how like 99.9% of the time the way that you are blessed is not a direct drop airdrop from God. The way that you are blessed is by God using somebody else to bless your life. Isn't that interesting?
[00:31:42] This is grace, God's intervention in somebody's life to look at your need, to look at my need and say, how can I help? What can I do? How can I participate? This is an act of grace. And when somebody does that, we just sit back and we go. You have no idea how much of a blessing you're being to me right now.
[00:32:01] Every time God wants to bless a person, he will activate a different person in order to do it. And the way you give through obligation or generosity demonstrates the authenticity of your love for others.
[00:32:14] God is looking to develop our heart to look like His. He wants us to operate from generous hearts, not from obligated hearts.
[00:32:23] Verse 9.
[00:32:25] This is his final illustration for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. There it is again. Grace, Charis. This is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is it. Though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor so that through his poverty you might become rich. This is the incarnation. This is Jesus coming here to live a life sinless so that he could die sinlessly and his blood of perfection could cover our sinful lives.
[00:32:56] Paul finishes with this because he says, you know grace.
[00:33:00] You know what this means, to give generously because you've experienced it. God has given it to you. You fund what you love and your goal is to love what God loves. God did this with us, the chorus of Jesus. The grace of Jesus was seen in his redemptive act. He gave everything so that he could buy us back. He became poor so we could become rich. What does it mean that Jesus became poor? Church. What does that mean? You can leave that up there. What does that mean? That Jesus became poor so that we could become rich. How did Jesus become poor?
[00:33:35] Any ideas?
[00:33:39] Right. Well, he didn't give up divinity.
[00:33:43] That's right. He gave up the right to the attributes of God.
[00:33:52] He didn't give up the character of God, but he gave up his rights as God so that he could come to us, live a life just like we live and die a perfect death. He became poor. He was rich.
[00:34:07] He became poor so that through his poverty we might become rich.
[00:34:14] He gave up heaven to come to earth so that one day we would leave this earth and gain heaven.
[00:34:22] This love compels us. This is what makes us want to live graciously as often. This is what makes us get away from obligatory giving and enter into the generous category of giving.
[00:34:36] Giving. God's way is about obligation versus generosity.
[00:34:43] I've worked in churches where the leadership has said, we don't like what's being done in leadership, so we're going to stop tithing.
[00:34:54] Okay, good for you. See how that goes. By the way, you know what that tells me? Their giving has always been obligatory and never generous. You see, when you give to the Lord, you don't attach strings to what you give.
[00:35:10] Just like when you give to others, you don't attach strings to what you give. When you give to your child at Christmas and you give them this shiny new boombox, you give them this.
[00:35:24] You like that, right? So you give them this little ipod, whatever it is. Yeah, whatever. And then you say, okay, now, fire truck. And you can only use this fire truck on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. You can't use it any other time. And you can only use it when you play with your siblings. You can't use it with anybody else. And you can't use it outside. It has to stay inside. And you can't smile when you use. You know what I mean? It's like, who would give a gift and attach strings to the gift? That's the point.
[00:35:56] When you give to God, there are no strings attached. If you attach strings to what you give, you are giving in the obligatory category. I'm giving because I have to, and I don't like it. So I'm going to attach a million strings to it. But when you give in the generous Category, you're just going, here, take this. Have fun with it. Just enjoy.
[00:36:15] In other words, you give like God gives to us.
[00:36:18] And by the way, if you don't trust a church with your finances, why would you trust them with anything else? You need to get out of that church.
[00:36:27] A seed doesn't question where it's planted, it just grows.
[00:36:31] Give God, give to God and trust God with the harvest. Jesus knows this principle. That is why he says in Matthew 6:21, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
[00:36:45] Church. He does not say, where your heart is, there will your treasure be also. You know why?
[00:36:52] Because your giving directs your heart, not the other way around.
[00:36:59] Your treasure leads where your heart follows. We will love what God loves more when we fund what God loves more.
[00:37:07] You lead your money. Don't let it lead you so Church. I would say if you want to learn this character of generosity, you can learn in the good times, you can learn it in the tough times.
[00:37:22] But it's not an obligation, it's a privilege.
[00:37:27] It's a heart of God. It's different from the world. And we don't judge each other and say, you have more money, so you should give more money. There's none of that.
[00:37:36] There's no command to follow. It's if you want to be this kind of a person so that you can have a deeper faith and mirror God's heart of giving to the point where you understand more what it means. When God so loved the world that he gave his son, then learn to have a heart of generosity.
[00:37:54] Give even when it pinches. Here's two. So what's for you? Number one. How you handle money can enhance or crush your walk with Jesus. That's very important.
[00:38:06] Money can be a wonderful tool God can use to shape our hearts to look like his. But money can be a terrible weapon in the devil's hands. And he will use it against you.
[00:38:20] First Timothy 6:10.
[00:38:23] The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. You may have heard this misinterpreted by brilliant media theologians who say the love of money.
[00:38:36] Money is a root of all evil. False, false, false. Let's look what it says. The what of money.
[00:38:43] And there you have it. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evils.
[00:38:51] Listen to this. It is through this craving. Get that? It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves through with pangs. God can use money to make your heart to look beautiful like his as we use it generously or the devil can use money to tear your heart away from faith.
[00:39:14] Now you know why Jesus talked about money a whole lot, right?
[00:39:17] It is a huge thing. This is about accelerating our ministry and spiritual growth. The nature of sin is that we are hoarders, but the nature of God is that we are givers.
[00:39:29] Jesus warned us of this himself in Matthew 6. No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you'll be devoted to the one and despise the other. You can't serve both God and the devil, true or false.
[00:39:42] Why does he. This always gets me like this is. This is such a good passage. Why would he end with money? Why does he say, you can't serve God in yourself?
[00:39:50] But he doesn't. He says, you cannot serve both God and money. Why? Because it gets you all kinds of evil if you love money more than you love God. Human nature is not to give, it's to keep. Godly nature is not to keep, but to give.
[00:40:09] And remember, Charis can abound in you this grace so that you can have all the grace you need to get you through any situation as you learn to be generous. Number two, how you handle money is a mirror into your real heart.
[00:40:31] Jesus was talking to people in his day who were under Old Testament law. And there were many expectations.
[00:40:39] And while he's talking to them, he gives them this one great illustration. And with this I'm going to finish because it's such a good illustration.
[00:40:47] He's sitting in the temple watching people come in and put money into the offering. And as he's watching, these rich people, they come in and they throw these big wads of cash in there, like drug money wrapped up in elastic bands, you know, plunk. And you hear the big plunk when it hits. And it's like everybody around goes, oh, those people are. We wouldn't be able to do church without those people. Those people can't talk to those people. Here you sit in the front row, you're like, fantastic. Like, you go first, have the best of the food. And then this little widow comes in. She doesn't have anything. She doesn't even have a husband to provide for her. And she puts in one penny.
[00:41:30] Jesus turns to his disciples and gives them a story. Here's how it goes.
[00:41:35] Mark 12:41. He sat down opposite the treasury, watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people came in and put in large sums. Plunk. And a poor widow came in and put in two small copper coins, which equals about a penny. And he called to his disciples and said to them, truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box, for they all contributed out of their abundance. But she, out of her what church.
[00:42:05] She, out of her poverty, out of her affliction, out of her generous heart, has put in everything she had and all she had to live on.
[00:42:16] This is why I love what God. God tells us and how to give.
[00:42:20] I need to tell you, in the Old Testament, it wasn't just 10%. It was about 23 to 25%. They were obligated to give under Old Testament law. Levitical tithe was 10%. Festival tithe was 10%. Poor tithe was 3.33%. Every three years, additional giving, first fruits. They had to give the first and best of their crops. There were sin and guilt offerings. Those were required. There was a temple tax, a half a shekel annually. And there were free will offerings on top of that. You're looking at 23 to 25%, plus all these other things. You're looking at about 45% of your income you were obligated to give away.
[00:43:06] Jesus is watching this little lady come in. She throws in a penny. He turns to his disciples who grew up obligated to give, and he teaches them something new. And he says, our goal as believers in the New Testament, our goal as churches here in Carol Stream, is to give generously out of a heart of love, not obligatory, out of a heart of guilt.
[00:43:36] Total required to give under Charis. The total required to give under grace. Let me read it for you. It's the first verse we read. Ready? Here we go. Each one must give as he has what Church.
[00:43:49] That's how much you must give whatever you want.
[00:43:54] Every person must give in his heart as he has decided to give or she has decided to give. Not reluctantly, not under compulsion, no obligation. Why? Because God doesn't need your cash, but he would love to have your heart. And he loves a cheerful giver.
[00:44:16] Giving is expected, but it's based on grace, rooted in generosity, motivated by the needs of others and freed to your own creative will. As to how you give and church, I want to just say I am grateful that I serve in this church. Village Church east is one of the most generous churches I have ever served in. I love the heart we have together. Usually I preach messages like this and try to walk on eggshells a little bit, because there's a few people out there that, you know, they're thinking, oh, Craig knows. He Knows I'm in trouble. I'm getting a phone call this week. No, no, no, no. None of that. None of that. Giving is an act of joy we find in Jesus. It's in our DNA as new creations in Jesus. And this church is a generous church, but I think we can do more.
[00:45:08] We have a benevolence fund in our church. And if you think about it, benevolence is good. But even benevolence isn't where most of our needs are met. You know what happens in this church when somebody's in need, like 12 people, they hoard them at the door. They, like, tackle them and they go, how are you doing? What do you need? Can I bring over some food? What can I give you? Can I? And then they give them gifts, like financial gifts. And it's like, now everybody's going, I'd like to be in need in this church. Yes, you would. You would be so lucky because this church is a generous church. We hardly ever dip into the benevolence fund unless there's a need in our community, which we love to meet. And we have a great relationship with the powers that be in our community. We pray for them because they use us and they have a direct line to us where we can bless this community. But our church is a wonderful church that gives generously.
[00:45:56] This is where we use our unique resources to assist others. We're creative in how we give. We're going to have the youth missions trip highlighted at the end of the service. And you're going to get to buy some kids to do some labor for you, child labor for whatever you want to give them. It's great.
[00:46:13] And you're going to be generous in your giving. You're going to pay way more than they're worth, and they know it, believe you me.
[00:46:20] But they're going to take that money. You know what they're going to do with it? They don't pocket it. They're going to put it in a fund where we get to go down to North Carolina and we get to bless others. With what you give to us, you are not investing on a trip. You are investing in these lives.
[00:46:38] And this church gets it. Because these kids, they'll go down there and they'll see the need and they'll use their hands and their efforts and their strength to bless others funded by this generous church. And these kids will come back differently than they left because your generosity will help them grow in their faith.
[00:46:59] And years from now, what I pray is that someday, if they ever hit Rock bottom, which God forbid they ever do.
[00:47:05] Their minds would come back to their experience in this church with people that loved them, gave to them, supported them and prayed for them.
[00:47:18] I'm going to give you, because this was suggested to me by my wife and she's barely ever wrong.
[00:47:27] I'm going to give you a direct way that you can put this into practice if you want to. This is no obligation. This is not a command. This is just a suggestion. If you want to put this into practice right now.
[00:47:40] The Lord has opened numerous doors for us at this new location. I mean, the doors keep flying open.
[00:47:47] I'll tell you about one. One of the biggest ones is we got to change the sprinkler heads. This could be like a twenty, thirty thousand dollar job, I don't know.
[00:47:56] And if it is, we can't do it. We're just going to have to live with some low ceiling stuff and everything.
[00:48:04] But I'd love to get some more space in there, take the ceiling out. So I've been praying about this and Friday I met a guy and he came over to talk about the sprinkler heads. And I said, listen, I know this is never done, but you gotta give me a ballpark. I just need to know, are we pricing ourselves out of this? Is this not able to be done? And he said, well, Craig, let me tell you this.
[00:48:28] He said, our company, I love our company, but sometimes we charge a lot and for situations like yours, it's probably going to be a lot. He said, but I'm literally going from here directly into a meeting with the heads of my company. Boss is going to be there, literally, I'm leaving here, getting in my car, I'm going to that meeting and I want to tell you, I'm going to walk into that meeting and I think my boss is going to like this, but I'm going to suggest we do this pro bono.
[00:48:59] I didn't ask him, I didn't ask him.
[00:49:03] He said that to me. Now listen, I haven't heard back from him since Friday.
[00:49:07] So I need you to pray, pray, pray, okay? Because if we can get this, he said, we want to make this as a charitable donation because we love helping people who help their communities. And I said, if you can do that for us, you have no idea. Like we'll invite you to the first service, I'll point out to you, I'm going to tell the church about this.
[00:49:24] And I haven't heard back from him, so please pray because that would be such a huge weight lifted off of Us, the Lord's been opening doors left and right. One big cost that we still have are the chairs. We cannot figure out how to get these chair prices down. So I finished my message with this. If you want to put this directly into practice, and this is not my suggestion. This is Mrs. Jarvis. Okay, here's one way you get. I'm throwing her under the bus. Here's one way you can do it.
[00:49:56] We are gonna put chairs in there not for our comfort, but for the hope and in the prayers and in the belief that God is gonna bring somebody in there who needs to hear about Jesus. Maybe for the first time. Somebody's gonna wander through our doors. A friend of yours or a friend of a friend or a family member, they're gonna come through the doors. Maybe it's on Easter, maybe it's on Christmas, maybe it's just a normal day, but they're gonna hear the gospel and it's gonna change their lives. It's gonna change them. They need a chair to sit in. That's just what they need. So here's the deal.
[00:50:25] If you would like to put this into practice, you can. These chairs are going to be somewhere between 60 and 80 bucks a chair. All right? They're going to be nice chairs. They're not going to be these chairs you're sitting in. They're going to be nice. We're not getting the 19 inch Spirit Airlines chairs. We're getting the, you know, the ones you actually can sit in, the wide bodies.
[00:50:49] And if you would like to put something into practice, and we always say, what's your next step going to be? Right, Brent? We always say, what are you going to do? If you would like to put this into practice, you can go right online right now and you can make a donation to the building fund and you can buy yourself a chair and somebody else a chair that you believe will come in and fill it eventually and maybe hear the gospel for the first, first time.
[00:51:13] This is your investment.
[00:51:16] Again, not a command. But if you would like to a suggestion, and I think it's a good one, because if we can fill that space with new believers, mission accomplished, right? Mission accomplished. So that's. If you'd like to do that as an act of faith, begin praying. Not only donate the chair, but begin praying for a name.
[00:51:38] Somebody you know is going to be sitting in that chair and make it a matter of prayer. And let's see how God answers prayers. Listen, it's not about giving or how much giving. It's about backing what God loves. It's about giving until it pinches so that you can see God do something great. Our generous heart can be a mirror to see how we're growing in Jesus Christ.
[00:52:00] So, church, let's not be obligated givers, but let's be generous givers and let's pray.
[00:52:08] Father, I'm grateful for our time. We get to spend this morning talking about generosity. There's just no better example about generosity than the way you gave us your son, Jesus Christ.
[00:52:20] Where would we be without him? Who would we be without him?
[00:52:25] Talking about finances sometimes is an uncomfortable conversation. But Father, it is so appealing to us, it is so convicting, it is so motivating to us that as we give in these various different ways, we can aim directly at not only growing our own faith, but increasing the faith in others. Even by buying a chair.
[00:52:54] We look to make a difference in people's lives, to change the destiny of families, to introduce people to you for the first time, to not throw glitter at the gospel, but to simply preach it, unashamedly believing that it can change and still change people's lives today.
[00:53:09] And so, whether we're here at Fountain View, at our new place, Father, we are anxious to see what you will do through us. Help us to have a heart of generosity, not a heart of obligation. And in doing so, Lord, make us look more like you. Every day I pray in Jesus name.
