[MUSIC PLAYING] In the history of humankind,
one act of generosity transcends all others. God loved it so much that
He gave his Son Jesus to us, and Jesus gave his
own life for us. He did it willingly
without regrets. We could never match that
demonstration of generosity. And the good news
is we don't have to. But as we choose
to follow Jesus, we will become more like him. Our hearts will be more open. And so will our hands. Jesse and Becca chose to
follow Jesus's example in being generous. When times were scarce, the
gave from open and sacrificial hearts. Here's their story. I was an assistant youth pastor. And Becca, I think, was working
at Deon's, going to school. We are newly married. We were 20, maybe 21 years old. And marriage is hard. You figuring out the dynamics,
the finances and everything. I remember having
to owe so much. There are so many bills. And the paycheck that we
were going to get, I knew was already allocated
to specific bills. And I just was panicking. And it was really scary to
see the next month and all that was due, having
zero money and not knowing where I was
going to get it from and having to trust God anyways,
and so I gave that money. I tithed it first. And then it was kind
of just like, now what? Now what do I do? I'm at church, and some guy
randomly comes up to me. I have no idea. And he's like, hey, the
Lord told me to give you this check for $200. I'm like, are you sure? You don't have to do that. But I take it home to my
wife after Wednesday night's service. And she just breaks
down into tears. And it's like, I was
freaking out about the money, freaking out about
tithing, not feeling like we were going to have
enough to pay these bills. There was not enough left. We got this one bill, but
I decided not to call you. I decided not to
freak out, and I decided to give, and to
pray, and to trust the Lord. It was almost surreal
to see how quickly God had responded to my obedience. There was just such a relief
and such a like, oh, my gosh, you really do mean what you say. You really do want us to
have an generous heart, not only so that we
can receive blessing, but that so that we can
have an overflow of blessing other people. And that's just when it
clicked for me really, that how important
it was to tithe. What I do sometimes with
Lianne is we pull over the side of the road, we stop. We look. We listen. We look these homeless
people in the eye, we go buy them gift cards
at Walgreens or whatever. And I tell them this. I say, you are made
in God's image. And part of the gospel is that
you matter to God just as much as these people who are
driving by in their nice cars. And the goal is that we
would give to the point that it reminds
people of the cross. That's the goal. The goal isn't to stop at 10%. The goal is to give
in every area of life until it reminds
people of Jesus. Generosity is an attitude of
the heart that with practice becomes a lifestyle. Sam and his wife are training
up their young children to live generously. I have two crazy
awesome little boys. My youngest is Levi,
and he has no fear. He is off of the wall. Now my oldest has-- he recently turned five. He has the craziest imagination. They're both so fun. But one thing we do with our
boys is my wife and I you know we don't really
keep a lot of things. We try to be minimalists
as much as possible. And in doing so, it gives
us opportunities to give, give to others. And we try to teach our
boys to do the same. So just recently when
Bennett turned five, he got two bags of toys
from his grandparents. And we were like, OK, Bennett,
now you have an opportunity. You've got two bags of toys. Let's give two bags
of toys to other kids who might not have them. And he was excited. He's was going through his
toys and picking them out. And he was like, man,
these kids are going to love playing with these. Generosity is never something
that we've regretted, but that doesn't mean
it's easy either. It's always a challenge. So, yeah, one of those
moments, I remember, I was about to get married. I was on staff at Calvary Chapel
in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I was making minimum
wage and just faced with the prospect of
starting a family. And right before we were to
get married, probably a couple months out, my car breaks down. So I'm freaking out. I'm stressed. I have this perceived burden
that I've placed on myself for starting a family. And now you have a
car that breaks down. So just problems arise. It was about that
time that my pastor teaches a message
about generosity, not necessarily about tithing,
but just about giving. And ironically, I think one of
the things that really moved me in that direction was he
shared a quote by John D. Rockefeller who said, "if
I wasn't able to tithe on my first check,
which was $1.50, I would not have been able
to tithe my first million dollars." So I like if he could
do it, then I can. So it was then that I always
anonymously gifted $3,000. And it just so happened
that my boss at the time was selling his
'91 Acura Legend. And so I bought it from
him, and it was a blessing. Not only that, but God open some
supernatural doors for ministry after that. And I was truly able to
see that providing isn't just something God does. It's who he is. The goal is not to tithe. It's not just giving
10% of your share. It's to live by
faith, because when God gets more of our heart,
we get to see more of him. Early in the pandemic
Calvary Church campuses became
collection points for our Kindness Campaign. Thanks to your
generosity, we took it over 400 curbside donations
and delivered about 200 care packages to people's doorsteps
right here in our community. Almost everywhere we look,
people are in great need, both physically and spiritually. Around Valentine's Day, you
responded to Reload Loves Call to help caring refugees
as we drop the Love Bomb on border communities
between Burma and Thailand. Thank you for your support. We funded two church
buildings and a pre-school, support for three in
country evangelists, plus meeting some very specific
needs for refugee pastors and people groups. When we give with open
hearts and open hands, we can respond to people in
times of unimaginable crisis. This summer, nearly every
country in the world suffered under the
spread of COVID-19. Beirut was ravaged by another
crisis, an explosion that destroyed the Port District,
killing 160 people, injuring nearly 6,000,
and immediately displacing nearly 300,000 people. You gave generously to help
Samaritan's Purse and Convoy of Hope be the hands
and feet of Jesus. In a year marked by stress,
sickness, and scarcity, you continue to follow
Jesus's example. You have willingly
given without regrets. I can definitively say that
I have never ever regretted being generous to someone. I've never felt like
it's caused me to bleed. It's always been good for
the heart and just to get into the habit of
being generous. Whenever a church says we're
doing a weekend of generosity, most people go, uh-oh. But what's different about here
is this is truly a celebration. We're looking back
at what God has done through the lives of people
who stepped up to the plate during the year. And the message that
I'm about to preach-- I know I'm preaching to
the choir in the sense that, you have through
the crisis in Lebanon, through the local
crisis during COVID, you have been
faithful to help out. And we are appreciative of that. We're in the book of 2
Corinthians chapter 8-- if you don't mind turning in
your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 8. As you do that, I'll
ask you a question. How many of you have
ever thought, boy, it'd be great to win the lottery? You can be honest, OK. So let me say
about a guy who did win the lottery in New Jersey. Last year, he won a lottery. And his takeaway was $273
million, $273 million. And I think the story even
read, if I'm not mistaken, he bought a ticket-- and the winning
ticket, he didn't know it won-- but he bought the
ticket, left it at the store. Somebody found it,
returned it to him, and he won $273 million. He announced that
what he would do first is by himself a new pickup
truck and a few things that he wanted. What he didn't count on
was all of the court costs that he was about
to pay, because you see a year previously
he and his wife sadly went through a divorce. But when she found out that
he just won $273 million, she called him up and said,
we're going back to court. Money does that. Money does that to people. One person said, having
money is like grabbing an electrical wire. The more the juice,
the tighter the hold. Deuteronomy chapter 15
in the Old Testament sums up God's
thinking in this area. He said, don't be
hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your brother,
but be open-handed. Open-handed is another
way of saying be generous. I found an article in
the Dallas Morning News that said, "Christians
tend to be the most generous group of donors." In the same article, it said,
"and of all the subgroups within Christianity,
evangelicals are the most generous." Researcher George Barna
has studied this for years. And he said, "born again adults
remain the most generous givers in a country-- that's America--
that is acknowledged to be the most generous
on the planet." So let's just kind
of go through that. What they're all saying is
that of all the countries in the world, we have
found that Americans tend to be very generous. And within the
American population, Christians tend to
be more generous. And in the Christian population,
evangelical Christians tend to be the most generous. If you were to look up the word
generous in the dictionary, it would tell you that
its meaning is a readiness to give more than is necessary. If you know me or my
preaching, over the years you know that I sort of
shy away from talking about this subject. I feel uncomfortable,
always have. But this morning, I
take my cues from Paul the apostle, who had no problem
at all dealing with the issue. In fact, he does so
squarely in chapters 8 and 9 of 2 Corinthians Now
I'm going to give you a little background on one
of Paul's main objectives on his third missionary journey. You know that Paul took these
journeys around the world. He took three of them. And then he finally
took a journey to Rome, where he stood trial on his
third missionary journey. One of his objectives
was the collection of a financial offering for
the church in Jerusalem, Judea, the mother church, sort
of like foreign missions, but in reverse, where those who
were scattered on the mission field are taking care
of the original group. So he does that. And it's because
they were suffering the loss of income, the loss
of their jobs, extreme poverty. There were a great number
of them in that city. There were a number
of reasons for it. So Paul takes up an offering. And Paul saw the
Gentile churches scattered throughout
the world as debtors to the church in Jerusalem. And taking up a collection was
a way of paying off the debt, according to the words
of Paul in a few places. You see, in Paul's mind,
he looked at it this way. The gospel came from Judea. Jesus came from that region. Salvation came from Judea. So Gentile churches, who
are benefiting from that, need to help those who
are experiencing hardship. I'm going to show you just
one verse of scripture in the Romans 15. We'll put it up on the
screen, where Paul writes-- I'm reading in the New
Living Translation here. "But before I come
I must go down to Jerusalem to take a gift
to the Christians there." That's what we're dealing
with in this topic. "For you see the
believers in Greece have eagerly taken
up an offering for the Christians
in Jerusalem who are going through such hard times. they were very glad to
do this because they feel they owe a real debt to them." "Since the gentiles received the
wonderful spiritual blessings of the good news from
the Jewish Christians, they feel the least
they can do in return is to help them financially." They, the gentiles, have
been helped spiritually. So they the gentiles should help
those in Jerusalem financially. Now the Corinthian church-- we're in 2 Corinthians
8-- the Corinthian church, the one Paul is
writing to, apparently, we're not doing their
part in this collection. Oh they said, they wanted to. They started to do
that a year prior, but they hadn't
kept their promise. And there's a reason for that. There were other
issues the Corinthian church was dealing with. If you know anything about
the Corinthian church, if you know anything
about first Corinthians, you know that it was a
church wracked with problems. There was division
in the church. There was adultery that went
unchecked in the church. There was the abuse
of spiritual gifts in the church, a
number of issues that just sort of gobbled up
their time and their energy. So the idea of participating
in this gift for the Jerusalem church was put on hold. Warren Wiersbe puts it this way. "When a church is not
spiritual, it is not generous." That's the Corinthian problem. They were not a
spiritual church, and they were not
a generous church. So Paul is writing to
the Corinthians church. And as he writes
to them, he wants to use another set of churches
as an example of generous, giving, because he wants to
motivate those in Corinth to do the same. What's interesting
is the churches he uses as an example are
Macedonian churches, meaning the church at Philipi, the
church at Thessalonica, the church at Berea. Those were the
Macedonian churches. So with that as a background,
we begin in verse 1 in 2 Corinthians chapter 8. "Moreover, brethren,
we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on
the churches of Macedonia, that in a great
trial of affliction the abundance of their
joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches
of their liberality. For I bear witness
that according to their ability, yes,
and beyond their ability, they were freely willing,
imploring us with much urgency that we would receive the
gift and the fellowship of the ministering
to the saints. And not only as we had
hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and
then to us by the will of God. And so we urge
Titus that as he had begun so he would also complete
this grace in you as well. But as you abound in
everything, in faith, in speech, and knowledge,
and all diligence, and in your love for us, see
that you abound in this grace also." Now what I'm going to do is
confine my remarks really to the first few
verses of this chapter. And I'd like to show you four
qualities of generosity, four qualities of generous giving. Number one, generosity
is a signal, that is when you see
a generous person, it's because
something has happened in that person's heart. And the generosity
is a sign of that. Now in the text
that we just read, three times Paul refers to the
generosity of the Macedonians by the word grace. He calls it a grace. I want you to notice in verse
1, "Moreover, brethren, we made known to you the
grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia,"
that he describes that grace. The second mention
is down in verse 6. "We urged Titus,
that as he had begun, so he would also complete
this grace in you as well. But as you abound-- verse 7-- in everything-- here's
the third mention-- in faith, speech, knowledge, diligence,
and then your love for us, see that you abound
in this grace also." Now you've been in
church long enough. You know what grace means. If I were to ask you give
me a definition of grace, I know that many of you
would be able to say, I know exactly how
to define grace. Grace means unmerited
favor, undeserved favor. That's the meaning of
New Testament grace. But here the idea of
grace is favor shown because of favor received. That is grace has
happened to me, therefore, I want to be gracious to others. In other words,
generosity is a proof that God has been working in
grace in a person's heart. Generosity is the proof,
the signal, the sign that God has been
graciously working inside of a human heart, simply
because generosity is one of God's qualities. God is a generous God. For God so loved the
world that he gave. James chapter 1 even says,
"God is generous to all." So when somebody experiences
the grace of God, that person becomes gracious. They've experienced
grace, grace received. They want to show grace, grace
dispersed or favor shown. So then generosity is sort of
like the thermometer of grace. You can see if a
person has really experienced the grace
of God in their lives by how they treat other people,
how they respond to situations around them in grace. It is the thermometer of grace. It's the signal
that God is at work. Now we're in 2
Corinthians chapter 8. All of 2 Corinthians 8 and 9,
2 chapters in 2 Corinthians alone, Paul is talking
about this offering. So that's quite a bit
of literary real estate that he's devoting to this
issue, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. On top of that, he mentions the
same offering in 1 Corinthians chapter 16, in
Galatians chapter 2, and Luke writes about
Paul taking this offering in Acts chapters 11 and 24. All of that to say this
was on Paul's heart, a lot, and he speaks about it a lot. In fact, I made a
discovery some years ago that I wasn't expecting
to make in my reading through the scriptures. And that is money is an
important topic in the Bible. It is mentioned a lot. Now, granted, it's
not mentioned as much as some preachers
mention giving, but it certainly mentions
it more than I had been comfortable mentioning it. In fact, I discovered
that the money is the main subject of
over half of the parables that are recorded that
Jesus ever taught. Here's the number. Of the 29 recorded parables
of Jesus in the New Testament, 16 of the 29 deal with a
person's relationship to money. It's interesting, isn't it? Over half. It is estimated that in
Matthew, Mark and Luke, one out of every six verses
deals with the topic of money. And in the broader
New Testament, one in every seven verses
deals with this topic. On top of that, the
Bible offers 500 verses on the subject of prayer,
less than 500 verses on the subject of faith,
but over 2,000 verses on the topic of money. Now that should clear up
an issue for some of us. And the issue is that
money is not evil. And I hear people
say that, you know, money is evil, filthy, lucre. And they'll misquote a
New Testament scripture. They'll quote it this way. "Money is the root of all evil." You ever heard that before? The Bible never says that. What it says is
the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. That's the text. Well, that's very different,
because you can not have much money, but you
can still have a love for it and cause all sorts of problems. So money isn't the
root of all evil. The love of money is
the root of all evil. It's a root of
all kinds of evil. So money isn't evil. Money is neutral. It all depends on how you
view it and it depends on what you do with it. Abraham, Job, Joseph were very
wealthy people in their time, but they were also very
godly people in their time. One person put it this way. Money is like manure. If you stack it up, it stinks. If you spread it around,
it makes things grow. So generosity is a signal. It's a grace. It's evidence of God's grace. The second aspect is that
generosity is sacrificial. And that gets to the heart
of what Paul is writing here. In verse 2, speaking of
the churches in Macedonia, he says, "that in a
great trial of affliction the abundance of their
joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches
of their liberality. For I bear witness
that according to their ability, yes,
and beyond their ability, they were freely willing." Now there's a few
key phrases here that shows us just what they
were going through that makes their generosity so profound. First of all, he mentions a
great trial of affliction. A better way to put that-- in
fact, a literal idea of that is they were being
crushed by life itself. They were being crushed by life. The culture was
squeezing them hard. The idea-- the thought
of most commentators is that, because of the
Macedonian's faith in Jesus Christ, a lot of
them lost their jobs. Many of them were kicked
out of the guilds, the trade guilds that were
prominent in those areas. So they were feeling life
bearing down on them, crushing them. That's one phrase. Then notice the
phrase deep poverty. It's one thing to be poor,
but he says deep poverty. And the word for deep is bathus. And that's sort of a
Jacques Cousteau word. And even you remember
Jacques Cousteau and all those exploring videos. So a bathysphere--
a bathysphere is a kind of a spherical
shaped entity, where you can get somebody
in it or a camera in it and you lower it down
to the very depths of the ocean for exploration. That's a bathysphere. The word he uses here is bathus. It's deep poverty. It's a way of saying,
you are desperately poor or they are dirt poor. They are at rock bottom. So great trial of affliction
and deep poverty, that's what the church in
Macedonia was experiencing. Now hold that thought, because
in America, we think of poverty often in different terms. We think we fancy ourselves poor
if we can't go out to dinner. We fancy ourselves poor if
our credit cards are maxed out or if we can't get that
new flat screen TV. We measure it differently. The churches in Macedonia
were experiencing deep poverty, which
made their generosity all much that more notable. And notice something else in
these verses that we just read. He said, according to
their ability, comma, then Paul says, yes, and
beyond their ability-- now notice that, according
to their ability, yes, they gave according to
what they were able, yes, and beyond their ability. So we learned a couple of things
here, a couple of truths here. Truth number one, we are to
give in proportion to what we have according to our ability. And you need to know this. The Bible never
sets a fixed amount. I get asked all the time,
what is the percentage that I should give? And I never give people
a straight answer, because the New Testament
does not set a fixed amount. It rather says, you
should do two things. You give according to your
heart before the Lord. And you give in proportion
to what you have. So in 1 Corinthians
16 verse 2, speaking of the very same offering that
he's speaking of here, he said, "On the first day of the
week, let each one of you lay something aside, storing
up as he may prosper, that there'd be no
collections when I come." So that's sort of a
general principle, that we give in proportion
to what we have. I've always loved
Peter Marshall. He was at one time a chaplain
to the United States Senate. This is what he said. He said, "give according
to your income, lest God make your income
according to your giving." We are to give proportionally. There is another
principle, not only are we to give proportional,
but we are sometimes to give beyond what is
proportionately ours. And that's what they
did in Macedonia. They gave according
to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability. I guess the big
question is, how do I know when that time comes for
me to give beyond my ability? And I can't answer that for you. All I can tell you is what
Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 9 where he says,
"let each one give as he purposes in his heart." The Lord may lay
something on your heart for a specific project
or a specific need and you might say, this is going
to cost me a little bit more. I'm going beyond my
proportion, my ability, but I feel it's from the Lord. Sometimes we are to do that. So we're getting a
general description of what they were going
through in Macedonia, feeling crushed by life, deep poverty. And because of that,
there's another word that is in these verses that
seems totally out of place. It's the word joy, joy. Did you notice that
in verse 2 that in a great trial of affliction-- here it is-- the
abundance of their joy. How do you get joy-- how do you get
abundant joy, when you have abundant affliction
and abundant poverty? One word, grace. It goes back to that word he
uses three times, grace, grace, grace. That's how you get it. So God has sort of
funny arithmetic. Have you noticed that? It Doesn't seem to make sense. I'm going to throw
this little formula up. We'll begin, first of all with-- give it to me, give it to me--
thank you-- great affliction. Let's begin there. You got great affliction,
some of you go, that's me. I've got great affliction. I've been going
through a horrible time the last several months. So great affliction-- let's
add something to that-- plus deep poverty. You're going, yep, you're
speaking my language. This whole COVID thing has
brought me deep affliction and poverty, but let's
add something else to that, plus grace. Now that is the game changer. When you add to great affliction
and deep poverty, grace, that equals joy and generosity. That is what Paul is
saying in these verses. They're going through
great affliction, they have deep
poverty, but they are expressing an abundance of joy
and giving beyond their ability the riches-- verse 2-- the riches
of their liberality. Now that's a paradox. Victor Hugo said, "as
the purse is emptied, the heart is filled." Jesus said it better. "It is more blessed to
give than to receive." so we give proportionally. Sometimes we get
beyond the proportion. And that's between you and God. Only between you and God. You remember how Jesus was
one day in the temple courts, and he was just watching people
as they gave their offerings. And he noticed the
people that were wealthy give very ostentatiously,
letting people know that they have given this large amount. And yet, because
they were so wealthy, they would never miss
this large amount. Then you notice a widow. And you know the story
of the widow's mite. So she put in two mites. Now a mite is
about 3/8 of $0.01. In terms of bottom line
giving, she didn't give much. But in proportion to what
she had, she gave it all. And Jesus made note of that. It's not the amount. It's something deeper than that. So Jesus put it this way. She put in more
than all of them. For these all out
of their abundance put in offerings to God,
but she out of her poverty put in everything. In other words,
here's a gal who gave, but when she gave just
that little amount, that cost her a lot. It cost her a lot. In the Old Testament,
David wanted to build a temple for God. So he secured some land. The man who owned a plot
of land, when he found out that David wanted to
build a temple for God was offering the land for free. He said, David, your
David, first of all, and you're doing this for God. That's a noble cause. I'm going to donate
the land to you. David says, no, no, no. I'll pay you full price. The guy says, no, I insist. I'm going to give you this land. David said back to him, no, I
insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to
the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing. Isn't that an
interesting principle? I'm not going to give,
unless it cost me something. It seems to be a pattern. Don't exactly know why it is,
but people who research this have discovered that folks
that have less income are often more generous than
those who have a lot of income. In fact, what I read, and
I'll share it with you, people making $20,000 a
year are eight times more likely to give
than someone making an annual income of $75,000-- eight times more likely to give. And I think there is a principle
like we saw in the video. If you can't do it
when you have a little, you won't do it
when you have more. You want a good
book on the subject? It's by Randy Alcorn. Randy Alcorn has given
the Christian world many good books. Best one on heaven I've ever
read was by Randy Alcorn. He wrote a book called Money,
Possessions, and Eternity. He points out in the book
that in the Old Testament there was a requirement
of a percentage. What was that percentage
in the Old Testament? 10%. It's called the tithe. That's an Old
Testament construct. What Alcorn says is
that's Old Testament. When we get to the New
Testament, it's not the same. That percentage
isn't a requirement, because we are stewards
of all the resources that God puts in our hands. In other words, everything
we have belongs to him 10% says Alcorn is just
the starting point. I want you to listen to
his rationale or see it. We'll put it on the screen. "Being under Grace does not
mean living by lower standards than the law. Christ systematically
addressed such issues as murder, adultery,
and the taking of oaths and made it clear that his
standards were much higher than those of the Pharisees." That's basically the teaching
of a sermon on the mount. "He never lowered the bar. He always raised it. But he also empowers us-- hears the word--
by his grace, he empowers us by his grace to jump
higher than the law demands." Let me take you to a third
aspect of generosity. Generosity is volitional. Look at verse 3 again. "I bear witness that according
to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability,
they were freely willing." Now when you read
freely willing, do you get the idea that Paul
has her arm behind their back twisting it going, come
on, give, oh, OK, OK? Now it sounds
exactly the opposite. They freely gave, but
look at the next verse, imploring us with
much urgency that we would receive the gift and the
fellowship of the ministering to the saints. So the giving wasn't compulsory. It was completely voluntary. They didn't do it
because they had to. They did it because
they wanted to. They asked to. Paul didn't guilt them into it. Paul didn't beg them to do it. They begged Paul to do it. Did you hear that? They begged Paul, please,
Paul, take this money. We want to be a part of it. That's the idea of verse 4,
imploring us with much urgency. When was the last time you
heard of Christians begging to get an offering taken? I can only think
of one in my life. I had this experience years ago. We had first started the church. It had started to grow. We have never received a
formal offering for the church. We just have boxes around. We let people know
where the boxes are. Well, one Sunday, we forgot
to announce the agape boxes. And so we went from music
into a few announcements, didn't announce that, just
went into the message. And I closed with an
amen, and that was it. Well, out of the
corner of my eye, this dear saint who was a part
of our fellowship at the time, never forget her, loved
her, Mary Earlewall, I see her coming to me. She didn't look happy, out
of the corner of my eye, and she walks right up to me,
puts here finger on my chest and said, you robbed
me of an opportunity. I said, excuse me? She goes, you didn't
announce the offering today. You didn't announce
the agape boxes. She goes, young man,
I want you to know-- she called me a young man. That's how long ago it was. I want you to know that I see
the offering as an opportunity for me to worship. And you took that away from
me by not announcing it. I said, OK, I'm sorry. I'll never do that again. I promise, but she got it. She understood what Paul
was trying to say here. Now I want to give you a
little bit of background for these verses to make sense. Paul began his collection
for the church in Jerusalem in Galicia. So we don't have
a map, but Galicia is like central Turkey. today. The churches, the
region of Galicia, Paul began receiving offerings
from churches from Galicia. Then he moved westward toward
Macedonia, and then Achaia, and then Greece. And he would take
all of those moneys and bring them to Jerusalem. Apparently, by the time
he gets to Macedonia and he sees the condition
of the church in Macedonia, he feels like, I can't take
an offering from these people. They're in a great
trial of affliction. They're experiencing
deep poverty. If I take an offering
from them, they're going to say, why don't you
take an offering for us? So apparently, he
didn't even mention it. Well, they found out about the
collection Paul was taking. And they came to him and
implored him with great urgency that they could be a part of it. That's the idea of that verse. So for them getting involved
in a financial offering was not a problem to be avoided. To them it was a
privilege to be desired. So that's why when we get
to chapter 9, the very next chapter, 2
Corinthians chapter 9, Paul gives this principle, "let
each one give as he purposes in his heart, not
grudgingly, nor of necessity. For God loves a cheerful giver." And by now you know
the word is hilarious. God loves a hilarious giver. That's freely willing. That's volitional. That's because
you want to do it. Do it as you purpose
in your heart so that you can
do it hilariously. You can do it freely. You can do it with joy. But I love that statement
God loves a cheerful giver. Let's just sort of emblematic
place set over today. God loves a cheerful giver. We know God loves the world. He loves everybody,
but it seems that God has a special love in his
heart for those who have generous hearts toward others. And lest you think this is
a New Testament idea, not an Old Testament idea,
you would be wrong. In the Old Testament
book of Exodus, God said, "speak to
the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering. From everyone who gives it
willingly with his heart, you shall take my offering." This brings us to the fourth
and final aspect of generosity. And that is generosity
is consequential. I want you to see verse 5. This is where we'll close. "And not only as we had
hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord, and
then to us by the will of God." See the Macedonians gave
far more than money. They gave themselves. They dedicated themselves
first to God, then to Paul and his missionary
team to get involved. And here's the principle. You can't give your substance
to the purpose of God until you first give yourself
to the person of God. You can't give your substance
to the purpose of God until you first give yourself
to the person of God. One flows from the other. So if God has you, then
God has your wallet. Does that make sense? If God has you, then
God has your wallet. If God has you, then God
has your bank account. If God has you, then God
has all your investments. If God has you, then you
don't mind this sermon. In fact, you welcome it,
because if God has you, then God as all of you, not
just 10% of you, all of you. God had all of them. They had given
themselves to him. I'm going to close with
something John Wesley wrote. And we'll put this up,
and you can see it. John Wesley said, "do all
the good you can, by all the means you can, in
all the ways you can, in all the places you can,
at all the times you can, to all the people you can,
as long as you ever can." You know what, that's you. You have done that repeatedly
over and over again. If we say there's something
going on in Lebanon, we need to take
money for it, there's something going on with
the poor in this city, you step up to the plate. You are always looking for
ways to spread God's kingdom. Thank you for that. Father, thank you
for this fellowship, for those who attended, for
those who contribute to it. These are people who have
given themselves to you first. And then giving
themselves to you, they realize everything
they have belongs to you. And it's a matter of how you
wish for them to steward it at that time. We pray, and I pray,
Lord, in closing for them for their situations. I don't know what each
one is, in particular, but I have a hunch
that some are going through a great trial of
affliction, even deep poverty. And so to talk about
a message like this must have been how Paul felt
when he didn't want to bring it up to the Macedonians. But, Lord, there is a joy when
we decide to partner with you in seeing a person,
a brother, or sister, somebody who has a
need or an opportunity to further the Gospel. Thank you for the joy, the
privilege at whatever level to get involved in your great
enterprise called the Gospel. We love you. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's stand up and
celebrate together. We hope you enjoyed this special
service from Calvary Church. We'd love to know how
this message impacted you. Email us at
mystory@calvarynm.church. And just a reminder, you can
support this ministry with a financial gift at
calvarynm.church/give. Thank you for joining us for
this teaching from Calvary Church.
