SPEAKER_01: Um, the reading today is from Second Corinthians nine, verses one to fifteen.
SPEAKER_01: The Collection for Christians in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Now it is superfluous for me to write to you about the ministry for the saints, for I know your readiness, of which I boast about to you, the people of Macedonia, saying that Achaea has been ready since last year, and your zeal has stirred up most of them.
SPEAKER_01: But I am sending the brothers so that our boasting about you may not prove empty in this matter, so that you may be ready, as I said you would be.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, if some Macedonians come with me and find that you are not ready, we would be humiliated, to say nothing of you, for being so confident.
SPEAKER_01: So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you and arrange in advance for the gift you've promised, so that it may be ready as a willing gift, not as an exaction.
SPEAKER_01: The point is this whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
SPEAKER_01: Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver, 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.
SPEAKER_01: As it is written, He has distributed freely, he is given to the poor, his righteousness endures for ever.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.
SPEAKER_01: For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.
SPEAKER_01: By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others, while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God upon you.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift.
SPEAKER_01: And so reads God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to you.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Mark.
SPEAKER_00: I'm one of the leaders here at the church.
SPEAKER_00: It's very uh good to have you with us if you're new or if you're visiting.
SPEAKER_00: This is the final week in our series looking at uh what we've been calling our foundations as a church, kind of five fundamental commitments uh that we have.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we are moving on after this week.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, for those of you who uh are new uh or have been coming for the last couple of weeks, you've been noticed that we've been jumping all around uh the New Testament to kind of examine some of those foundations.
SPEAKER_00: Can I just say that's not our normal practice?
SPEAKER_00: Our normal practice is to is to work through uh books of the Bible, though sometimes we do slightly more topical series like this one.
SPEAKER_00: Uh where we will be going over the next couple of weeks is we are going into a book of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Duncan and I uh over the next two Sundays uh are traveling.
SPEAKER_00: We both need to be in the in the US.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh we have a couple of uh guest speakers.
SPEAKER_00: Well, one of them's Ben.
SPEAKER_00: Um we have Ben and David Martin, who some of you will know.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna be uh preaching to us from uh Acts chapter 16, which is Paul's ministry in Philippi.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and that is going to be the gateway into a seven-week series in Paul's letter to the Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna be doing that up until Christmas, and then after Christmas, we'll get back in and we'll finish off John's gospel uh on the run-up to Eastern.
SPEAKER_00: So we are going back into the book of the Bible, we're going back into the letter uh to or starting the letter to the Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to get ahead and read and soak in those four wonderful, joyful chapters, uh, you can do that.
SPEAKER_00: But for now, we're uh in first or sorry, second Corinthians chapter nine, and we're thinking about our fifth and our final foundation, uh, which is that we want to be a generous people.
SPEAKER_00: That is, we want to be open-hearted uh as believers in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that we believe that Christians adorn their uh their witness uh to the world as as they become increasingly generous people.
SPEAKER_00: Our entire series actually has been uh has been uh about helping us grow as believers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: How do we grow as believers of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we we do so by being word-centered, by being people of the book who are allowing God to speak to us through his word.
SPEAKER_00: And so we had a whole uh whole sermon on how it is that we can be confident in the scriptures and why it should be central in our hearts and lives.
SPEAKER_00: Uh people grow as they as they serve and as as leaders uh serve in an accountable and transparent and loving way.
SPEAKER_00: People grow as they are in community with one another, doing life together through all of the joys and trials uh of uh of existence that we grow as uh as believers in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We grow spiritually, and so generosity is no different.
SPEAKER_00: We grow uh as believers in Jesus as we pursue being a generous people.
SPEAKER_00: And no, generosity is not uh is not solely the the purview of the uh of the Christian, it's a generally um attractive virtue.
SPEAKER_00: Um certainly the opposite is true that if you are uh miserly, stingy, you're the last one to put your hand in your pocket for a uh for a round, uh that uh that's generally not seen as a as a good and attractive quality.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we often, I think, probably like to see ourselves as generous.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it's interesting that Jesus warns us uh more about greed than uh than he does about lust.
SPEAKER_00: Do you realize that?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus talks about money more than he talks about sex.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Jesus talks about money more than he talks about any other sin.
SPEAKER_00: He talks about greed more than he talks about any other sin.
SPEAKER_00: Why do you think that is?
SPEAKER_00: I think it might be because we like to think of ourselves as generous.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't really know when it is that we're not being.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus is saying, be careful that you're not given to greed or closed-heartedness.
SPEAKER_00: Generosity is desirable in general, but it's good for us as disciples.
SPEAKER_00: It's good for us to uh to grow in a way that uh that turns aside from the corrosive effects that uh that entitlement and greed have just in our own lives.
SPEAKER_00: Remember how it is that uh uh Charles Dickens described Ebenezer Scrooge at the start of a Christmas carol.
SPEAKER_00: He said that Ebenezer Scrooge was cold and solitary as an oyster, clammed up shut.
SPEAKER_00: That's what that's what greed does to us.
SPEAKER_00: It cuts us off from other people.
SPEAKER_00: It makes us cold and solitary as oysters.
SPEAKER_00: But to be generous, to be a radically generous people, a radically generous community has an evangelistic effect.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of what beautifies our witness, makes our our light as a as a city on a hill shine all the brighter as Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: So that we're showing the goodness of what it means to be a follower of Jesus as we hold loosely to what we have and and and hold uh with with a tight grip onto him who we see as surpassingly worthy.
SPEAKER_00: Let's think for a second.
SPEAKER_00: What would create in you, in us, a generous heart?
SPEAKER_00: Would pressure and expectation from others to do it.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone else is giving to this, so I should give.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, in the reading that Arena read, uh, sent some brothers on ahead of him to warn the Corinthian Christians that that that this collection uh for for the saints in Jerusalem who were starving, that this collection was company precisely because he didn't want them to feel pressured into them.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I don't want it to be an exaction.
SPEAKER_00: That you're doing it because you feel duty bound to do it.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says that because actually that doesn't create a generous heart.
SPEAKER_00: It might produce generous looking actions, but it doesn't produce a truly generous person.
SPEAKER_00: What about need?
SPEAKER_00: Would awareness of need produce in us a generous heart?
SPEAKER_00: The issue in the passage, as I've just said, is that there was a need.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is bringing it to the church's attention that the Christians in the in the Middle East, in Jerusalem, are starving because of a famine.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's over around kind of Turkey and Greece, where there isn't a famine, and he's saying to the Christians there, we need to help these guys in the same way that you might log on to uh to Christian Concern or Compassion.com or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: You're you you become aware of a need.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is making them aware and saying, because we are connected to them as brothers and sisters in Jesus, can you can you help?
SPEAKER_00: So does awareness of a need produce a generous heart?
SPEAKER_00: Well, no, it doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: Again, it might produce generous looking actions, but it doesn't produce authentic heart level generosity.
SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed how so much of uh so much philanthropy, so much uh generosity in uh in our world is actually transactional?
SPEAKER_00: Think of something like the red campaign that Starbucks uh did uh a few years ago.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, but there are many others that you purchase a product and then they side off a little bit, you know, five cents, whatever it is, goes to this campaign.
SPEAKER_00: But you're getting the product.
SPEAKER_00: You're and you're and it's even better than that, you're getting the product and you're getting a sense of self-satisfaction with your latte.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that good?
SPEAKER_00: So much philanthropy is actually transactional.
SPEAKER_00: Buy this and we'll donate to this cause.
SPEAKER_00: You get something, and you get this sense of having done good, having done your Christian duty.
SPEAKER_00: Does this produce a generous heart?
SPEAKER_00: No, it doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: Being aware of a need and being told that that some of uh what you have just paid is going to this cause might motivate you to buy the product, but it doesn't produce in you a truly generous heart.
SPEAKER_00: What needs to happen in us in order to become a truly radically heart-level generous person?
SPEAKER_00: The answer that the Bible gives is that we need an encounter with the radically generous God.
SPEAKER_00: Only God can change the human heart.
SPEAKER_00: And when we encounter him, when you meet his radical, lavish, reckless generosity, it does something to you.
SPEAKER_00: Paul has actually been talking about generosity for a couple of chapters, and we're coming in on the end, but I want to just cast our attention back now to an earlier verse.
SPEAKER_00: If whoever's doing the clicker clicks on a slide, you will see this verse.
SPEAKER_00: It's 2 Corinthians 8, verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: Read it together with me, because this is the rationale for what it means or how it is that we become a generous people.
SPEAKER_00: For you yourselves, Paul writes, for 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.
SPEAKER_00: Just take a moment and read that again.
SPEAKER_00: Allow it to wash over you.
SPEAKER_00: For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor.
SPEAKER_00: So that you, by his poverty, might become rich.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it is that you're here this morning and you wouldn't count yourself as a a follower of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We're really glad that you're here.
SPEAKER_00: This is a is an essential summation of what's going on in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Let me unpack it.
SPEAKER_00: All begins.
SPEAKER_00: Know the what?
SPEAKER_00: Know the grace.
SPEAKER_00: What's grace?
SPEAKER_00: Grace is undeserved, unearned, unmerited kindness.
SPEAKER_00: Know the grace.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has shown us the unmerited, undeserved, unearned kindness.
SPEAKER_00: How?
SPEAKER_00: That though he was rich, that is, that Jesus was the King of heaven, beloved of the angels, ruler and owner of all peoples, all places, all things.
SPEAKER_00: That though he was rich beyond measure, beyond compare, he did what?
SPEAKER_00: He became poor.
SPEAKER_00: I think it was J.D.
SPEAKER_00: Rockefeller who was uh was asked, J.D.
SPEAKER_00: Rockefeller was it a philanthropy or a businessman in America about a hundred years ago, and he was asked at one point, uh, how much is enough?
SPEAKER_00: And he replied saying, one more million.
SPEAKER_00: Just one more million.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you're all sitting here just saying that, just one more million.
SPEAKER_00: But what did the King of Heaven do?
SPEAKER_00: He gave it all away.
SPEAKER_00: He became poor.
SPEAKER_00: And his taking on of humanity and his coming in our likeness.
SPEAKER_00: And it is exemplified most profoundly on that first Good Friday when they do what?
SPEAKER_00: They he's stripped naked.
SPEAKER_00: He literally dies in possession with nothing or of nothing.
SPEAKER_00: They cast lots for his clothing and they give it away.
SPEAKER_00: You couldn't possibly have a uh have a greater descent from the heights of his throne to the depths of the shame and deprivation of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And what does Paul say?
SPEAKER_00: Yet for your sake he became poor.
SPEAKER_00: That is, yet for your sake he set aside all that he had and pursued you me.
SPEAKER_00: For your sake.
SPEAKER_00: That is who Jesus is radically generous to.
SPEAKER_00: And what is the result of that poverty?
SPEAKER_00: That by his poverty you are made rich.
SPEAKER_00: By his death upon the cross, each of us, as believers and followers of the Lord Jesus, are made indescribably wealthy.
SPEAKER_00: It is not just that uh your your debt of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Often Christians think about sin in those sorts of terms, that uh that sin is a debt.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just that your debt is canceled.
SPEAKER_00: People sometimes think that way, that what Jesus' death on the cross does is it it cancels your debt and brings you up to zero, and then by your by the rest of your life and by your good works, you you accrue credit.
SPEAKER_00: People summarize uh you know the word justification as just as if I'd never sinned.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of canceling of debt, bring you up to zero in your celestial eternal bank balance, but that's not just what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_00: That's only half the story.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't just cancel your debt, he clothes you in his perfect righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just that he cancels your debt and brings you to zero, he brings you to infinite credit, the infinite credit of his perfections.
SPEAKER_00: So that when God the Father looks at you, he sees the perfect, sinless, glorious Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You are made indescribably rich, clothed in his royal robes, is that old mid-90s song, In Royal Robes I Don't Deserve, says.
SPEAKER_00: That though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes to these Corinthian Christians and goes, You know what?
SPEAKER_00: You guys have no idea how wealthy you are.
SPEAKER_00: When you encounter that generous Jesus, it is only when you encounter that generous Jesus that you have a heart transformed transformed that becomes itself lavishly generous.
SPEAKER_00: You look at your life and you look at everything that you have and you and you possess and you regard it differently.
SPEAKER_00: You realize that you don't own it, you haven't created it.
SPEAKER_00: It's been given to you as a gift.
SPEAKER_00: That you're not the king, you're the steward.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna make Lord of the Rings reference, just gonna move on.
SPEAKER_00: Some people understand what I mean by that, and others are just gonna look at me weirdly.
SPEAKER_00: But it is not where you derive your comfort from, it's not where you derive your satisfaction from, it's not where you derive your worth or your identity from.
SPEAKER_00: And so the hymn writer is right when he says, My worth is not in what I own, not in the strength of flesh and bone, but in the costly wounds of love at the cross.
SPEAKER_00: My worth is not in skill or name, in win or lose, in pride or shame, but in the blood of Christ that flowed at the cross.
SPEAKER_00: When you have an encounter with the radical generosity of Jesus, you no longer place your worth in anything on this horizontal temporal plane, your worth is held secure in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Peter would say that we have an inheritance, a hope that is kept for us in heaven, that is imperishable, unspoiled, unfited.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel creates a generous people.
SPEAKER_00: It must create a generous people, or else those people have not understood the gospel, because the gospel is inherently generous, because it is about a God who is Himself generous and lavish and abundant.
SPEAKER_00: Remember when Jesus, when we looked at when Jesus turned water into wine?
SPEAKER_00: He didn't make a couple of bottles.
SPEAKER_00: He made lavish bathfuls of it.
SPEAKER_00: He made about a 1100 bottles of really good wine.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because there is no rationing of the generosity of the king.
SPEAKER_00: There is something abundant and lavish and glorious and good about what it means to follow him.
SPEAKER_00: And he creates a lavish and generous and open-hearted people.
SPEAKER_00: Our generosity excuse me.
SPEAKER_00: I apologize.
SPEAKER_00: Our generosity is then a response to our generous God.
SPEAKER_00: It is an act of faith that says that my heavenly inheritance is secure.
SPEAKER_00: So I can hold my earthly inheritance with an open hand.
SPEAKER_00: It is an act of worship that says that all I have has come from you, and so I give back to you.
SPEAKER_00: And it is an act of discipleship, of growing in Christ-likeness as we pursue generosity with our time, with our relationships, with what we do with our home, with how we uh how we conduct ourselves in the workplace and in how we use our wealth.
SPEAKER_00: So how then does Paul help us to see?
SPEAKER_00: How then should we be generous?
SPEAKER_00: Paul helps us here in 2 Corinthians chapter 9, having given us the rationale of the gospel, that Jesus became poor, that you might be rich, that having given us that rationale, he now then helps us to think practically through what it looks like, what it looks like to be a generous people.
SPEAKER_00: And so whoever's on the clicker can give me another slide.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we did a uh uh we had like a team day, and one of the feedback for me on the team day was more slides, Mark, please, because you talk too much.
SPEAKER_00: So there you go, you're welcome.
SPEAKER_00: Uh what does it look like?
SPEAKER_00: What does generosity look like practically?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we begin with it's to be willing, willingly.
SPEAKER_00: Paul knows uh that they're uh Paul knows that they have this generous desire.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want to embarrass them by just springing this need upon them.
SPEAKER_00: He gives them a heads up, he's very gracious and kind to them because he wants it, as we saw in our reading, to be a willing gift.
SPEAKER_00: That's in verse five.
SPEAKER_00: So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go ahead to you and arrange in advance for the gift you have promised, so that you might be ready as a willing gift, not as an exaction.
SPEAKER_00: Any begrudged gift is not a gift given with a generous heart.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel generous heart gives willingly.
SPEAKER_00: And connected with that, Paul says that your giving should be done prayerfully, it should be considered.
SPEAKER_00: So, verse uh uh verse six, at this point, uh sorry, the point is this whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will reap bountifully.
SPEAKER_00: Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion.
SPEAKER_00: For God loves a cheerful giver.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, in your generosity, wants you to think about it, not just kind of rag and go, oh, well, okay, fine.
SPEAKER_00: Mark's twisted my arm because he did a sermon on money.
SPEAKER_00: So it was a better give today.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, Paul would have that'd be great, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: There'll be a QR code at the end, but that's not the that's not the point.
SPEAKER_00: The point is that Paul would have us all, as we seek to cultivate generosity in our hearts, because that's where it's not primarily about generous actions, it overflows into generous action, but it begins here.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul would say, Do you know what you need to go away and you need to think about what it would mean for you to be generous, to pray and to seek the Lord, to consider and uh how it is that your own heart would be guided to give and therefore to give willingly, not just because uh an amount is be said.
SPEAKER_00: See, Paul hasn't said, you know what, uh it's not Paul's not splitting the bill.
SPEAKER_00: You know, at the end of the night, split the bill, and uh and especially you go, well, let's let's just split it uh well evenly.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we'll just there's six of us here, uh, and we'll we'll you know, it's everybody owes you know 55 euro, and you're like, I ordered soup.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's not doing that.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying, okay, well, they the Christians in Jerusalem, uh, they they need X amount.
SPEAKER_00: There's uh there's a hundred of you there in Corinth.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just split the bill.
SPEAKER_00: No, he's like, no, each of you go home, talk to your spouse if you're married, think about it, pray about it, and then give willingly.
SPEAKER_00: And then thirdly, Paul says to give joyfully.
SPEAKER_00: God loves a cheerful giver.
SPEAKER_00: A generous heart is not cultivated by begrudged giving.
SPEAKER_00: And if all of our giving is begrudged giving, then one of the things to reflect on is have you really encountered the recklessly generous God?
SPEAKER_00: Because remember, uh, what is uh what does the writer of the Hebrews say that Paul or that Jesus' motivation was in going to the cross?
SPEAKER_00: He said that for the joy set before him.
SPEAKER_00: It was a joy-motivated thing for Jesus to go to the cross, for Jesus to give away everything, because he saw something greater beyond it, that being you and me.
SPEAKER_00: And a harvest of righteousness around his throne.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul would invite you, say, can you can you see beyond the mere act of putting your hand in your pocket or getting your phone out and going to the donate page or whatever it is?
SPEAKER_00: Can you see beyond that to actually what it is going to achieve?
SPEAKER_00: And we'll get there in a second, because that would motivate joyful, cheerful giving.
SPEAKER_00: And then finally, uh sacrificially.
SPEAKER_00: Paul in chapter eight talks more about the Macedonian church.
SPEAKER_00: He mentions them in uh in verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing you need to know about the Macedonian church.
SPEAKER_00: The Macedonian church was not well off, they were poor.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says in chapter 8 that those guys who were poor, they gave beyond themselves.
SPEAKER_00: They gave beyond their means.
SPEAKER_00: They begged Paul to let them give.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed that dynamic that oftentimes uh the people who have the least are often the most generous?
SPEAKER_00: The people who have the least are often the most ready to give away what little they do have in order to be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes to encourage the Corinthian Christians, because the Corinthian Christians, they're well off, they're middle class educated.
SPEAKER_00: Corinth was a major trade route in the Roman Empire, and the Macedonians had very little.
SPEAKER_00: These guys, these guys have deep pockets, and they say, Do you know what?
SPEAKER_00: If these guys are giving it out of their lack, don't be put to shame by them.
SPEAKER_00: They willingly give in such a way that was sacrificial.
SPEAKER_00: They gave until they felt that it mattered to them.
SPEAKER_00: Each of you needs to prayfully think through what that looks like for you in terms of what it means to give sacrificially, in a sense that you know, you know, in a sense that it's gone.
SPEAKER_00: Do you need to be rich in order to be generous?
SPEAKER_00: Well, no.
SPEAKER_00: The most generous person in the temple court that day when Jesus observed everybody coming and fillering filling the offering plate.
SPEAKER_00: The most generous person that day was the widow.
SPEAKER_00: The most generous person that day was the widow who gave two small coins.
SPEAKER_00: All of the religious people were coming with their lavish gear on, and they were uh they were like, oh, just uh just filling the old offering plate here, oh, but you know, just my service.
SPEAKER_00: They were doing it for performance, they were doing it in order to be well regarded.
SPEAKER_00: They hadn't a generous heart.
SPEAKER_00: As the widow comes along, she gives two small coins, Jesus says that she has given more than the rest.
SPEAKER_00: Because she is given as an act of worship, as an act of dependence.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it remarkable?
SPEAKER_00: She could have kept one of the coins, but she didn't.
SPEAKER_00: She gave all that she could.
SPEAKER_00: Again, there's a a lyric in a in a hymn that I think fits well.
SPEAKER_00: It's not what you give, it's what you keep.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the king is counting.
SPEAKER_00: Willingly, prayerfully, joyfully, sacrificially.
SPEAKER_00: That is how we grow as a generous people who have encountered the reckless generosity of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so you say that, okay, right, right, fine.
SPEAKER_00: How much?
SPEAKER_00: How much do you want?
SPEAKER_00: You can come and have that conversation with me after church.
SPEAKER_00: Um should I give a tithe?
SPEAKER_00: You know, this often where people's minds go, tithe comes from the old English for a tenth.
SPEAKER_00: Should we give a tenth?
SPEAKER_00: 10%?
SPEAKER_00: Here's the answer no.
SPEAKER_00: There's no tithe in the New Testament to say nothing of the fact that the Old Testament tithe is closer to about 23%.
SPEAKER_00: There's no command in the New Testament to give to give a tenth.
SPEAKER_00: 10th might be a useful guide for people that might serve you as you think through.
SPEAKER_00: You might, in your own personal life, go, do you know what?
SPEAKER_00: No, 10%, that I'm just carving that off, and that goes to supporting gospel work.
SPEAKER_00: That's a great way to think.
SPEAKER_00: But I cannot, as a pastor, as a leader, and say, thus saith the Lord, that's the command, everybody tenth, please.
SPEAKER_00: The reality is that most people, and this is not uh just true of city churches, this is kind of a stat kind of across uh across churches, most people give about two and a half percent.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, rather than giving this uh, rather than prescribing an amount, gives a principle.
SPEAKER_00: He gives this principle of sowing and reaping.
SPEAKER_00: We read it there in verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: Let me remind you of it again.
SPEAKER_00: The point is this whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
SPEAKER_00: What's going on here?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the very first thing that you need to know and that I want to acknowledge straight away, is that preachers and televangelists have manipulated people out of their money using verses like this, and have done wicked things in exacting money from vulnerable people, and that is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a prosperity theology verse.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you why.
SPEAKER_00: The reason why prosperity preachers like to use this verse is because they think it means that giving is a single material transaction between you and God.
SPEAKER_00: You give him a lot, and he'll give a lot back to you.
SPEAKER_00: The more you give him, the more materially, in terms of monetary resources, he will give back to you.
SPEAKER_00: The end.
SPEAKER_00: A single, primarily material transaction.
SPEAKER_00: Give to God, he'll give back to you.
SPEAKER_00: That is not what this verse is saying.
SPEAKER_00: That is not what this verse is about.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, this verse is designed to be first and foremost, it's an encouragement to us.
SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to encourage us in our giving that when we give, it doesn't just go into some void.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't just fall flat to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: That actually, Paul wants to encourage you that if you give to gospel work, God will see that actually he brings a harvest out of it.
SPEAKER_00: That giving has an effect on people's lives and on the advancement of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That's the primary encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: That if you sow, there will be a reaping, there will be a harvest, there will be a return.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you think, oh, well, you know, I'm just throwing money into a pot, and I have no idea where it goes.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if it's just going to go and uh and pay for administrative costs or whether it's actually going to go to somebody's good.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's saying, no, give the gospel work, God will use it, and he will bring about a return.
SPEAKER_00: That's the encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: And he's also saying that that return will enable more giving.
SPEAKER_00: This is where the prosperity theologians, theologians, uh, go wrong.
SPEAKER_00: They go wrong in at least two ways with this verse.
SPEAKER_00: They think that you give in order to get.
SPEAKER_00: That is not what's going on here.
SPEAKER_00: Gospel generosity is you give in order to get, in order to give.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a single transaction, it's an ever cycling.
SPEAKER_00: I give, and then the Lord blesses me, if he does, by his good pleasure, and and I give again because I'm seeing how it's working, and I see how people are being blessed.
SPEAKER_00: I love joining God in that.
SPEAKER_00: And so, and so as he blesses me with resources, well, I'm gonna give more because it's a joy to see God at work.
SPEAKER_00: And and then God blesses me with more resources by his good pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: And so I I give again, and maybe I push myself, I give a little and even more because I'm seeing God using it and working with it.
SPEAKER_00: You don't give in order to get, you give in order to give.
SPEAKER_00: And what's more, the second way that people go wrong with this verse is that the harvest isn't merely material.
SPEAKER_00: It is not give material wealth and gain just material wealth.
SPEAKER_00: It's give material wealth, and God will use that matter to bring about something eternal.
SPEAKER_00: And so the emphasis that Paul uh Paul places is on a harvest of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10 He who supplies seed for the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your sow your seed for sowing and increase what?
SPEAKER_00: The harvest of your righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: What you get is a harvest of righteousness in your life, and God uses your material giving to bless others.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the point material wealth, personal wealth, is never an end in itself.
SPEAKER_00: That is how personal wealth corrupts, it causes us to fall in love with it.
SPEAKER_00: It makes us those oysters that we were talking about.
SPEAKER_00: We clam round the pearl.
SPEAKER_00: But personal wealth is never an end in itself.
SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to flow through our hands, through us, as we seek to be a blessing to others.
SPEAKER_00: God's desire in the increase of personal wealth is also to also simultaneously increase personal generosity.
SPEAKER_00: I think perhaps if we drip feed our generosity, God will often simply drip feed our supply.
SPEAKER_00: We need to finish.
SPEAKER_00: God encourages us because of the gospel, because the implications of what Jesus has done for us to pursue generosity, to be a generous people.
SPEAKER_00: He knows how easily greed can grab hold of our hearts and how easily and how unknowingly.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Jesus talks about it so much, that we won't even know that's how insidious it is.
SPEAKER_00: He also knows that it's good for us, as individuals and as a community, to be known as a generous people who follow the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So as you reflect on what it means for you to be a willing, prayerful, joyful, and sacrificially generous person, not just with your material wealth, but with your time, your talent, how you use the gifts that God has given you, how you use your home.
SPEAKER_00: Here's some things to think about.
SPEAKER_00: Are you generous with any of those things?
SPEAKER_00: Do you give of yourself in those sorts of ways, in terms of your talents, or in terms of your home, or in terms of your money?
SPEAKER_00: Do you give?
SPEAKER_00: If not, why not?
SPEAKER_00: Is it because things are tough?
SPEAKER_00: And I fully I understand that there are some people in this room who really genuinely have nothing.
SPEAKER_00: You're here and in this season to to buy God's grace to receive and to to to be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: But maybe there are others who who actually they're like the Macedonian Christians, that you're here and you think like here, your belt's quite tight.
SPEAKER_00: Living in Dublin, the belt gets tight quite quickly once once your rent's gone out.
SPEAKER_00: I suspect that perhaps those in those situations can think, well, how can I be like a Macedonian Christian?
SPEAKER_00: How can I continue to pursue generosity?
SPEAKER_00: Because being generous isn't about being wealthy.
SPEAKER_00: It's about having a heart that is pursuing our generous God.
SPEAKER_00: If you do give, can you honestly discern your motives in giving?
SPEAKER_00: Do you see it as a privilege to give?
SPEAKER_00: Do you ask how much do I have to give?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you ask how much do I get to give for this?
SPEAKER_00: Two very different questions, do you see?
SPEAKER_00: Do you need, like the Corinthian Christians, to follow through in your intentions?
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing about the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: The Corinthians, when Paul had visited them first, were like, oh yes, we're well, we're very wealthy.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you would love to support any cause uh that uh that you have, but you and you've met those people who are like, oh yes, yes, yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: Uh anything you need, anything you need, and then you actually come and say, Oh well.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, um, things are a bit tight uh right now.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe if you this now is not a great time.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe if you came back uh next year um and then they stop replying to your texts, and this never happened to me.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Paul's encouraging them to follow through on their on their on their bravado about their wealth, they're following through on their intentions.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've never actually followed through on your intentions.
SPEAKER_00: You thought, oh, do you know what I really should, I really should give.
SPEAKER_00: And you just you keep on forgetting.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe today's actually the day to start that.
SPEAKER_00: You want to think, so confession, one of the things that Philippa, Philippa and I had talked for ages about uh about sponsoring a child through compassion, right?
SPEAKER_00: Love, compassion, love their values, love what they stand for.
SPEAKER_00: We'd talked for years about doing it and not following through on our intentions.
SPEAKER_00: And we've finally done it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not me saying, oh, and so come be like Mark.
SPEAKER_00: That's a Mark's crap.
SPEAKER_00: He's slow, slow-witted, right?
SPEAKER_00: It takes time.
SPEAKER_00: But perhaps now's the moment either to give or to go on to something like compassion.ie.
SPEAKER_00: If you if you want to know how to direct your giving, you could talk to Rosie.
SPEAKER_00: Give us a wave, Rosie.
SPEAKER_00: She'll have she'll happily take your money because she works in this sector, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um, or you can come and talk to us and talk about how we're supporting people and who it is that we're helping.
SPEAKER_00: But maybe it is that you need to follow through on your intentions.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions about how it is that we manage things financially, who it is that we support, we're happy to have that conversation.
SPEAKER_00: You're the best thing you can do, become a member.
SPEAKER_00: Partner with us because we all We open the hood to all of the inner workings of City Church.
SPEAKER_00: But please do reach out and consider what it means for you and for us as a body to be a generous people together for the glory of God in our lives and for the blessing of God in our city and in our world.
SPEAKER_02: If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, visit our website found in the links below.