The Habit of Generosity
The Power of Spiritual Habits September 21, 2025 2 Corinthians 8:1-9 Notes
We live in a culture that prizes getting more than giving. Advertisers constantly tell us we don’t have enough, while inflation and bills pressure us to hold tighter to money and possessions. As God’s children, instead of a having a mindset of abundance, we often struggle with a mindset of scarcity, doubting God’s provision and anxious about having enough. Yet, God is generous! And we were created in His image to be generous too!
In the apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he urged them to them to excel in the grace of giving by pointing to the Macedonian churches, who, though poor and afflicted, gave generously beyond their means, and by reminding them of Christ’s supreme example of generosity. We can cultivate the habit of generosity to excel in the grace of giving.
Audio
Good morning, church. It's good to see all of you here. This morning we're continuing our series entitled the Power of Spiritual Habits. We're actually in part six of a part seven series and we're going through the Christian disciplines that help us grow to be more like Jesus. That's what we've been working out.
Working out what he's working in is what the habits are about. Our theme verse is found in Ephesians 4:23-24 (NLT) 23 “Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.” And so it's the Holy Spirit at work in us. And then the spiritual habits or disciplines, practices are a way of yielding ourselves to that work.
Spiritual habits are a way of yielding to and cooperating with the Spirit's work for our sanctification. And so the habits don't change us, the Holy Spirit changes the Spirit of Christ, changes us, gives us a new heart. But the habits help us exercise or practice and yield to that work in us. Now, over the past few Sundays, we've talked about the habit of daily devotion, the habit of fellowship, the habit of service, of rest of Bible study. And now this morning we're going to talk about the habit of generosity.
The habit of generosity. Now, what is generosity? It's the virtue of giving from your heart and giving plentifully, to give joyfully. It's foremost, first and foremost, a disposition of the heart, a willingness to be a giver. It's an essential characteristic of Christ followers.
Giving generously is a way of life for believers. It's a mark of what it means to be a believer. Now, speaking of generosity, we're at the six month point of our It's Time generosity initiative. We went through the book of Haggai earlier this year and then the month of March. We made an over and above commitment as a church to give over and above our normal tithe and over and above our normal giving in order to accomplish three goals.
And we set these goals up based on what we learned in Haggai. And it was to be strong, do the work, be fearless. We wanted to be strong in our community engagement. We wanted to do the work of expanding our ministry cap with more staff and more volunteers. And we wanted to be fearless in taking hold of an opportunity to acquire a new property for our Rocky Mount campus.
So how are we doing? Can I give you an update? So first of all, engaging the community. Now that calls for resources. It costs money to make sure that new residents know that we're here for people to know about us, you have to get the word out.
And so because of your faithful generosity, your God enabled generosity, let me just give you a quick update. One is I'm hearing over and over again, first timers every Sunday coming to me and saying, hey, I just moved here from New Jersey, I just moved here from California, I just moved here from Pennsylvania. Fill in the blank. I met somebody last week who just moved here from Florida, but they were actually from New Jersey. And we had a little conversation about that.
I said, I think we call you halfbacks. That's where you leave the north, go to the south, fall half back to North Carolina. And I said, how'd you hear about it? Well, I got it. You sent me a card.
And I said, I did. Yeah, it was a new resident card. And so we're sending out new resident cards. And every week I'm hearing that. But even more so, I'm hearing people saying, I saw you on Facebook, I saw a video, I saw an invite, and then somebody started talking to me.
And we're seeing so many guests, it's unbelievable. Our Rocky mount campus saw 20 guests last week and it's just overwhelming. Now that's impressive, right? It's a cool thing that our community engagement is causing people to come. But may I say to you what's even more important, more important, most important, the people that are new, that are coming are the ones that are praying to receive Jesus.
They're the ones who fill out connection cards and make appointments to say, hey, I need to know more about how to follow Jesus. I want to be baptized, I want to be a Christ follower. And that's made possible. That's the fruit of your faithful God given generosity. I'm thankful for you being able to do that.
Give above and giving above and beyond that way. So our community engagement. Can I give you a really cool community engagement update? We just bought a billboard in Rocky Mount, just got put up. It's on Bethlehem Road.
This is, we're trying to really work on our Rocky Mount campus right now, letting people know we've got a new building and it's right down from Rocky Mount High School. So some of you, I know what you're going to do on your Sunday drive today you're going to drive on Bethlehem Road in Rocky Mount and have your photo made in front of our billboard and if you do put it on Facebook and you'll help us. And why are we doing this is because we don't want to make ourselves famous in eastern North Carolina. We want to make Jesus famous in eastern North Carolina. We want to make it hard to go to hell east of 95, because we're telling people about Jesus, right?
We want to saturate our cities with the gospel, but it requires resources. Thank you, thank you for your generosity. A couple of other items I'll mention to you is as you know, I've already announced last month we hired a children's director, Michelle Minter. She's working faithfully, she's doing a great job. We're so excited and we're looking at hiring someone new for Rocky Mount.
So we're in the process right now of interviewing some people. And so anyway, exciting things to be announced soon to come. And then you heard in the announcements, if you were here earlier and you were watching the video beforehand. This coming Saturday, we celebrate our 10th anniversary in Rocky Mount. And so Wilson’s church is 33 plus years old.
Our Rocky Mount campus is celebrating 10 years. Next Sunday we're gonna have lunch and a special presentation. God is good, but it's our generosity. God given generosity that he was generous to us and he's made it possible for us to be generous back to our community, back to others. It's all from the Lord.
That's what we're talking about today. But I thought it would be important to give you a six month check in update. If you want to know more about It's Time, go to our website. If you're a new attender, a new member, go to our website and look at that. And it's not too late to get on the It's Time team and help us.
But you know, the truth is we live in a culture today where generosity is not the mark. We care more in our culture today about getting than giving. And really the mark of our culture today, if you look at the culture, we're worried about inflation, we're worried about joblessness, we're worried about making ends meet.
We have more month than we do money, right? And so that's often what we're worried about. And even as believers, we often struggle with a mindset of scarcity. We think we have limited resources, which means we have to hang on to what we have and we have to be miserly. But here's the truth.
Misers are miserable, but givers are glad. And so we got to go against the culture. Because the truth is for a believer, for a believer, we're to have a mindset not of scarcity, but of abundance. Because as followers of Jesus, all that he has, we are now co inheritors with him he has the cattle on a thousand hills. He is the owner of all the earth and the people thereof.
And so we have this available to us. So when God calls us to be generous, we don't have to draw just on our pocketbooks or wallets. We can draw on the heavenly account. This is what Paul's talking about in Second Corinthians. In the Apostle Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, he urged them to excel in the grace of giving.
He pointed to the Macedonian churches, who, though they were poor and afflicted, they gave generously beyond their means. And he reminded them also of Christ's supreme example of generosity. And he challenged them to be generous, too. I believe today that we can hear this word of God today, and we can cultivate a habit of generosity. And as we look at the text, I think we'll see four practices that will help us do that, that'll help us grow more like the Lord and more in the Lord in the practice of generosity.
The habit of generosity. Let's look. Chapter 8, verses 1 through 9. Let's read God's Word together. 2 Corinthians 8:1-9 (ESV) 1 “We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia,
2 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. 3 For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, 4 begging us earnestly for the favo] of taking part in the relief of the saints— 5 and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. 6 Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. 7 But as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you—see that you excel in this act of grace also.
8 I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. 9 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.” This is God's word. Amen. We're looking for four practices for cultivating the habit of generosity.
1. Rely on God’s grace to enable joyful generosity.
Rely on God's grace to enable joyful generosity. We can do this. We can rely on God's grace to enable our joyful generosity. Now, make no mistake.
This is based on God's grace. The truth of the matter is. Here's the bad news. We're not generous. We're selfish.
We're all born that way. All you have to do is have children and watch them go. Mine. That's mine. They want their way.
But this is how we are. We want our way. My way. My stuff, my… And that's really the attitude of sin, isn't it?
That's the bad news. We're all like that. We're all born that way. Here's the good news. Jesus came.
He left heaven. He left the wealth of heaven and became one of us. He became poor so that we might become rich. This is the grace of God. Notice how it starts.
1 “We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God…” You see that verse one? That's where we're starting. We're just going to go verse by verse and unpack this. We want you to know something.
The word know has the idea not just of intellectual knowledge, but experiential knowledge. We want you to really know the grace of God. What is the grace of God? It's the unmerited favor of God most clearly seen in the gift of His Son, Jesus. For God so loved the world that He.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting. That's God's grace. God's grace is Jesus. That's the picture of his grace, the gift of Jesus. We want you to know that, brothers.
We want you to know it, not just intellectually. We want you to know it spiritually, experientially. And here's what I want you to know now. Specifically about those churches up in Macedonia who have received this grace and what it has done to them. Look what it's done 2 “for in a severe test of affliction…”
What's this affliction he's talking about? Well, Macedonia. What is that? That's that area of where all those great warriors that you watch in movies, like the movie the 300 where they were fighting at Thermopylae and holding their ground against the Persians. Tough group of people.
But they started coming to Christ when Paul came through with his partner Silas and preaching, and he preached in these kinds of cities. And you'll recognize these names. Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea. Those are the Macedonian churches. They're afflicted in two ways.
One, economically, it's an economic downturn. Does that sound familiar to some of you? You might be going through a time of joblessness or a time where you're getting hit hard financially or something. And they were going through a season like that of economic affliction. But not only that, they were being persecuted because they were new believers.
And that, that's the area that Paul and Silas got beaten publicly and put in jail up there in Philippi. Of course, by the way, while they were in the Philippi prison, the Philippian prison, they led the jailer and his whole family to the Lord. So everywhere they went, they were sharing the gospel. But that area was afflicted. You with me? That's Macedonian churches, they're afflicted.
But now, of course, they're not going to give. They don't have much. They're being persecuted, they're not going to give, right? Wrong. Here's what he says.
2 “for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity…” What in the world happened in Macedonia? It's like they turned the hot and the cold water on at the same time. They turned on affliction, they turned on joy and, and out came generosity. It's like it overflowed.
How does that work? How does that happen? That's what happened there. It's by the grace of God. You know what I've noticed?
Often it's not the wealthiest people that are the most generous. It's often the people who have gone through the school of hard knocks and they remember what it felt like. And so here's the Church of Macedonia, the churches of Macedonia, they heard about the famine in Jerusalem and Paul coming through, making a collection for the Jerusalem saints who are starving. And they were like, isn't that where the apostles, isn't that where Jesus, hey, those are the founders of our faith. Hey, we want to give to that.
And Paul's coming up in there going, it's okay, y' all don't have to give. I'm going down to those wealthy people in Corinth and they're like, no, we want to give. We've been afflicted. We know what it feels like. And we're still being afflicted.
But you know what? The joy of the Lord is in us. And it made us givers. And I found this to be true among you. And among us, it's not the wealthiest among us, it's not the ones who drive in the nicest cars.
It's those middle class people, those, those blue collar, hard working people. Often it's those people that don't have all that much, but they have a heart that's been changed by Jesus, and it mixes together and out comes generosity. The habit of generosity begins with setting our hopes on God's account in heaven rather than worldly wealth. Rather than looking at your bank account, you look at God's bank account and you say, if he's calling me to do it, the answer is yes. That's generosity.
In first Timothy, it says this. 1 Timothy 6:17-19 (ESV) 17 “As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. 18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, 19 thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.” Here's what he's saying. He goes, open your hand to God and receive his grace, and let him change your heart and let him meet your needs. But don't dam it up down the line.
You know, stop shaking your fist at God, open your hand to God, and then if you want it to really flow to you and through you, you got to open. You got to open it up downstream, right? You got to be a giver. You have to be generous so God can trust you. Here's what I want you to know about God.
He cares more about your attitude than he does the amount. He cares more about the attitude of your heart than the amount of your gift. Notice what he says in 2 Corinthians 9:7 (ESV) “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
I like the word cheerful in the Greek. It's hilaros. Hilaros. It's where we get the word hilarious. Give till it cracks you up.
He says, God loves that. God loves that. And so give with a joyful heart. There are two great bodies of water in the country of Israel, and I've been to both of these, and some of you have gone with me on these trips that we've taken to Israel. The big, beautiful body of water that's in the north is the Sea of Galilee, and it has many inlets.
The primary one comes down from Mount Hermon, where the snow melts and waters, just like rapids, rush into the Sea of Galilee. And it's surrounded by lush vegetation and filled with fish and life. The Sea of Galilee is beautiful. And it has this one major outlet that goes south out of the Sea of Galilee called the River Jordan. And then it flows into another large body of water which is really at least two to three times bigger than the Sea of Galilee.
It's the largest body of water in Israel. It's called the Dead Sea. It has all this water flowing into it just like the Sea of Galilee. But it's dead. It's big.
It's dead. Why? There's no outlet. There's no outlet. There's no water flowing out of the Dead Sea.
You see, you can dam it up upstream and you can say no to God and you can live a life of scarcity and depend on yourself. You can open your hand to God and then dam it up downstream. And then that just shows you aren't really dependent on God because God's generous to you and he gives you a new heart to be generous to others. And not just a heart that's just doing it out of duty, but does it with joy. Generosity isn't what is in your wallet.
It isn't what is in your wallet. It's about. It's about what's in your heart. Generosity doesn't wait for abundance. If you wait for abundance, you'll never give.
It overflows even in affliction, because Christ is your wellspring, you've got a source. If we wait until we're financially ready, we'll never be generous. So let's rely on God's grace. Grace fueled generosity means being a river, not a reservoir. Being a river and letting it flow.
2. Draw on God’s grace to supply surprising generosity.
Draw on God's grace to supply surprising generosity. We've talked about joyful generosity that comes from the heart. We're going to look at verses three through five now.
We're going to talk about surprising generosity and how we can draw on God's grace. Grace so that we give, so that it blows other people away, that we give in amazing unexpected ways. Look at verse 5 and notice how Paul and the others and his team go. They gave not as we expected. See that?
See the word not as. They didn't expect those Macedonians to give like that. They knew that they were economically disadvantaged. They knew. They knew they were being persecuted by the surrounding people groups.
They were brand new churches and they got up in there and they thought, we're probably not going to take a collection up here. We won't get much out of it. Let's not make them feel bad. Okay, that's probably what they were thinking. But then look what happens here.
Look at verse three through five. 3 “For they gave according to their means,” So they had a little something they could give. That makes sense. Okay, they could give a little bit.
But they didn't stop there, as I can testify, Paul says, 3 “...and beyond their means, of their own accord,” That word beyond in the Greek is the word huper. That's where we get the word hyper. Does anybody know what hyper means?
Does anybody have a three year old? That's what hyper is. It's where we get the word super. And here's what Paul says. You know, we didn't really want to even tell them about it because we don't want them to feel bad.
But they were like, they asked us for the favor. Did you see that? 4 “begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints.” They asked us in verse four. No, they didn't just ask us, “begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the…” Can we please, pretty please, please, can we be part of the donation you're taking to the Jerusalem Saints?
Because we know what it feels like to be hungry, to be hurting.
Can you give us the favor? And then they gave super abundantly beyond their means. How were they able to do this? Because they had their hands and their hearts wide open to the grace of God, and God called them to do it. And, and whom he calls, he also qualifies.
Whom he sends, he also supplies. And so they depended on him and they were able to give beyond their means. It was surprising generosity. And they gave above and beyond, over and above their means to the relief of the saints that were hungry due to the famine in Jerusalem.
Verse 5, “and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us.” Oh, now it makes sense. It was easy.
Now I get it. They'd already given their pocketbooks. They'd already given all that they had to the Lord. They'd already given everything they were and everything they had to the Lord. It was easy because now God's given me everything and I've given it all back to him.
And he says, hey, I want you to send some over there. And they go, where? Over there. Okay, okay, okay. Because I know it's coming from you.
And so now I can be generous because you're so generous to me and I've already given my whole life to you, so I don't have to sit here and be worried about it. They gave themselves first to the Lord. Have you done that? Have you surrendered your whole life to the Lord? Who you are, your identity, your stuff, your family, your house, your car, your school, where you go, your class, your job.
Have you given yourself first to the Lord? He goes, we were amazed by them. It was so unexpected how they gave. And not only that, then by the will of God, they gave themselves to us. They gave themselves fully to us.
Paul, y' all need anything? I know y' all have traveled up in here, probably cost you a lot. You had to pay for the ship's fare to move from Troas over to Philippi and. And can we send you on ahead to Thessalonica? Here's a little extra.
Here's a little extra. Here's for the Jerusalem saints, but I know you guys need some. That's those churches in Macedonia, man, they're so generous, that's what he's saying. And it was God that made it possible.
It surprised them. It was unexpected. There's a story in the book of Mark, chapter 12, where the disciples are with Jesus and he's sitting in the outer courts, the court of the Gentiles, in the temple, in the court of the Gentiles. And in that area, they were these, these treasury boxes, these temple boxes where they would collect offerings as people would come in at all the different gates. And it's kind of like a figure, see a big box, and at the top was this trumpet shaped brass piece that opened up big at the top and went narrow that way.
You can't stick your hand in there and take the coins out, right? And it had a lock on the side. You had to open that. The priest would take the money out. That's how people would give offerings.
And he saw a rich man come in and they would come in, they pull their money out of the pouch and they throw it in that horn, that big horn shape, and it would ring all over the place down in the hole in the box. And the disciples were probably turning to each other and going, man, that guy's wealthy. Did you see how much money he put in there? I bet God loves him, man. Jesus was just sitting there quietly.
And then this widow woman comes up and she makes sure nobody's watching. One person was watching. She gets in her little pouch and she has to dig around, she keeps pulling out lint. She finds two little coins, the smallest denomination of the Roman Empire.
She tried to lay it in there so it would slide in instead of ring. Here's what Jesus said to his disciples when that happened. He called them around. Mark 12:43-44 (ESV) “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 poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” There's a couple amazing things I want you to get out of this. First of all, Jesus watches your giving. He watches, he notices your generosity. He's watching.
God is watching. Another thing I want you to know. He cares more about the attitude of your heart than he does the amount of your gift.
It's not how loud it rings, it's how much it demonstrates your heart change. Have you ever been surprised by someone's generosity? An anonymous gift, a meal paid for that you didn't expect, a check arrived just in time at the last minute when it was needed. This is the kind of spirit led generosity that Paul's describing. I would say, first of all, ask yourselves, have you given yourselves fully to the Lord?
When he has my heart, he has my hands. When he has my willingness, he has my wallet.
This week, why don't you try some generosity? Just put it on for just kind of putting some generosity on. If he's working it in you, why not? If he's putting it in, why don't you put it on? Try some things.
Why don't you call somebody just to say hello, not to ask them for something, not to just say hello. Just give them the gift of your presence. Why don't you tip somebody like you've never tipped before. Like blowing the waiter or waitress away. Like they stumble and drop their drinks after they pick up the tip.
Give an unexpected gift. Compliment someone who least expects it. Smile generously, make someone's day. Be happy for someone else's success. You're at your best when you're generous.
Why not be crazy generous? Why not be joyfully generous? Why not be surprising, unexpectedly generous? Because God is generous to us and it shows that we are in Christ. That's the second practice that we can pursue and cultivate the habit of generosity in us.
We can draw on God's grace. And even when we are in a season of lack, we go, not really. I'm never going to be in a mindset of scarcity because I don't draw on an earthly account, I draw on a heavenly account. Here's number three. Here's the third practice.
3. Let God’s grace move you to pursue generosity.
Let God's grace move you to pursue generosity. Let God's grace move you to pursue generosity. We're at verses six and seven now, okay? We're working through it verse by verse. Verse 6 and 7 accordingly.
Okay, he switched topics a little bit now. Not topics, but at least he's talking directly to the Corinthians more. So now he was describing the Macedonian churches, and now he's going to apply it to the Corinthian churches. “Accordingly,” he says in verse six, “we urged Titus..” and they know Titus. Titus had been there the previous year telling them about the Jerusalem famine and that we were, hey, we're going to swing back by here later and pick up an offering.
So y' all work on getting it together. We need to support Jerusalem. They're in trouble. And so they've known for a year. You read the rest of the letter and find that out.
It's in. It's in the rest of the letter to Second Corinthians. He goes, we urged Titus, so he sent Titus on ahead so he could complete among you this act of grace, this grace of giving. Titus has come. He's going to come ahead.
Now, why is he doing that? It's because he's going to bring some of those Macedonians with him, and he's been bragging on the church at Corinth, and he doesn't want the church of Corinth to make him look bad, and he doesn't want them to feel bad because he's been going, those Corinthians, now, they excel in everything. It's going to be a great gift. But the more he thought about, about, he thought, I don't know. These Macedonians have blown me away with their generosity.
I don't know if that bunch of rich people down in Corinth really get what it means to live through a famine, you know? And so he was worried about it, so he sent Titus on ahead. Y' all with me? Are you staying with me here? I'm giving you a warning.
And then he gives them this charge, and this is really the central kind of, I guess, command language, if you will. It's not quite a command language, but it almost is. He goes, 7 “But as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you,” You got all these things.
See that? Here's the command part, or at least a strong urge. See that you excel in this act of grace. Also see that you excel in generosity and giving. Also, you're good at faith, you're good at speech, you're good at knowledge, you're good at earnestness, which is the idea of enthusiasm.
You have love, but you're kind of lacking in generosity.
And that's one of the proofs, if you will, of Christ in you. Because, for God so loved the world that he, you know. And when you have the gift of God, which is Jesus, and you have the grace of God, which is unmerited favor in Jesus, and he lives in you, and he's being fully formed in you, so that the life of Christ is now the life you live, generosity becomes one of the marks of your character. He goes, you need to pursue this. You need to grow in excellence in this church of Corinth.
You're wealthy. Now, you might not feel wealthy. Those Corinthians are wealthy. But when it comes to the world, Americans are the most wealthy in the world. I've been all over the world, and I've never seen the kind of poverty that I've seen in those other places in the world.
Even the most impoverished areas of the US don't compare to what I've seen in Uganda or in other places. I've been to Indonesia or other places. I've been in Mexico or in places I've been to in Guatemala, and I've been to a lot of places. And it's hard when you leave to see how much wealth we have here and how unaware we are. He says, let's pursue generosity.
See that you excel in this grace. You know, there's a story over in the Book of Exodus where they were getting ready to build the tabernacle, and God had given Moses the blueprint. He'd gone up on Mount Sinai and he'd given him the blueprint. And Moses comes down and he's going to build the tabernacle, the tent of meeting. And he needed some resources.
And so it says this in Exodus, chapter 35, verse 5, Exodus 35:5 (ESV) “Take from among you (this is Moses talking to the people) a contribution to the Lord. Whoever is of a generous heart, (because, see, God doesn't want a bunch of tight people. He wants a generous heart gift)
let him bring the Lord's contribution… Then all the congregation of the people of Israel departed from the presence of Moses. And they came, everyone whose heart stirred him, and everyone whose spirit moved him, and brought the Lord's contribution to be used for the tent of meeting, and for all its service.” And so their hearts were stirred. They were feeling generous.
It was coming from their heart. And the story goes on, when you get to chapter 37, the book of Exodus, some of the workers that were running the building of this thing came back to Moses. And you got to tell the people to stop giving that's a real problem. It's stacking up out back. We'll never use all the resources they're bringing.
The people are just like, here's some more, and they're bringing him more. And because they're so fired up that God stirred their hearts and that they're God's people, and they're so excited, and Moses had to tell them to stop, Hey, y', all, hold up. We got enough. You know, if God's people are generous, if their hearts are stirred and they're full of Jesus, they'll be more than enough.
They'll be hyper super enough. When God's people are living according to God's grace, how do we pursue this? He says, you should be excellent in this, just like you are on your doctrine and your public speaking and your other things. You're good at those things. Church at Corinth, you guys are highly educated, know what you're doing.
You got a great church. But you could really grow at giving. How could you do that? Well, one is you could look at some of the Old Testament laws and apply them as principles. In the New Testament, we don't live under law anymore.
We live under grace. But the Old Testament is still very useful to inform us. One is the tithe, which means one tenth. That's a good practice to start with. It's a good benchmark for generosity.
And so you could start with the tithe, giving a tenth of your income. The Old Testament talks about other kinds of offerings. Freewill offerings, first fruit offerings, these kinds of things. So look at these as principles, and look at them as the Old Testament saints were blessed. But how much more are we blessed in the New Testament?
And so I don't see that it would be less than what the Old Testament saints did. I think it would be superabundantly more. Our generosity would be marked because we have Jesus. Let me give you a couple of thoughts about the tithe. One is, it shows when you give back 10% to God.
You're saying to him, I already know you own 100%, and by faith, I give you 10% to show that I believe that. That's from Leviticus 27:30 (NIV) “‘A tithe of everything… belongs to the Lord; it is holy to the Lord.” It's special to the Lord. And so if you haven't started tithing, maybe you're a new believer.
And maybe you got yourself in such a financial wreck that if you tried to tithe, you wouldn't eat this month. Okay, God knows that he cares more about the attitude of your heart than he does the amount of your gift. Start where you can. Don't do nothing. Do something and say, God help me to get to where I can grow in the excellence of generosity.
Start with 1% and then grow it. And here's what will happen. As you give, you'll grow in the generosity of letting it flow, living the life of the open hand. Not like this, the open hand. You'll grow.
You'll grow in generosity. You can start with tithing. Give first fruits. You know, tithing is the one place in the scripture where he promises to test him. He says, Malachi 3:10 (ESV) “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.” He says, you know what?
Test me in this. Just go ahead and try to outgive God. Go ahead and try. You can give me the test. First fruits is just the idea of giving him the first portion.
And it says in Proverbs 3:9 (ESV) “Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce.” And so it's to give him your first portion. It's to give him your first and your best. Because if you wait till the end of the month, you'll run out of money before you run out of month. But so it's better to be generous with first portions.
It shows that you're putting God first. Remember, God calls us to be a river, not a reservoir. Here's number four. We've gone through three practices.
We've talked about joyful generosity. We've talked about pursuing generosity. We've talked about surprising generosity.
4. Look to God’s grace in Christ for genuine generosity.
Genuine generosity. Verses 8 and 9. That's where we are. 8 “I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine.” Hey, we're in the New Testament.
And besides, if he has to make us do it, if he has to command us to do it, it's not generosity. It's a tax. Has anybody here given the IRS a tip? You know, like when you're writing that check to the IRS. You know what, D.C.?
I feel like up there, y' all have done such a good job this year. I'm not only going to give you the amount that I owe you, I'm going to give you a little extra out of the generosity. Can I see a show of hands? How many people? Nobody.
You know why? Because you've been commanded, you've been taxed. That's not generosity, that's a tax.
But God has given you freely, he's given you all the best of heaven when he gave you Jesus. And then when he gives you Jesus and you receive him freely, then you have all that there is because you become coheirs with Christ. And out of that should flow a new heart as Christ is fully formed in us, so that we're generous and it's not a tax, it's a privilege. Do me a favor and let me give. That's what the Macedonians say.
And that's what it starts looking like when we have this genuine generosity. He says, I'm not commanding you, telling you this to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. You know what generosity is? It's a test. It's a proof of whether or not Christ is formed in you and his influence is growing and changing your character.
That word prove is the same word that you would use if you brought gold to someone to test it and they would heat it up and test to see if it's genuine silver or gold or some other metal. And they prove it and they say, well it's 30 proof or 50 proof or whatever it is, right? And he's saying, you know what, I'm not saying this to command you. I'm saying this to show that the genuine love and generosity of God is really in you. And by the way, can I remind you what that looks like? Verse 9, “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.”
That's it boy. That's it right there, isn't it? Jesus says in Matthew 10:8 (NKJV) “Freely you have received, freely give.”
He's the example. But we can't live up to his example. You see, that's the gospel. The gospel says, here is what holiness and righteousness looks like.
And we go, yeah, but I can't do that. Well, that's the bad news. I can't do that because I'm selfish or I don't have enough. If I let go of this, I won't have enough. That's the bad news.
I can't do it. That's the bad news. But the gospel's good news. Well Gary, how's it good news? Jesus did it for you.
He's the generous one. He's God's grace incarnate. He's God's grace, he's God's generosity in the flesh. And when he came and died for us, he took our death, he took our sin, he took our separation from the Father, saying, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
It's the great exchange. He says, if you'll take me freely receive me, I'll take your death, I'll take your sin, I'll take your separation from the Father, and I'll give you my eternal life, my righteousness and my sonship so that you're adopted into God's very family. That's the gospel, that's the good news. You can't be generous. I'm sorry.
I just spent 40 minutes plus telling you to be generous. You can't do it. I'm sorry. But Jesus in you can do it. And he can do all things.
And we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength. It's the proof that the one who left heaven and came and became impoverished, that we might be rich. It's proof that now he lives in me and you. That's how we know he's there, is that we have the habit and the character trait of generosity.
Do you know him today? Have you given your life first to him? Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you that we can study your word.
And more than that, we can have it applied to our hearts by your spirit. I pray for that person that's here this morning. You've never surrendered. You've never released control of your life and said, I'm selfish, I'm a sinner, I'm broken, I'm hurting, I'm a mess. You've never admitted it to God.
You've been hanging on. But it's time to let go and say, God, forgive me, I'm a sinner. I believe Christ died on the cross for my sins, that he was raised from the grave, that he lives today. I believe that. Come and live in me by your spirit.
Forgive me of my sins.
Adopt me into your family. Give me eternal life and give me this new heart, this new generous heart. Others are here and you've done that. You've given your life to Jesus, but today you've been struggling with a mindset of scarcity, a mindset of lack. You've been doubting God's provision today.
Would you just bring that to the Lord? You're a believer, you're a follower. But you would admit today I want to grow in this excellence of generosity. Lord, help me to trust you to provide for me so that I might give and live generously. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Audio
Alright. Good morning, church. It's good to see all of you this morning. I'm hoping that you're enjoying your time with us so far. Church ought to be a place not only where you feel welcome, but you ought to have a pretty good time.
Here we are in the presence of the Lord and hopefully that you're getting to experience that and just seeing some smiles. And it's wonderful to see you this morning. We're in part six of a series we've called the Power of Spiritual Habits, and we're digging into another habit this morning, the habit of generosity. And I'm looking forward to digging in on this with you. I just want to remind you of something.
Spiritual habits are not the end goal. They are a means to an end, which is a closeness with Christ Jesus and allowing the Spirit of God to move in your life in such a way that you feel restored, encouraged, challenged to be more like Jesus. Remind you of this. This is our series theme. We've been reading this every week.
Ephesians 4, 23 says, Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes, put on your new nature, created to be like God, truly righteous and holy. So that's our goal through these spiritual habits, is that we would yield to the Spirit's work, that these habits bring us to that ability or potential to yield to what the Spirit's already doing and putting on that new nature. So if it's your first time or you've only been once or twice, you can go back and check these out. They're sequential, so don't worry, you can kind of catch up if you need to. Today's going to stand alone, but we've already talked about fellowship, that habit, service, rest, Bible study, devotion.
We've dealt with a lot of the strong spiritual habits and now this one is no lesser. The spiritual habit of generosity. What Matthew Kelly, in a book called the Generosity Habit, what he says about generosity is this, that generosity is the virtue of giving plentifully. It is first and foremost a disposition of the heart. It isn't merely something we do.
It is an essential characteristic of who we are. So some people, you already know who they are. You know who they are in your life. You know, some people are generous people. They're giving, they're available, they're generous.
It may be you, you might have that gift, that natural bent and tendency towards generosity. Not many of us have that, not many of us are naturally facing that. And yet Christ in his word, in various times, calls us to this kind of generosity. Now I want to Pause for just a second and let you know just a couple of things, because we're talking about generosity. And God has, first of all, been incredibly generous to us this year.
And you, as a result, have also been generous. And I just want to celebrate for a second. You could pop up a couple images for me. First, we're in the middle of what we called It's Time, our It's Time Generosity initiative. And so some of you are just checking us out.
You don't know anything about this. Our church at both campuses pledged $1.6 million together. And we had several goals within that. You're in one of them. Our little bitty church over there on 301 couldn't have pulled this off without God's just, just immense provision in his people.
And so I'm pretty thankful to be here. I hope you are, too. It's been a blessing to be here since Easter, and we're seeing God work in this place. But we had three goals. Be strong, which is strengthen our community engagement, do the work, expand our ministry capacity, and be fearless, which was what we did here.
Fearlessly go after something that was felt at the time. And some of you remember this. It felt beyond us. And yet God just is incredible. So here's what's going on.
And some of you are actually uniquely aware of this in the community engagement piece. We have put a lot more effort and money and time into our social media presence. And to new resident mailers and all that, some of you are here because of that work. And we're very thankful for you over the last two weeks. Last week, we had about 20 guests.
The week before that, we had about 20 guests. Some of you are guests today. And the reason might be I saw your goofy mug online. Now, why people show up after seeing this, I don't know, but they've shown up. And that's some of you.
That's many of you today. And so we're very thankful for how God has provided in such a way that you could find us. There was a season in our church's life where we were kind of hard to find, hard to see. And I think we've become more visible because of God's generosity and. And yours.
We just put something up. You can pop up these two images, this first one. So some of you might know where this is. Just down the road, right next to Rocky Mount High School. We're putting up some billboards around and we'll see what they do.
I have no idea. The thing is, we try things and we find out later. Hey, some of that worked and we don't really always know how to like mark that and find the statistics on that. But we're putting up things like this, hopefully attracting people and so you can see those two images and we've got a new home here. You're in it.
So this picture is somewhat unnecessary. But we started, just so you know, our church started September 27th of 2015. It started a little before that. Some of you are part of that in my living room in small groups and that's a handful of you. That's a really thin number.
And there was even more people that we had. We had a small group in Castell you for a while. And so we started slow and small and God is just working on us and through us. And so I want to just give you some encouragement. God's generosity to you has been incredible and I'm so thankful for you.
And so we're going to talk about this attitude of generosity which I have to admit something is culturally hard to talk about. Let me preface, preface this whole conversation with this. I'm not coming up here to make you, hey, you guys need to give. I'm confident of this. God's going to take care of me and he's going to take care of his church.
You don't have to give a dime for that to be accomplished. You hear me say that this is not the point of this message. There is a greater point here about the heart of generosity that the American Christian often lacks. And I think God would be disappointed by that. I want to help you with that as I've been helped and am continuing to grow in this generosity isn't just about money.
It's about life. It's about your time, it's about your talents, it's about your treasures. That's how we define it here. Often is that way. But it's about who you are.
Are you a giving, generous person or are you stingy? Are you miserly with everything, not just your wallet? See, God is way more interested. Hear this. If you hear nothing else today, God is way more interested in the attitude of your heart than he is the amount in your hands.
You understand that he cares about this and the ever changing work he's doing on your heart. We simply live in a culture though, that prizes getting over giving. Every advertisement you watch, every time you look in your mailbox and it's slammed full of bills and you start thinking, feeling the pressure. You start feeling like you want to hold tighter and tighter to everything as God's Children, though, we have to adopt a new mindset that God indeed owns it all, that he is, in fact, the Creator, the abundant giver, the same God who gave his very Son. He does not deal with you and I with scarcity.
He deals with us abundantly, maybe not always in the way you expect, but in ways that you truly need. And so he's calling us to this. God is generous and has created us in his image to be generous also. I pray that this helps you today and speaks to you. I'm chewing on it.
I'm wrestling with it. We're going to be in Second Corinthians, chapter eight today. Here we're going to see the Apostle Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians. He urged them to accept, excel in the grace of giving in generosity, like the Macedonian churches. He's doing a little bit of comparison here, which you might say is a bit of a.
No, no. But he's doing it, and it's God's word. He's encouraging them, urging them to give generously. We can cultivate a habit of generosity, too, to excel in the grace of giving. How can we do this?
Well, I believe the text and Buckle up is going to give us four practices for cultivating the habit of generosity. I hope you didn't have lunch plans. Some of you know, I normally do three, and it's going to be fun. I kept it to three pages, so good news. I didn't go a page long.
We might be okay. We'll see. Hey, we're going to be in Second Corinthians, chapter 8. Let's read along now, verses 1 through 9. Here's what Paul writes to the Corinthian Church.
We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. And this not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord, and then by the will of God, to us. Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace.
But as you excel in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you, see that you excel in this act of grace also. Now, look, I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sake he became poor. So that you by his poverty might become rich. This is God's word.
Amen. I pray this helps you, encourages you, challenges you where you need to be challenged. Because God is a generous God and calls you to generosity as well. So how do we cultivate the habit of generosity? Well, the first practice is rely on God's grace to enable joyful generosity.
Joyful generosity. The Word speaks many times about the one who gives under compulsion. And this is not what God desires and nor is it what I'm trying to do today. I want you to learn to give because you love God and you love others to give because you are joyfully serving the One who gives you everything out of a sense of cheer and joy. This is where Paul begins, Verse 1.
And then he ends there too. He like bookmarks this idea that the whole reason for generosity is what? The grace of God. Verse 1. He says this plainly about the grace of God that was given to the churches.
So the reason that they were able to give was first God gave grace. Church. God has given you much grace. There's this natural outflow of the heart surrendered to God. When you receive that kind of grace that comes through the person of Christ Jesus, through the power of the cross and the power of the resurrection.
When you receive that grace, it's a natural outpouring to now give more grace, that you become like a river giving grace. He says, I want you to know this first, verse one, this grace. Now, this word grace appears a whole lot in our text today. It's the Greek word charis. You might know an individual named Charis.
Their name means grace. This is a big kind of New Testament word, if you will, that has to do with favor, that is unmerited favor that comes out of nowhere. That what you deserve, you don't get. Instead you get something good. And that's who God is to you.
Looks at you and says, this guy's messed up. I'm going to give him my son Jesus, and give him his righteousness and heaven and eternal life. It's a trade off in our favor, unmerited favor. It's this merciful kindness by which God is putting his influence on us and kindling, I pray, kindling something in us that leads to Christian virtue. So he's saying, hey, look, Corinthian Church and now Eastgate Church.
Hear this. When the grace of God comes to you, it's natural that it would now pour out of you in many ways, in the way that we've been talking over the last few weeks, in the way you devote yourself to God and the way you fellowship with others and the way you even restore that the grace of God is now beaming off of you. Surprising often though, what I've noticed among Christians, and I hope this doesn't bother you, but I've noticed a trend that generally we're pretty happy to talk about. Hey, get in your Bible and study it. You guys ought to be praying.
You really should be together, you know, don't neglect being together. But we had this like tendency, hey, don't touch my stuff.
Jesus isn't that way. Do you know most of his parables are about material things and goods and monies. Why? Because he deeply knows you and he deeply knows me. He knows what we might want to cling to.
And Christ, because of the grace he's given, he just wants us to live open handed with everything. Our wallets, our calendars. Some of you aren't so stingy with your stuff, but you're super stingy with your time. Time is money, Jonathan. Yeah.
And that time is God's time given to you and you have no control over it. Zero. We're acutely aware of that, some of us, that things like this can just end life. It's up to God. He's given you every minute, every hour, for what reason?
That you would now be a river of grace unto others. He says, look, know this grace that was given first to the churches of Macedonia. Now I just wanted to clarify who these churches are. You're going to be familiar with some of these. These are the churches we see in the book of Acts and we see some letters written to them as well.
These are the churches of Philippi, Thessalonica and Berea. And there's probably some other smaller capacities there. This is this whole region of Macedonia where Paul has been on his second missionary journey and has planted some churches and now he's saying of them, wow, they were deeply in trouble and yet they begged us to give. They wanted the favor of getting to be a part of it.
These are churches that when Paul writes his letters to them, especially to Thessalonica, those poor people are worried about what happens next because some of them are dying, they're being persecuted, they're being martyred. And so some of Paul's letters in first and Second Thessalonians is really about heaven and what's coming next because he's trying to encourage them. And it's those same people that when they come through. Here's the impression I get. Paul is taking up a love offering for the saints in Jerusalem.
I'm going to get into that more in just a moment as to why he's doing that. But he's coming through all of the churches where he's planted and taking up this love offering while also preaching. That's the primary purposes. He's there for the gospel. But at the end, he's taking up an offering for the saints in Jerusalem.
And I get the impression that he doesn't make a big ask here in these churches. He knows these are poor people, heavily persecuted. They've been dealing with a famine. They're not like the Corinthian church, who is more affluent. They're much better off.
He's coming through there, and maybe it slips. It slips up. Oh, yeah, we're taking up a love offering and the people are like, you're doing what we won't in on that. That's very foreign to America, huh? You don't see that a lot in our culture.
We get an opportunity to give. Please let me in on it. So rare that you see people like that. And yet that seems to be the commended heart of the gospel here. They received the grace so fully that they didn't look at how poor and how hurt they were and say, we can't do it.
Instead, they were like, we would love to do it. This is so funny what it says here. In fact, it says, they gave out of their extreme poverty. I want you to make sense out of that. It says, look at this.
This is verse 2. In a severe test of affliction, Their famines, their persecution, all that, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have done what? Overflowed. How do you overflow from extreme poverty? Somebody makes sense of that for me.
How does that work? You ever had this moment in your life where you were so broke that giving somebody something was just hilarious? Where you're like, hey, I'm probably going to lose this anyway. I'm just going to go ahead and give this away, too. Some of you have been there.
There's been times where I made a commitment to the Lord. I said, this is who I want to be before you. I want to give to your kingdom's purpose. But have you looked at my bank account lately? Because it ain't working.
All of my vehicles are broke. You couldn't stop some of this, but you didn't. And look, I'm not blaming You, Lord, because part of it's my own just, you know, not taking care of things like I should. I know I should have got that oil changed. I mean, you just start filling in those blanks and going, oh, yeah, yeah, Lord, you're bringing that to mind.
I know I shouldn't. Eaten out the other day. That was extravagant. But I start having this conversation with him, but it gets easier to just kind of joyously say, well, I made this commitment to you. You see it, we're gonna starve God.
But here, extreme poverty, that overflows in generosity. I've done that, I guess, for my part at times. And you know what's crazy? God always seems to show up in some strange ways. And this isn't the point of this teaching, is that, hey, when you give, you'll get.
That is certainly not what Paul's talking about here. He's saying that grace giving should go out. You need to flip this around a little bit. What he's really saying to those that would sow sparingly will reap sparingly, and those who will sow bountifully will reap bountifully. He's not talking about for you, my friend.
He's talking about when you sow richly the gospel in your time, talent and treasure, you will receive the gospel in others bountifully. And that's your ultimate goal, is not that, hey, this Christianity thing will make me rich. That is not the gospel. Instead, it will make you receive the richness of seeing life transformation in others. There's a better win the gospel.
If you haven't seen it yet, it's this. That. At the end of the day, okay, maybe I don't live with great wealth, but my kids come to faith in Christ Jesus. That's way. That's way more valuable.
That's priceless, my friends, these are the kinds of blessings that Christ gives. And he takes care of you. He walks it through. But that's not the point of this. He says they gave out of extreme poverty with joy.
They were generous. Look, the habit of generosity begins by setting our hopes on God rather than worldly wealth. This is the habit. This is how it works on you. It begins to transform you from thinking about everything from the worldly wealth perspective to starting to look at your stuff and your time and your availability as this is all God's.
So then I get this wonderful opportunity to just say, okay, God, how would you like me to deal with this? The things you've given me time, talent and treasure. How would you like me to use them first. Timothy. Paul writes to his disciple Timothy in chapter six.
He says, as for the rich in the present age, charge them not to be haughty nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. This is the joy of the Gospel. Notice that Paul doesn't say, hey, tell those rich people, y' all stop being rich. The gospel doesn't do either of these things.
It doesn't tell you, hey, in order to be a Christian, you must be poor. And it also doesn't say, in order to be a Christian, you must trust God and he will make you rich. None of that is true. Instead, whatever position you find yourself, give grace. Some of you, I don't know how else to say it to you.
God gifted you, skilled you, prepared you, purposed you to do things that don't make a lot of money. Dag on it. Bummer. Not a bummer, friend. Not a bummer.
You get to do the thing you love in this life. Do you realize how many people wander aimlessly and make good money and have no peace, no joy? Look, you don't go into ministry. You don't go into planting churches because it's going to make you wealthy. I learned that.
I never thought it was true. I saw it as a child. I've been reminded. But I love it. I love preaching, teaching, counseling.
I love seeing you grow. I love seeing heart change. It's worth more than any dollar. And some of you are aware of this. You're starting to realize more and more.
You know what? I have such joy in the things I get to do. And there's the extra stuff, too. Family, fellowship, all the stuff that comes with being in Christ. Hey, look, he's not called us to richness or poorness.
He's just called us to be generous where we are. You see it. God cares more about your hard attitude than the amount of your giving. He always has. He always will.
Later on, in Second Corinthians, chapter nine, he says this. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. The word cheerful there is the Greek word halleros. It's where we get the word hilarious.
So sometimes you come up and give to the Lord. And it's funny because you're like, I don't know how this is going to work, but it's funny to you. That's the people here in Macedonia. So generosity then isn't about your wallet. It's about your heart.
There's this interesting illustration that I think God has given us. And we've talked about this before, but I think it's been a minute. There's this thing that God has done naturally on our planet. He created this thing called the Dead Sea. And some of you are pretty familiar with that.
It is a lifeless place. The reason it is lifeless is because it has no outlet. The Jordan river flows into it, other things flow into it, but nothing ever flows out. And it causes it to be this really crazy place. And I'd love to visit one day.
Maybe some of you have super salty and makes you really buoyant. Apparently a lot of people, you can go out there and just kind of float around in this thing. And maybe you feel a certain way and you've been getting all good and salted up, but nothing really lives in there. And the reason nothing really lives in there is because bodies of water need to flow. Some of you have ponds, like out in your backyard.
You know very well how this starts to go. Gets stagnant. You guys are living in mosquito infestation, right? It's tough summertime. Them gnats, I can't take it, y'.
All. They're definitely post fall. I'm confident God did not create them at creation. They came after the fall of man. They're not going to be in heaven.
Some of you would debate me on that. If mats are in heaven, then they're going to be nice. They're not going to bug me. They can bug you. Maybe you love them, but this is the Dead Sea.
Nothing lifeless. Why? Because nothing ever comes out. And this is so many people in your life. Sometimes you.
And you wonder why it is you feel miserly. Why does you feel stuck and stagnant? It's because there's never anything coming out. You never give in any real capacity.
And guess what else? It causes the Lord somewhat to go, okay, I've given you. I'm waiting to see what you're going to do with it. But you keep doing this. And so I'm shutting this side until I see you.
Will you flow? Because he's called us not to be lakes, ponds, gnat infested ponds. He's called us to be rivers. So do you see this joyful generosity? Here's the next practice.
The second practice is this draw on God's grace to supply surprising generosity. Surprising. This is where he goes. In verses three through five, he says, in fact, in verse five, it was not as we expected. Paul basically says that they surprised us.
We really weren't asking for much. Maybe we weren't asking at all. And they just came out begging like, please let us help. And they surprised us with this. This is a bit of an internal talk, but I gotta admit something to those of us in the room who have been on this journey for a while.
I was pretty surprised at what God's done over the last year at our church. I'm just gonna put that out there. And I doubted it. I doubted the whole thing. I doubted almost the whole time.
Sorry to say that. And then. Yet God showed up in a miraculous way. He says they gave not as we expected. They gave beyond their means.
This word means above and beyond. And they did it on their own accord. This is really the joy of generosity. Some of you really get this. It would be good for you to keep telling others about it and training others, because you get it.
Just the joy of doing something you were never asked to do, beyond what was expected. And just seeing the joy on people's faces and just feeling the wonder of what God is doing in you and through you. It said that they begged earnestly for the favor of doing it. The word here for favor is again, Charis, we want the grace. We want the gift of the opportunity.
And then. I love this verse. I would, if I were you, just underline this or circle this verse in your text. Verse 5, I think, is the key to the whole passage. It says this that they gave not only as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us.
The reason they were generous is because they had said, God, I'm yours.
Let me encourage you with this today, friends. This is not a challenge for you to somehow strengthen yourself. I'm going to be generous. I'm going to pick myself up tomorrow and I'm going to give to people with some kind of straining and effort. It's not how it works.
Maybe it'll work for one day, but then the next day you're going to go. I feel like everybody's just taking advantage of me. Nothing ever good comes from this. And all of a sudden, all the complaining, no, no, no, that's not how the Macedonian churches gave. That's not how Christ has called us to get give.
When we give ourselves fully over to the Lord, then we get to begin to be generous as he is generous. This is the wonder of the cross. It's not the wonder of self effort. It's the wonder that we get to receive the gift of eternal life. And now the Holy Spirit works in and through us, having already given themselves over and completely turned over ownership now of their lives to the Lord, it becomes easier.
So then you begin to really start to say, hey, my stuff is your stuff. My time is your time. I am yours, holy and wholeheartedly yours. Now you lead me where you want to lead me. And then it says, by the will of God, they gave more surprising kind of generosity.
When me and my wife were first married, and some of you know our story better than others, but we've generally been pretty thin on funds for our whole marriage. Some of it is completely because of stupidity on my part. So I'll admit that there have been times that I made poor purchases, times where I did poorly with my budget. And that's been a lot of those occasions. And sometimes I think it's good to just take ownership of the craziness you've put upon yourself.
Sometimes we come blaming God and God's like, yeah, buddy, I gave you a better brain than that. That's on you, big guy. But I'll help you get through it if you'll trust me. But there's been a lot of thin days. They were especially thin in the early part of our marriage because we decided to get married in college.
We have our reasons. You can talk to us about that later. But I took to heart when Paul says, hey, if you burn with passion, you should be married. We could talk about that another time. I was trying to live this crazy thing that a lot of people think is nuts.
I was trying to live pure, trying. And it was becoming really quite hard. So I married this little girl in college and we had college left and I drove buses for East Carolina University for that first year of marriage and made very little money. It was enough to kind of put some food on the table. And it's incredible.
Y' all are going to be mad when you hear we were paying for a two bedroom apartment. $400 a month, and it included utilities. I'm like, man, that was good days. Those were really. And I can remember when we first set that up, my wife crying, going, I don't know how we're going to do this.
She wasn't wrong because we had not a dime. She worked at a print shop across the street. And I can remember it was one of those first few months. It might have even been the first month, my best friend growing up, he was in my wedding, and his mom was a dear friend of ours. She dropped by at some point and just put an envelope on our door that said, happy one month.
And it had like, 20 bucks in it. And that 20 bucks saved my life.
20 bucks was like four hamburger helpers or something. It got us through another week. Man. We used to figure out how to live for days on 20 bucks. Walk everywhere, didn't drive anywhere, couldn't afford it.
Super thin. That's surprising. This is what I'm trying to tell you. You don't understand sometimes what God is doing in you and through you. The Macedonians are begging for the favor of giving, and they're being well commended.
But there's people on the other side that go, thank you for that measly 20 bucks. It might have been small to you. It saved my life. You understand that sometimes it's not even a dollar amount. It's, hey, thank you for being the only person I called that showed up.
I'm going through a tough patch. I called my parents, and they didn't even answer. But, friend, you picked up. That's generosity.
I would say that's an area of generosity that God is even working harder on me because I could be most stingy, especially at certain times. If I'm here, y', all, nine to five or something, you call me in that window here. I'm pretty available. I'm trying to work. You call me at 9pm I don't know if I want to answer that.
Not because I don't love you, but because I really love doing nothing in my upstairs watching a football game or something. This is where my generosity is being tested. Am I available to people?
This is surprising generosity. Have I first given myself completely to the Lord? When he has my heart, he also has my hands. This is the win here. It's not that you need to try harder, but that you give Christ your whole heart.
And then you become surprisingly generous so that then instead of being kind of drumming through your life and everybody's kind of waiting for you to say the next negative thing, instead, tomorrow, for some reason, you got a smile on your face when normally people are, like, avoiding you when it comes to waiting tables. Because this guy's not only hard to deal with, he doesn't tip well. All of a sudden, things begin to shift in your generosity with unexpected gifts and unexpected compliments and unexpected availability so that you don't just dabble in being generous. You're living a life of surprising generosity. Here's the third practice, that you would let God's grace move you to pursue generosity, to pursue it.
This is the challenge now to the Corinthian Church. It's right here in verse six and seven. And I think, friends, if I can say this, this is the challenge to the American church, because we're a lot more like Corinth than we are like the churches of Macedonia. You may not be feeling it all the time, but we are truly a nation that is blessed. We are blessed in many ways.
And he is now calling, I believe, our culture to show the same as he calls it in verse six, act of grace. Because grace has been poured out to you, you pour it out to others. And then he paints a really clear picture. In verse seven, he says, look, I know. I know you guys are stoked about your faith and your speech and your knowledge and your diligence, earnestness, even your love.
Did you notice this? The Apostle Paul puts generosity in the same conversation with faith, with love, with knowledge, with speech. This isn't accidental. This is why this is in our spiritual habits section, that it should be a part of who you're becoming. It's a part of what you're working on in order to be more like Jesus Christ.
That is your ultimate goal, and he is the ultimate giver. Do you understand this? If you are to be Christlike, it means giving, generous.
He paints this picture here. I think maybe he's jabbing at them. Let me just. This is just my theory, okay? This is a Jonathan theory.
So don't take this as gospel. But it's interesting that Paul says to them, hey, you already excel in faith and speech and knowledge. This is the very thing. In his previous letter, First Corinthians, chapter 13, he talks about these very same three things. And he's actually kind of telling them, hey, if you have faith, but you don't have love, you're like a clanging cymbal.
If you can speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, if you have knowledge, it's all three of these things he talks about in 1 Corinthians 13, 1 2. I think maybe he's bringing those to mind again. Hey, I know you guys are really excited about these, what you might call high gifts, but now you're leaving off what you think are menial gifts. Some of you have made this mistake in the room. I don't know what God's calling me to do.
I don't know what he's purposed in my life. I mean, I can See it in you, Jonathan. You've got the gift of preaching as if that's some kind of, like, special. No, no, no. Paul says clearly that the gift of generosity, in the same vein, there aren't.
Hey, these are important. And these are kind of minor. No, they're all very important to Christ likeness.
In fact, Jesus says it this way in Matthew 23:23. This is how he accuses the Pharisees. He says, you guys are doing really good about giving your tithes of dill and cumin and whatever else there he puts in the list. You're doing great at tithing, but you're leaving off faith and justice, and you ought to be doing both. He doesn't say, hey, don't be generous.
He says instead, hey, all of this is part of what it means to walk in God.
So now he lumps in, hey, I want you to also excel in this act of grace, which is generosity. So how can we begin this pursuit of generosity? First, it begins with bringing the Lord the contribution you've given over to him. So Moses puts it this way. In Exodus, chapter 35, he says, take from among you a contribution to the Lord.
Whoever is of a generous heart, let him bring the Lord's contribution. Then all the congregation of the people of Israel departed from the presence of Moses and they came. Everyone whose heart stirred in him, and everyone whose spirit moved him and brought the Lord's contribution to be used for the tent of meeting and for all its services. Now, this is one of many scriptures in the Old Testament that talk about the tithe or the offering or the first fruits. And I believe these are all part of the law and are meant to be a reference point to us as believers.
There's a couple of other places we see the tithe mentioned. Leviticus 27, it says, a tithe of everything belongs to the Lord. It is holy to the Lord. First fruits is talked about in Proverbs 3. It says, Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce.
Now, friend, I want to tell you something about this little nugget. New Testament generosity or Christian generosity looks a little different. And here's why we're no longer under the law. You understand this. We're no longer.
We're under grace, the law of Christ now, not the law of the Old Testament. So the principles of the tithe and the special offerings and first fruits, they're meant to be guides towards our pursuit of generosity. I'm going to say something bold now to you that you might not like in what other area in your life does. Does the law of Moses is it superior to the law of grace? And what other area?
The answer is none. The law of grace is superior in every other way than the law of Moses. So now why then would we look at generosity and say, well, yeah, but they, you know, that was a superior giving. That was a superior generosity. It's not so.
You've been called to be generous as Christ was generous. This is what led the early church, and we cite this all the time. I know it's getting redundant for some of you, but Acts 2:42 paints a wonderful picture of true Christian generosity, which is they gave according to every man's need. If you need it, I have it, I'll bring it. If I don't have it, I'll find it.
You're desperate. I'm showing up. That's generosity in Christ. A grace that way supersedes tithing. Tithing is a beginning.
It might be a starter for you to go, I need to learn how to be more open handed. Be a river, not a reservoir. Here's the fourth and I'm already in negative time, whatever in the world. That means the fourth practice and last practice. Look to God's grace in Christ for genuine generosity.
I pray that you don't walk out of here today saying, man, that church really wants me to give. No, I pray you walk out of here going, there's something that God's trying to help me with and show me and teach me about being more open handed with all of me. Not in a way that someone's forcing it. Not because that guy up there with the funny face told me to do it. No, because Christ Jesus is so good to me and so generous to me that I ought to, because of my love for Him, I ought to also pour out as he's poured out.
Look to God's grace in Christ for genuine generosity. This is where Paul ends too. And I want to end this way as well. He says in verse 8, this is not a command, nor are any of the spiritual disciplines we've been talking about. You hear this.
If you don't build a good habit of daily devotion and prayer, if you don't build a good habit of fellowship, it does not mean you won't receive salvation. Because salvation does not come from earning, but by the grace of God. Do you hear this? But if you neglect these things, you hurt yourself from seeing the wonder of what God wants to do in your life. It's like deciding, hey, I can fast for a long period of time.
But I don't have to. I can eat. It's like making the decision that all of the power I need in this life, I can get by without it. But I ought to. Again, these disciplines are a means, not ends.
So you ought to be in prayer. You ought to be in fellowship with believers because it is what is best. Generosity is the same. This is not a command of God. If you determine to walk out of these doors and say, I'm never going to do those things, it doesn't mean you won't be saved, but it does mean you've hardened your heart towards what God is trying to do in you.
That is a better reality than you have experienced. It's not a command, Paul says, but verse 8. He tells the Corinthian Church, I want you so much to prove that God is working in your life. Here's a funny thing about what Paul's going to say, and I haven't covered all this. It would take me.
I'd have to read all of Second Corinthians to you to cover it all. But he's basically gone over to Macedonia and said, hey, be excited, because God is doing wonderful things throughout the known world. The people in Corinth have already pledged to give an incredible amount to the persecuted saints. And I said I was going to mention this. The saints in Jerusalem are not only being martyred, there's a terrible famine that's happened in Judea at this time.
So they are suffering on all sides. Paul's collecting an offering, and the Corinthian Church has already sent word that, hey, we're going to give. And so now he's come through Macedonia and said, hey, let's be encouraged together. God is working through his churches now. He's showing up to the Corinthian churches.
And this might not sound super holy, okay, but this is what Paul says, and this is the word of God. He says, I don't want to show up over there and you guys to embarrass me because I've been bragging about you. Isn't that curious? I've been bragging about how God is going to use you. So now, please, please, not as a command, but I implore you, prove this genuine love that you have for God's people.
Prove it. Don't let it just be this. And this is, unfortunately, so much the church. We talk a big game. Do we show up?
And then he ends so richly, so perfectly for, you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. I love how he ends it because he was rich but for our sake, he became poor. He ends with the Gospel church. Why can you be generous? You can be generous when you give yourself wholly to God, like the Macedonians did.
And why did they do that? Because God did it first. Friends, some of you today just need to hear this part for the first time. God sent his son, Jesus, who became poor, so that you might become rich. But not in the wealth that maybe you've been hungry for, but in a wealth that's truer to your need, a richness that's at your soul level.
Jesus, it says, left and emptied himself of the crown of majesty, taking on the form of a servant. This is in Philippians, Chapter 2. Taking on the form of the servant unto the point of the crucifixion. Why? So that we might receive the righteousness of God.
He left it all. Angels at his every beck and call. Zero need to become one of us. And he could have chose the 21st century. I'm just putting that out there.
I might have waited. I'm just saying I might have waited. The outhouse life and the no running water and all that kind of jazz. I'm not trying to do all that. Jesus shows up in the first century when there's some pretty tough times.
In the middle of Roman persecution, in the middle of the Romans. I mean, he could have showed up at any time. He shows up in the first century at a time when he could be crucified. And he was. It says, Jesus, though he was rich, became poor.
Dear friend, today somebody just needs to hear that for the first time. You want to know what it means to be generous? It starts with receiving. It starts with saying, lord, I want what you're offering. I want to receive this idea that Christ Jesus has died for me and rose from the grave.
I first take that. Then God. Then God can work. Then God can begin to prove the love that first he poured out to me, now through me. That's what he's inviting the Corinthians to.
If we've received God's free gift in Christ, then we freely give as proof of this. This is what Matthew 10 says. Freely you have received, now freely give. Perhaps there will come a point in your life when you'll recognize none of this stuff, none of it is mine. My very breath, none of it is mine.
And it gets way easier to just start saying, what we doing today. God, you have all of me. That's freedom in Christ Jesus. I want to end with this story. It's a famous one I've recently talked about.
It when we were going through the Sermon on the Mount together. But there's this wonderful story. It appears in several of the gospels, but Mark 12 is the one I was thinking of. And Jesus is sitting on the other side of the temple with his disciples kind of sitting in the other side of the room of the treasury area. And there's people walking around dropping money into the tithing.
I guess they had these kind of like tithing vases, if you will, that made a clanging sound. It seems like when people would come and make an offering. And so the Pharisees and some of the wealthier people, at least this is what Jesus accuses them of, would sometimes come in and really toss it in there. So it would go boom. So everybody could see what they're giving.
They would give a lot. And then in Mark 12, he tells this story of this poor woman, this poor widow, who shows up with what the Bible says is like a penny, two copper coins, just gently puts them in there and walks away. Nobody makes note. Nobody sees it. Nobody's watching, except for the Son of God, which, just so you know, is the only one I care about who's watching.
He turns to his disciples and says this crazy thing. He says, this one gave more.
What? They're probably looking at him like, what are you even talking about? We didn't even see this. The disciples aren't paying attention. She gave more than everyone else.
Why? Because. And this is what it says. Let me just read this to you.
Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put more in than all these who have contributed to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance. But she, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had, all she had to live on. She gave from a place of attitude, of the attitude of her heart, rather than, I got a little extra boop.
Genuine generosity gives from the heart. When God's grace fills us, generosity overflows from us. I want to invite you to this. First to the person of Christ Jesus, and then the way in which he works his. The way in which the Holy Spirit works himself out in your life.
That true generosity flows to you and then through you. I pray that you would experience this. Now let's pray together. Church Heavenly Father, we thank you that first, and we mean this with all our hearts. We thank you that you were generous to us first in the highest form of generosity that could be imagined.
That God you gave yourself, that you looked on me, people like me. You looked on the world and saw just the brokenness of mankind and knew There was nothing we could do to be made right with you in the midst of all that, God, you said, I will give, I will be generous. I know what to do to satisfy their debt. So you sent your son Jesus to die on the cross for us. That's a generosity that none of us could ever, ever compare to, nor should we try.
But instead we let that we receive that and begin to flow in that same way as you've called us. God, I pray for those people in the room right now that think maybe I'm living in terrible lack. Would you show them ways in which to be generous? It's not always about dollars and cents. It's about availability.
It's about being a generous person with all that you've given us, which includes every aspect of our lives. Sometimes it means, Lord, just helping that mother to be a little more available to their kids, that father to be a little more patient with his wife, to be a little more available to those children. That might be what you're trying to teach us this morning, hey, Be generous with your time. When your dear friend calls you up in desperate need that you would pick up when you see that person in need, that you don't turn and look away. God, there would be an availability to us, that perhaps, God, you're just calling us to use our gifts better.
That there's things you've purposed us to do. And maybe at times we think, well, who am I? I'm nobody. And yet you've given us a skill set that is useful. God, help us to be open handed with it.
Help us to be a generous people. Why? Because. Because God, you were first generous to us. We love you for this.
I recognize that someone may have come in here today and this whole idea of grace, of being generous because of God's grace, is foreign. But God, I pray you're working and stirring in their hearts right now in such a way that they'd be ready and willing to receive the good news of Jesus. If that's you, my friend, today you feel the Lord calling you into faith to receiving this generous gift of the cross and the resurrection of the gospel. If that's you, would you pray with me? Simply this, Jesus, I believe today that you are Lord and savior of my life, that you died on the cross for my sin, my sake, my brokenness, my guilt, my shame.
I lay it now at your feet. And God, I believe that you raised Christ Jesus from the dead. And that faith now in the cross and in the resurrection gives me hope. Gives me hope for the future. And I'm praying now, Lord, would you help me to now flow like a river.
That generosity you've poured out to me and salvation. Help me to pour it out to others. God, help your church, help your people to be generous as you are generous. Start with me, God, start with me. I repent, God, of how often I am closed fisted with my time, how often I don't want to change course.
You know my heart, God, how often I don't like for things to mess up my schedule. I lay that at your feet, Jesus, because it's not my schedule, it's yours. God, would you work in your people. Help us to be a generous church, that people would know us by our generous love for one another and for our community. God, we pray all of these things in Jesus name.
Amen.