Introduction
300 Illustrations for Preachers (College President Takes a $90,000 Pay Cut)
With a salary of $350,000, Raymond Burse is paid well for the challenges he faces as the president of Kentucky State University. In August 2014 Burse took a voluntary pay cut to $260,000. Burse directed that the $90,000 the university didn’t pay him should be used to provide $3 per hour raises to all the university’s minimum-wage workers. When asked why he was willing to do this, he replied, “You don’t give up $90,000 for publicity. I did this for the people. This is something I’ve been thinking about from the very beginning.” Caring for others is a character matter. It is one thing to advocate with your mouth that people ought to be paid more. It is another to put your paycheck on the line.
This is quite the gift and blessing. It is incredible, yet it pales in comparison to the gift that we have received and why we give.
In this section of Scripture- 2 Cor. 9:6-15, we see an amazing picture of giving. (read text)
This is found in verses 14b-15 (2 Cor. 9:14-15) “while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” The surpassing grace of God is the inexpressible gift of Jesus Christ to us.
Jesus humbled Himself and came to earth. He emptied Himself and Phil. 2:5-8 “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
He did this for us so we could receive the amazing gift of salvation. What an amazing gift Jesus has given for us.
It is because of this gift that we give what we can. His gift to us is why we give:
Generously and Cheerfully (6-8)
a. Not about us receiving glory and bountiful returns here.
i. It is about building the church.
ii. When we build the church, the body of Christ up, we receive blessings because more people are believers.
iii. We receive rewards in heaven. Matt. 6:19 ““Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,” Paul said that the works we do if built on the foundation of Christ, when we give generously of our time, resources, or income we are building on this, our work will be made manifest in that day, the day we stand before the judgment seat of Christ to receive our rewards for the work we did here. This is found in 1 Cor. 3:11-15. In verse 14 we see that the works we do for Christ will be blessed with a reward.
iv. When we give and strengthen the funds for the church, or serve more diligently in the church, we reach more people. We free up areas where we can afford to go and do. We can do more work in the community. We can feed more of the poor. We can clothe more of the less fortunate. We can help with the education of many. We will be the church more fully.
b. Again we must remember this is not only about money. It is about all of us. By all of us I mean our whole person.
i. We give our time.
ii. We give our abilities.
iii. We give land if needed for events or as donations.
iv. We give money.
v. The list is endless of what we can give.
What Paul is saying is that we need to decide what we will give and when we do, we need to give it.
But we must not give it reluctantly or with a feel of obligation. When we give we need to be open and seeking to give what we can.
We do not put ourselves in a bind when we give. We must care for our homes and families. This means we must be careful and wise with our spending and time use. The body of Christ and the local church are very important and need to be considered of the utmost importance by all.
Back in verse five Paul tells the Corinthians that the gift they arranged and promised he urged them to have ready so it would be a gift and not an exaction, this word “gift” used twice in this verse is literally “blessing” (eulogian). So the verse could well read, “So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you and arrange in advance for the blessing you have promised, so that it may be ready as a willing blessing, not as an exaction from a grudging spirit.” (R. Kent Hughes 2 Corinthians, Preach the Word).
This is what our giving is. It is a blessing to those who receive and a blessing to us because Giving is a Gift we have as believers. We received the best gift in Christ, so how can we not give back some of what we have been blessed with? When we do we see that we receive all sufficient grace abounding in and to us and we will begin to see our church abound in good works for the Lord. More works than imagined before.
When we realize it is a blessing we will begin to realize it is:
Blessed Giving (9-11)
We see in verse 9 that God gives all what is necessary and needed for them. This blessing from God is a blessing meant for us and for us to be a blessing to others.
Herschel Hobbs has said:
“Instead of needing our gifts, God gives us the things necessary for life—life itself, breath, and every material thing. True, the Bible teaches the stewardship of life and substance. However, God is not within Himself dependent on such. Stewardship is designed to develop His people, whose very gifts are a recognition that all belongs to Him and comes from Him.”
That is what this is all about. We have received all we have from the Lord. This section could easily be titled “It All Belongs to God Anyway,” but it isn’t. It is titled The Cheerful Giver in most translations.
It is titled that because Paul wants all believers to be cheerful in their giving.
He wants us to all enjoy what we give because we love others and appreciate the Lord our God for what He has blessed us with. When we see that all we have is from Him, we will be overjoyed in our giving.
Herschel Hobbs tells another story of a deacon that told him about his experience in giving. The deacon stated, “The first time I did it, it seemed like all the money in the world. Now I look forward to payday, so I can give my share and more.”
He came to this realization because he realized all he had was from the Lord anyway and who was he to not joyfully give back to the Lord that which He had given him.
I want to state here that we are under what is called grace giving these days. We are not under the OT tithe.
Many people will take us back to Malachi 3:8-10 “Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby 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.”
And then try and force this on the church today. This was an OT command to the nation of Israel. Israel had to tithe to the temple. Yes, the word tithe means a tenth. But when one reads the OT and sees all they gave to the temple and the priests, they gave over 20% not just 10%.
Also, we are promised a blessing in our giving now as we see in this section of Scripture we are looking at today but it is not the same blessing as seen in Malachi.
We are to be blessed in every way to be enriched to be generous in every way.
Being generous is not necessarily having a lot to give but being generous with what we do have.
Like the poor widow and here two pennies in the Gospels. She had only a very little and gave it all. We see this story in Luke 21:1-4 “Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.””
God had enriched her to give generously even though she did not have much.
Again we give because we desire to see the church grow spiritually because we are reaching more and more people. But this giving is also in our time and service.
If we grow and reach many people because we have had generous monetary giving but people do not give their time and service, we have failed in our giving.
We must commit to time and service too. We must because that is how we grow the people we reach because of the monetary giving. We see this in the text too.
Paul says in the last few verses that the people glorified God by the giving.
This means it was:
God Glorified by Giving (12-15)
Verse 12 says that the giving supplied the needs of the saints, this giving that Paul has been speaking of was the gift to the Jerusalem church and the believers there who needed much, but we can also see how people who are in need who are outside of the Lord would give Him praise.
People will give God glory through our giving. This should stir all our hearts for service and giving. We want all to believe just as God desires that. We need to use our time wisely so we are not so bound that we cannot serve. We live as set apart people who do not waste our time or resources on frivolous things because we know we need to serve God. We pray that we will impact people for the Lord, and we do not complain about what we are doing because we know it is to God’s glory.
This is what Paul was getting at when he said they glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ.
When we are submitted to Him, we will seek to help others as He did.
He gave all, as I mentioned in the opening. He came for all and desired all to be healed and saved.
I just wrote and extensive paper over Christ in the Gospel of Luke.
In this paper I read and studied the Gospel of Luke intensely. In this Gospel I was to trace a theme the Christology of Jesus that Luke portrayed.
In Luke’s Gospel we see that Jesus is committed to the Poor, to the downtrodden, women who had no standing in that culture, the despised and hated. Jesus was here for all people regardless who they were or what they had done.
He gave Himself for all of them. He cared for the poor and desired we need to do the same. He cared for the downtrodden and despised we need to do the same.
But to do this we the church need to give freely of our time, resources, service, and money.
We can take care of the problems of those who are less fortunate, the poor, downtrodden, and despised by going and helping them with their homes, with bills, or anything else needed. Jesus did that for people while here.
Not only that, but Jesus gave us the best offering that could ever be received.
He gave Himself for us. He gave it all so we could receive. He held nothing back so we could have it all. He wanted us to have life and so much more so He gave it all.
What an indescribable gift that is. What a glorious offering that was. What joy it is to know we have this amazing gift from the Lord.
It is because of this amazing gift from Jesus that we give and help all we can.
God’s will for us is to give as He gave to us. We give what we can with joy and celebration because we know we are giving it for the glory of the Lord and for others to hear and believe in Jesus.
Conclusion
D.L Moody has said, “What makes the Dead Sea dead? Because it is all the time receiving, never giving out anything. Why is it that many Christians are cold? Because they are all the time receiving, never giving out anything.”
It is this that Paul is trying to tell us today.
We do not want to be dead believers who only tell people like those in James 2:15-16 “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?”
The thing is that too many in the church of America have heard that when they give they will receive much in return here.
They have been fed a pack of lies that their giving will be multiplied back to them in this life.
They give for this and not for the true reasons we are to give.
We give to help those in need. To build the church, the body of Christ, up. We give to glorify God. We give because we have received the best gift ever, how can we not share that gift with others?
We must share our blessings with others who are not as blessed.
Again, this can be in time, resources, service, or money.
What is important is that God loves a cheerful giver and will bless us in His way, not a way that some men have concocted to trick people into giving.
Do we want to be the dead sea and only receive and never give or would you rather be like this well favorite well in a town, a man asked a townsman:
“Does the well never run dry?” The man was drinking of the water out of the well; and as he stopped drinking, he smacked his lips, and said: “They have never been able to pump it dry yet. They tried it a few years ago. They put the fire-engines to work, and tried all they could to pump the well dry; but they found there was a river flowing right under the city.”
God is that river in our lives. When He is filling us we will never run dry. He will continue to give all that is needed for us to give. As the last verse says, thanks be to God for His indescribable gift. That Gift is Christ and with Him for us we can do all things for His glory.
Let us go and do that today and every day moving forward.
Let us who live by faith live obediently by that faith and give by grace.
Let us become an active participant and not think another will do it.
Let understand the purpose and reasons why we give what we can for the ministry.
Let us demonstrate strong enthusiasm and not be begrudging and reluctant in what we do and give.
Finally let us remember the promised rewards and not grow weary in the ministry and pursuit. Let us remain faithful looking to the future glory with the Lord with many others that our sacrifices in giving gained.
