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The Means of Grace: Generosity
Thank you, Jesse. We are going to look at another section of God’s word today in 2 Corinthians. You can be turning to it. We are looking at these places in the scriptures that show us God’s methods—God’s means—by which His grace can be found.
God is a God who reveals Himself from the very beginning. He is constantly showing us Himself. He wants to be found, He wants to be known, and He is not hiding from anyone. As a matter of fact, we are running from Him from the very beginning. That is how we got into this problem—we ran from Him. Rather than live a life of dependent devotion, we ran in our first parents, and we have been running ever since. We have been allergic, and He has been running after us.
So, how do we experience the grace of God if we desire it? If God has placed within you a desire for His grace, that is a grace of God—an awareness of my need for grace. Growing up, sometimes the worst thing that I could have been known for was to have needed help. I don’t want to need anybody’s help. I don’t want to be known for help. I don’t want to ask for help. Why is that? Because in those moments, I don’t want grace. I don’t want to receive; I don’t want to be the gift receiver. I want to be the one who does provide. Again, that’s more about control than it is about surrender.
Look, if you will, God tells us that scriptures, prayer, fellowship with God’s people, worship, the sacraments—all are mechanisms. We’ve looked at these over all these weeks. They are the mechanisms and conduits by which God is ever flowing grace to us. Today, we’re looking at another place where God ever flows His grace, His satisfaction, and His joy to us.
Look, if you will, at 2 Corinthians 8, starting in verse 1. I’ll read down a few paragraphs, and you can be following along:
“And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. And they exceeded our expectations; they gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then, by the will of God, also to us. So we urged Titus, just as he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. But since you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you—see that you also excel in this grace of giving.
I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. 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 through his poverty might become rich.
And here is my judgment about what is best for you in this matter. Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have a desire to do so. Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have. Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: ‘The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.'”
This is God’s word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of God will stand forever. Let’s pray.
Father, thank you for your grace to us. Lord, show us yourself. Most of all, we need you and your presence. We need you to show us these things, to comfort us in these moments. Lord, I pray that you would do this for your benefit and for the expansion of your kingdom. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
The Cry of Insecurity and the Father’s Voice
This week, I saw a video clip of a father showing his newborn child. The child was just minutes old, right after birth. It was a picture of the baby in the scale where they weigh them, and the baby was wailing—just completely crying out. Which is to say, normal! But just crying out.
Some comedians have said that when a baby is born, of course they’re going to cry. Look at where they were compared to where they are! It’s not a great place. There are days I want to go back to where it was; I don’t want to be an adult anymore. So, you come out, and the baby is wailing. Then you hear the father in the background talking to the doctors. I can’t hear what he says exactly, but then he comes over and he says, “I’m here. I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.” And utter silence comes from the child. Utter silence from the child.
Then he says something else on the video, and it cuts to the next minute after they had weighed the baby and put them under the heat lamps to keep them warm. The baby is wailing again, just going crazy wailing. The father comes back over and says, “I’m here. I’m here, I love you. I love you, I’m here.” And boom—the baby’s eyes widen, the eyes are blinking, and there’s this sense of contentment.
That struck me because you and I are like those little babies. Especially when it comes to money, it makes us want to scream and cry. What we need to hear is God the Father come over to us and say, “I’m here. I love you. It’s going to be okay.”
The Temptation of Independence and Hoarding
How do you talk about money in church? How do you talk about generosity in the church? Paul had the same struggle. Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthian church. Corinth was a church that was very affluent. It was in a major metropolitan area, so the church here was probably very affluent in some capacity.
Paul is gathering an offering. He’s urging them to care for others. The Corinthian church is a Gentile church gathering resources for the Jewish congregations in Jerusalem who are under oppression. You remember that the Book of Acts begins with everybody running from Jerusalem in Acts chapters 6 and 7. They are running because a great oppression and persecution occurred, and the Jewish church was in need—the Jewish church was impoverished. So, Paul is getting a gift to send back to them, urging all kinds of generosity in that capacity.
The principle he’s presenting here is a principle of how we talk about money in the church. Often, we don’t. How do we talk about generosity in the church? Often, we don’t. But yet, when you look at the parables that Jesus told, and when you talk about the topics that Jesus dealt with, the single most regular topic Jesus talked about in His ministry was money, treasure, or possessions. If you put them all together, you might think, well, what did Jesus talk about a lot? Love, maybe? Or worshipping God, or sin, or immorality? Well, yes, immorality, but specifically, it was about possessions, treasure, and money.
Why? Because we are in bondage to it. We are in bondage to our possessions and our money. We are born with that bondage. That’s why little children don’t need to be taught to hoard their own stuff or to protect their own stuff. As a matter of fact, the mindset is, “That’s my stuff, and what you’re playing with is my stuff because I had it first, and now that’s mine and I want it back,” even though they have another toy right in front of them. We’re constantly trying to find a way, from the very minute we hit the ground, to hoard.
That nature, that idea of hoarding, is because we live with an internal mechanism that needs to self-preserve. We need to self-regulate. We have to be the ones to control our lives. We have to be the ones who make it happen. We’re all about: How am I managing? How am I caring? How can I ensure I don’t want to depend on anybody?
The world doesn’t help us because the culture is trying not to depend on anybody either. What’s the biggest thing that you find out on these psychological video clips that you’re watching today? “No one’s coming to rescue you.” That’s a very popular psychological idea these days. The motivation behind that sort of advice is trying to provide responsibility—don’t expect to be rescued because no one’s coming to rescue you.
But it comes from a cynical standpoint of the way we live in this world, thinking, if I’m ever going to make it, I have to rely on me. What Jesus has always been trying to teach us since the days of old is about dependence, not about independence. He wants us not to rely on ourselves, but to rely on Him in the process. That needs to be the nature of our lives, not just the nature of moments. It’s our ongoing need. That’s why the Lord’s Prayer says, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Lessons from the Old Testament: The Manna Principle
Even that is an allusion back to the Old Testament. Paul, in this section, ends with an allusion to a story back to the Old Testament when the Israelites were in the desert. They had no food, and they complained, “We have no food.” So God said, “All right, I’ll give you some food.” Every morning or overnight, it would rain manna—little coriander seeds, they said it looked like, on the plants. They would go out and gather it, shaking it off into their basins.
God said, “Just take what you need for today. Just take what you need for today.” Even then, He said, “I’ll give it to you every morning. I’ll provide it every day, so don’t worry about tomorrow, just take it for today.” So they did take it for today, but there were some—and I think I would have been one of these people, I really do, because I’m a “manage your life, plan ahead, get it together, store it up, hoard your things” kind of temperament growing up—who gathered more than they needed and kept it overnight. In the morning, it smelled like rot, and it was covered in maggots.
This meant my hoarding was of no value to me. If I hoard it, it’s only going to rot. That principle is true. If we hoard what we get—if we hoard whatever we get: time, money, our abilities, our opportunities, our truth, our grace, the love that we have—anything you hoard will rot in your possession.
The manna rotted. A gift from God, the bread of heaven, came down, and the reason someone gathered the extra was because they didn’t trust. They gathered extra because they didn’t trust that He would have it there the next day.
God said, “I’ll give it to you every day. Just take what you need for today. Don’t take any more, don’t take any less.” Equity all around. Nobody gathered too much, nobody gathered too little; we all had what we needed, just for today. But if you take more than today and you store it overnight in order to protect yourself from the potential that there wouldn’t be resources the next day, it rots.
What that’s trying to teach, what God was trying to say in that moment is, “I want you to live and breathe in your dependence on Me. I want you to live and breathe in your dependence on Me.” Our human nature doesn’t want to depend on anyone. There’s a sense where, if I depend on someone, then someone else is God. I would rather be God in my life. Many people live in a world where you can be a mini-god by the resources, the experiences, and the property that you own. You can live in this world, be successful, and be a mini-god in this world by hoarding unto yourself. Yes! That broken culture teaches us that we need to compete the same way the world operates if we’re going to live in this world.
Jesus says, “No, no, no. My people will be characterized by dependence. My people will be characterized by trusting Me, not trusting in the resources you can hoard for yourself.” Hoarding those resources puts you in bondage to those resources. You become a slave to the thing you hoard—the thing that you possess, the thing that provides you with a sense of stability. That becomes your god. That becomes the prison in which you survive.
Scripture, and what Paul is trying to say, is, “I don’t want you to be in bondage to the things of this world. I don’t want you to be in bondage to your resources, to your money.” Generosity is the thing that frees you from that. Generosity is the grace of God.
That’s why he says in verse 1: “And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.” God’s grace turns into generosity. Generosity is of the very nature of the gospel. If you are not generous, you are not truly getting the gospel.
The Ultimate Example of Generosity
Paul is not saying, “Why can’t you be more like the Macedonian churches? Why can’t you be more like your sister? Why can’t you be more like the church down the street?” He’s not doing that. What he’s saying is that the very nature of generosity is the gospel, and he quickly runs on to say, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ…” He goes right back to the gospel, right back to Jesus.
Jesus was the rich one who surrendered all of His resources, who hoarded nothing to Himself. He’s never hoarded anything in His life. He’s always given; He’s constantly giving, constantly surrendering, constantly being generous. He was generous all the way down to His own death—the surrender of everything.
Even in the end, what did He have? He had no clothes. He was naked, hungry, and thirsty. What did He say from the cross? “I thirst.” God thirsted. How is that possible? How can someone so rich, how can someone so immense—having created everything else, the resources, having the cattle on a thousand hills—experience thirst? God Himself experienced the abandonment of every provision. It was said of Jesus, “He did not have a home or a bed in which to lay his head.” He was intentionally poor.
What do you think of poor people? You don’t have to tell me out loud. Do you think they’ve done something wrong? Do you think they just need to get their lives together, that they made some sort of mistakes, or that they’re not living responsibly? Something must be wrong. Before we start going down those roads, we have to realize that Jesus intentionally identified Himself with poor people. He validates the impoverished experience because it’s a life of dependence. It’s a life of surrender; it’s a life of resting in God.
Some people’s poverty is due to oppression or systems that get in the way. Ultimately, poverty is a problem resulting from cosmic sin that exists in our world. But Jesus was intentionally poor. Jesus put on poverty to communicate dependence on His Father for daily bread. That’s what He’s calling us to.
Motivated by Grace, Not Law or Guilt
The things that you don’t see in this passage are just as important as what you do see. What you don’t see here are a lot of rules. Paul doesn’t say, “Give this much, give this time, give this amount.” As a matter of fact, what does Paul say? He says in verse 8, “I am not commanding you.” You can’t command this. It’s not something you legislate. The law cannot produce these things that God really wants.
What is the fruit of the Spirit, against which there is no law? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This is the kind of thing that God wants for us, the kind of thing the Spirit is developing.
What motivated the people in Macedonia? They were impoverished, they were oppressed, and they gave out of joy. Paul says later that they were begging him, “Let us help. Let us do it. Let us be generous. Let us jump in. We want to be a part of this process.” Where does that come from? There are no commands here. He’s not motivating out of a sense of command—do this because you’re supposed to do this. The other thing that you don’t see in here is guilt. Paul’s not motivating them to give or to be generous out of a sense of guilt, meaning, “You’re such bad people. Why lack generosity? Look at these people over here. Why can’t you be more like the Macedonians?” He’s not comparing them in that respect. He’s saying, “I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others.” In other words, he is asking if their love manifests itself the way the gospel does, because the gospel is generous.
Jesus, for our sakes, became poor to make us rich, and from that poverty, grace results. Poverty, surrender, and generosity produce grace and joy. The sacrifice of that leads to more grace. Paul says, “That’s the pattern I’m trying to create in My people.” It’s not guilt. He’s not trying to say, “Shame on you.” There’s no shame on you here.
As a matter of fact, he even says, “Last year, you were the first ones to give.” He’s commending them, encouraging them, and saying, “This is in you. You are of the very nature of givers. You gave last year. Not only did you give last year first, you were the first ones who wanted to give.” So he’s going not just to the level of their activity, but to the level of their heart because the heart and the treasure go together. Jesus said that: “Store up treasures in heaven because where your treasure is, there will your heart also be.” Heart and treasure go together; they are linked.
I can know about your heart by the way you use your treasure, and I can know about your treasure by the way your heart is. That’s why when you look at the Macedonians, it’s this thing where they’re giving. Paul says, “For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability.” Another translation puts it, “They gave what they were able, and then beyond their means.” I don’t know about you, but that seems reckless. My father taught me, if he taught me anything about finance, he said, “Always live within your means.” And now here we have this Macedonian church not living within their means. And Paul’s going, “Yeah!” The Spirit of God, the generosity of God, leads you to places where you live beyond your means.
It makes you wonder: Is our generosity determined by our standard of living, or is our standard of living determined by our generosity?
Flipping Our Categories
That thought challenges our conventional thinking. When I was planting the church and learning some things about how to share Christ with someone, one of my mentors was talking about developing relationships. He said, “Now, when you go to the grocery store, which line do you pick?” And I said, “The shortest one.” He says, “Yeah. But what if you picked the line based on who was the checkout person? What if you chose based on the relationship with a woman or a man who was working, and in order to have a moment with them, you chose their line?” It flips your categories.
Here is the category being flipped: They gave what they were able, which was within their means—their generosity was based on their standard of living—but then they gave beyond their means, meaning they let their standard of living be determined by their generosity. Jesus let His standard of living be determined by His desire to be generous. Generosity might mean—for the Corinthians, he says, “See that you also excel in this grace of giving.” Don’t forget that we’re called to be generous.
Paul says, “I can’t make any rules about this. I can’t tell you there’s a 10% tithe down here,” even though that was the pattern of the Old Testament. Jesus says in the New Testament that you’re not bound by that 10% limit anymore—you can give more!
Generosity may affect what else I’m able to do for myself. It does affect how I have to live. If I am giving it away, I have to depend on God to give to me a grace to do the other things that maybe I wanted to do—the car, the vacation, the furniture, the house, the dinners out, the entertainment, or the mortgage. God is asking: How much are you willing to depend on Me for? And He will not leave you. He will say, “I’m right here. I love you. I’m right here.” It will produce grace and joy in your life.
Does that mean the grace that you do get is going to look the same as the grace you gave away? If I’m generous with my money, does that mean God will be generous with His money—money for money? I’m sure you’ve heard of preachers and churches that tell you that—that if you give this much, God will give you that much. There’s no such rule. Grace comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes, experiences, and opportunities. You might give grace away through money, but grace might abound with you in satisfaction, peace, relationships, or opportunities.
Or money! It might be any of those. But the idea is: Are you willing to let God be your provider? We can’t control grace, and we don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like. Generosity is the way that we pass it along. It’s not so much the grace that God wants to give us; it’s the grace that God wants to give away through us. We become conduits of God’s love and grace to other people and other lives.
We are living a life of dependence. Can you depend on God to give you everything? As Paul reminds us in Romans, “He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” He’s not just interested in giving us Jesus; there’s an abundant life that floats above the circumstances, that is not in bondage and dependence on the rest of this world. What if you could cut the cord to all the things you depend on and just depend on Jesus, and then watch Him show up?
Sometimes we don’t depend on Jesus because we don’t think He’s going to show up. Or, on the other hand, we don’t depend on Jesus because we’re afraid Jesus will show up—and that He’ll show up in a way that isn’t comfortable in our world, in a way that is a little disheveling or shaking. God showed up in the Bible in both of those extremes all the time. He showed up in the still, small voice, and He showed up when He landed on Mount Sinai and the people were terrified, saying, “Tell God to stop talking, we’re afraid.” So God shows up in dynamic ways, in a small voice, or in ways we might not immediately expect.
Generosity creates the space for that. Generosity creates the opportunity for God’s grace to show up and change your perspective. It’s scary, though. I think that’s partly why Paul is bringing up the Macedonians and the Corinthians. He’s trying to say, “We’re all doing this. I know it’s scary. But they did it.” He’s also trying to break down the barriers that exist. Here is a Gentile church giving to the Jewish church, breaking down walls through shared sacrifice. He is asking: Is your empathy so great that you’re willing to give? And he says, “You are. You gave, you were the first ones to give and want to give. I know this is possible. Jesus is in you. Let Him out! Let Him out. He seeks to be generous.” The gospel is all about sacrifice, surrender, and giving away. For the rich young ruler, when he asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus told him to follow the commandments. The man said, “I’ve done all that since I was a child.” What a thing to think! Jesus says, “Okay, well then how about this? Sell everything you have and give it to the poor.” The man walked away sad because he was a man of great wealth. He struggled—as we all struggle—with dependence.
But the gospel allows us to live with dependence because Jesus will never let us go. He will always be there in the midst of our tears, our struggles, and our vulnerability, saying, “I’m right here. I love you.”
Conclusion and Prayer
Thank you, Father. Thank you for your grace. Teach us these things, Lord. Even though you don’t command us, you implore us, you woo us to yourself. You are a God who loves to give. As a matter of fact, it’s been said that we cannot out-give You. Father, I pray that you would make us people who receive generously and give generously out of dependence on you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.