2 Corinthians 9:6-15 Mission Ready Part 2

When I was a child, during this time of the year, my mom would take me to mall to see Santa Clause. A man dressed up in a big red suit with a long white beard who sat in a great big chair. Santa’s always seemed to look different every year. Sometime he would be tall and sometimes short. Sometimes he would be fatter than other times. Sometimes he would wear glasses and other times not. Sometimes Santa’s beard was actually attached to his face and sometimes his mouth just moved independent of the beard. Yet no matter how Santa looked that year, one thing was always the same: the question he asked me, “You man, what do you want for Christmas.” And whatever struck my fancy that year, I would tell him. Sometimes I got what I asked for. Sometimes I didn’t.

Maybe someone has asked you that question already this year, “What do you want for Christmas.” Depending your interests maybe you answered, some type of gaming system, or a new car, or a new computer, or some new clothes. Maybe you just said that you want this year to be over with.

I want ask you a similar question this morning. “What do you want the most?” Not for Christmas. I’m asking, “What is your greatest desire, period?”

Whether or not you are a Christian should have a huge influence on how you answer that question. Everybody, Christian or not, may say, “To be happy or content.” But only the Christian would answer, “My pathway to true happiness and joy is in Christlikeness.”

As we finish our stewardship series this morning, “Faithful in the Chaos.” In our text this morning, 2 Cor. 9:6-15, we find a connection between giving and the level of Christlike rigthteousness that flows from our lives.

Here we see that Prop: Christians who give continually to Kingdom work have as their reward God’s continual replenishing grace leading to greater Christlikeness.

To show us this, Paul summarizes all that he has said in ch. 8 and v.1-5 in ch. 9 encouraging them to give a gift to the poor Christians in Jerusalem.

I. The Point: “The more one gives. The more God gives back in return.”

To say this uses one of the most commonly understood agricultural principles in his history.

2 Corinthians 9:6 ESV

6 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

The obvious assumption that Paul is making is that no one wants to reap sparingly. We want to reap bountifully.

So how do we make sure that we reap bountifully? We sow bountifully.

II. The Process which brings a bountiful harvest.

A. Spiritual maturity is directly affected by what you do with you money.

2 Corinthians 9:7 ESV

7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

2 Cor. 9:7 “Each one must give…” Paul equates sowing seeds for the harvest with giving money to God’s kingdom work. We know it because the point of this text is to raise money for persecuted Christians.

That being the case, giving should be something that we plan for. v. 7 “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart.” The word “decided” in the language of the NT means “predetermine ahead of time.” Thus in a systematic way. If you wait until your heart is moved to give, it will be likely that your spending habits have already put you into a place that you can’t give even if you want to. So you decide up front in your heart and then plan to spend your money in such a way that you can give.

B. Spiritual maturity is directly affected by what you do with your heart concerning money.

2 Corinthians 9:7 ESV

7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

v. 7 “decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

Don’t give in a way that you mourn over parting with your money. Give in a way that you rejoice over it.

How does one do that? *When I pastored a church in the MS Delta I saw farmers put major money in the ground in seed every year. I’m talking about 100’s of thousands of dollars. They did it joyfully every year. The only way they could do it because they did it with great faith that the value of the harvest would be worth more than the value of the seed.

That is the only way we can give cheerfully to the Kingdom of God. In our hearts the value of the harvest has to be worth more than the value of the what we sow.

Here, he is not talking about a harvest of money. The harvest he’s talking about is what our money sown in the Kingdom of God produces.

2 Corinthians 9:8 ESV

8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

v. 8 “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

Look back at v.6, “Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” And what will you abound in according to v.8 “ God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that. . . you may abound in every good work.”

We don’t sow money to get money. We sow money to get grace. Grace that causes our lives to abound in Kingdom work.

The only way to sow like that cheerfully is to value a harvest of Christlike work flowing from our lives more than we value money.

If we don’t value a harvest of grace producing good works, one of two things will happen. 1) Either we will not give. or, 2) We will give, but not with a cheerful heart. We will give mourning the loss of the money.

If either one of those things are true of us, we should take pause over our relationship with God because it’s evidence that we value money more than we value God.

*Robert Murray M’Cheyne, a Scottish pastor who died at the age of twenty-nine in 1843, spoke of the mercy and generosity of Christians as the evidence that they were indeed Christians. He loved the poor in his parish, and he feared for those who did not look for ways to show them mercy.

Listen to what he said,

“I am concerned for the poor but more for you. I know not what Christ will say to you in the great day.... I fear there are many hearing me who may know well that they are not Christians, because they do not love to give. To give largely and liberally, not grudging at all, requires a new heart; an old heart would rather part with its life-blood than its money. Oh my friends! Enjoy your money; make the most of it; give none away; enjoy it quickly for I can tell you, you will be beggars throughout eternity.”-Robert Murray M’Cheyne

( John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life, 102)

One of the greatest dangers facing American Christianity is confusing a love of God with a love of his gifts.

Look at v. 9 “9 As it is written, (this is a quote from Psalm 112:9)

2 Corinthians 9:9 ESV

9 As it is written, “He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.”

Despite the explosion of the health and wealth gospel in our day. God’s righteousness is not displayed because we have big houses and drive nice cars and where designer clothes. God’s righteousness is displayed through generous givers to God’s Kingdom work to make disciples of our families and extending to all nations.

III. The Promise to Cheerful Givers v. 10-11a

2 Corinthians 9:10 ESV

10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

So, who gives you the money that you may give in the first place? God. And if you are worried about how that giving may affect you daily needs, who gives you your bread for food? God.

30. v. 10 says that God will do three things for Cheerful givers.

A. He will give you what he intends for you to sow.

2 Corinthians 9:10 ESV

10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

“he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply… your seed for sowing. (v. 10)

I’ve heard people say, “I can’t give, I don’t know where it would come from.” If you seek to be used by God through giving, “God will give you the seed, you just have to give it.”

B. He will multiply what he intends for you to sow.

“ he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing…” (v. 10)

What an incredible promise. He just doesn’t give seed to the sower, but he multiplies the seed. Which means he gives and keeps on giving.

C. He will bless the seed in which you sow.

“and increase the harvest of your righteousness.” (v. 10)

Now in one sense, you give money and God gives you back more money for sowing into the Kingdom. Now the danger is in confusing this extra seed as the harvest. The extra money is not the harvest.

2 Corinthians 9:11 ESV

11 You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.

v. 11 “You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way.”

The extra seed is given to do two things. First, to increase you joy. God loves a “cheerful giver.” So when he increases your ability to give, he increased your joy in giving.

Second, he multiplies seed to increase your righteousness. That’s the harvest. That’s the heart of a maturing Christian. That’s why I asked you in the beginning what you wanted more than anything? When what you want more than anything is an increase in the righteous flowing from your life, you wont be able not to give. Nothing will give you more joy than increased righteousness.

IV. The Production of Giving (vv. 11-13)

A. Thanksgiving to God

2 Corinthians 9:11–13 ESV

11 You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. 12 For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. 13 By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others,

The Jewish Christians whom were being persecuted in Jerusalem were often suspicious of Gentile converts. Acts 11:1-3 tells us that many in the Jerusalem church were appalled that Peter had preached the gospel to the Gentiles. Acts 11:4-18 tells us that it was only with difficulty that they were persuaded to accept them as brothers in Christ.

Yet, now through the gifts of the Gentile churches, the Jewish Christians would praise God for saving the Gentiles as well.

I think it is telling that their thankfulness didn’t go to the Gentiles. The text says their response would “produce thanksgiving to God.”

+This tells us something about their perspective of the goodness of man without God.

*For example, I grew up in Tylertown Baptist Church, and I am thankful of all the men who led their families to give to that church so I could be discipled as I was growing up.

But my thanksgiving does not go to those particular men and women who gave. Nor should yours go to those that gave to the church that you were discipled. And no one who is benefitting by the giving of the church today owes anyone here a thank you card.

All glory and thanksgiving goes to God. It is God and him alone that changes the sinful heart so that we desire a harvest of righteousness more than money.

V. The Praise of the Giver v. 15

2 Corinthians 9:14–15 ESV

14 while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. 15 Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!

What is this inexpressible gift? He had just told them.

Look at v. 14 “while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you.”

In one sense the gift is clearly Christ.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son.”

But in the context of this passage, not only is it Christ, but it is Christlikeness.

*C.S. Lewis in his essay, “The Weight of Glory,” speaks to the issue of proper rewards. He writes,

“A silver cup is not a very suitable reward for a schoolboy who works hard, whereas a scholarship at the university would be.... The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but they are the activity itself in consummation.”

For the Christian, joy in God comes from the harvest of righteousness that flows from our lives when we give. What greater reward could their be that God would reward our giving by making us more like Jesus, so our giving and joy could increase forevermore!

Invitation

1. Pray and Plan for Lottie Moon giving.

2. Pray and Plan for 2010 giving.