Giving (Resolutions)

resolutions: giving

Jason Procopio 

When we talk about spiritual disciplines, as we have been for the last several weeks, we have a tendency to think in very spiritual terms, for obvious reasons. Prayer and worship and reading the Word of God and sharing the gospel… These are all “spiritual” activities. And we like them, because since they’re spiritual, they’re fairly “safe”. They don’t cost a lot more than time and maybe, occasionally, a little embarrassment.

The same is not true of the spiritual discipline we’re seeing today, which is the spiritual discipline of generosity.

I just want to confess right from the beginning that my initial instinct to the idea of talking about this subject is not a positive one. Not because I’m not convinced that everything I’m about to say is true, but rather because of the way people often see Christians deal with this subject. 

Two images immediately spring to mind. One is from my childhood in America. My grandmother always had their television turned on in the background when I was a kid, and unless my Grandpa was watching a Western (which I preferred), Grandma had the TV tuned to the “Christian” network, which basically played church services on a loop all day long. These were not modest church services (because poor churches couldn’t afford cameras); these were church services in which, almost every time, a well-manicured man in a very expensive suit got up and told people that if they would just give 10% of their monthly earnings to his ministry, God would give them their money back times ten. Even as a child this sounded ruthless and opportunistic to me—this guy asking my grandmother (the sweetest woman on Planet Earth) to send him money so that he could buy a new pair of diamond cufflinks.

The second image that comes to mind is more recent. We were at Loanne’s parents’ house for lunch or something, and her mother came storming in after retrieving the mail. Someone had dropped an empty envelope from the local Catholic church, asking her to put money in and send it back. Neither of Loanne’s parents are Christians, and her mother had a lot of very big problems with the Catholic church. She was livid—“Why would I give them money? And why on earth are they asking random people to give to them, as if we owed them something?” So she looked up—I think to see what our reactions would be—and we both said (quite sincerely) that we agreed with her. 

Images like these have colored the way many people see the church—as an institution looking to get rich and not afraid to exploit poor people in order to do it. And in all fairness, that vision of the church has been right in the past: it was one of the main reasons for the Protestant Reformation (the Church was selling indulgences—basically you’d pay the church in order to spend less time in Purgatory after you died—and they did it in order to finance St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome). 

So I’m going into this with the weight of my mother-in-law’s negative judgment on my shoulders (a judgment I still happen to agree with). And it is, in part, that negative judgment that makes talking about this subject all the more necessary. Because neither the Catholic Church asking random people for money, nor the televangelists asking random people for money, have anything to do with what the Bible actually says on this subject. 

And the Bible says a lot about it.

We don’t have time to see all of it today, obviously, so we’re going to focus on one text in particular. I chose this text because we’re not just talking about money to talk about money; we’re talking about the spiritual disciplines, the means God gives us to grow in him. And our stewardship of the resources God has given us is a big one. So we’re going to see in this text both why we give, and how we give—how giving actually brings us closer to God.

The text is 2 Corinthians 8.1-15. 2 Corinthians is a complicated letter, because it has a complicated history. About a year after writing his first letter to this church, Paul learned from his protégé Timothy that the church was in a shambles, because opponents of Paul had arrived and were turning the church against him. Paul went to visit them, hoping to smooth things over, but the visit was very painful to him, because the church openly rebelled against him. So he left, and sent a very severe and painful letter to them (delivered by Titus, this letter is now lost), calling them to repentance and warning them of God’s judgment if they didn’t. 

To his joy, most of the Christians in this church did repent, which he learned when he met up with Titus in Macedonia. But there were still some who resisted his apostolic authority. So Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians before coming to visit them one more time.

So this letter has three goals. Paul wants to strengthen the faithful in the church; to complete the collection for other churches as an expression of their repentance; and to offer the rebellious one more chance to repent before Paul comes.

Today’s text, in chapter 8, focuses on this second goal.

The collection in question is money they are collecting from churches all over, to support the suffering believers in Jerusalem. And in his exhortation to the Corinthians to give to the church, he’s going to show three separate things: that giving is an act of strategic joy; that giving is an act of grace; and that giving is an act of discipline. We’ll see the first two before the break and the last one after.

Generosity: an act of strategic joy (v. 1-6)

If you were here last week, what we’re going to see first will be familiar; in the first few verses, Paul tells us something similar to what John said in the beginning of his first letter. 

Keep in mind that he’s talking the collection he’s taking up for the Christians in Jerusalem, who were going through some kind of hardship: providing for their needs so that they can continue to do the work of ministry. He encourages the Corinthians to give generously by telling them about the attitude of the churches in Macedonia.  V. 1-6:  

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 favor 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.

These Macedonian Christians were extremely poor, and extremely joyful in God. The one consistently positive thing about affliction is that it clarifies everything very quickly. When you lose everything, it’s easy to see what you have left. The Macedonian Christians had lost almost everything; and what they had left was God. And they found that God was enough—more than enough. The God that remained to them was so far beyond “sufficient” that they felt they had riches beyond anything they could imagine: they had abundance of joy in him.

This joy in God, paired with their extreme poverty, made them able to see what was really worth pursuing, and that was: they would give themselves to God, and to their brothers and sisters. This is what they wanted, because it was what would complete them. So they begged Paul to allow them to participate in the relief of the saints in Jerusalem, giving what little they had, beyond their means.

Giving is an act of strategic joy. Here’s what I mean by that: when we give, we have less (obviously); and when we have less, we’re able to more easily see which things truly make us complete. This is why Jesus said that it was difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19.23-24). When we have a lot, it’s hard for us to believe we don’t actually need a lot. The more things we have to make us comfortable, the harder it is for us to imagine living without those things. 

We can see this very easily when we think of how the world has changed in just the last twenty years. Can you imagine going back to a life without cell phones? Without being able to carry a phone with you all the time, without having access to this wealth of information in our pockets all the time? A few of us here still remember a time before not just cell phones, but the Internet—when we wanted to know something, we had to look it up in a book. And there was a time before that when books were as precious as gold, because there were so few of them.

We can live without these things. And if we have God, we can live well without these things; we can live joyful without these things. 

Giving generously is a way to remind ourselves of this reality, to invest in not just pleasure, but joy—lasting, eternal, complete joy in our God.

Giving is an act of strategic joy.

Generosity: an act of strategic grace (v. 7-9) 

Next, we see that giving is an act of strategic 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.

To put this simply: we must remember (as Paul encouraged the Corinthians to do) that we give in order to extend grace to others. We give to God so that God’s blessing might be extended to others, through the ministry of the church. When we give, we accept to sacrifice ourselves in order to give others what they need.

And we do it because that’s what Christ did for us. God is by definition the richest being in the entire universe, because literally everything belongs to him. And yet when God saved us, he did it by taking on a human nature and living as a human being, without the comforts of heaven. Let’s put aside how difficult it must have been to take on a human form and be weak for the first time, get sick for the first time, die an incredibly painful death. That’s far from the worst of it. The Son of God went from perfect peace and comfort with the Father and Spirit to being surrounded by the sin and corruption that wrecked the world he created. The only pure and holy God surrounded himself with sin at literally every moment of his life. It must have been agony. And then to top it all off, he took those sins on himself—he became an offense to his own holiness when he took our sins with him to the cross.

Jesus Christ, though he was rich, became poor for our sake, so that by his poverty, we might become rich.

This is what so many people forget when they become Christians, when they become a part of the church. We think about our involvement in the church, what we want to invest in; and we naturally latch onto to flashier, more satisfying elements of church life—serving on the evangelism team or the worship team or the prayer team—and we’re right to do those things. 

But we often forget that we only have those things through completely ordinary means. It was Jesus, doing ordinary things with ordinary people, in perfect holiness, thirty-plus years before he ever began his ministry. It was Jesus, feeding people when they were hungry. It was Jesus, healing people when they were sick. It was Jesus, being struck by real fists and pierced by real nails and being buried in a real tomb.

He didn’t do all of that to bring us out of the material world, but to transform the way we live in the material world. One day he’ll renew the earth and get rid of sin and guess what? That world will be material too. 

All of this means that we can’t seek the spiritual without investing in the material. We can’t seek the abstract without investing in the practical. If the church is going to be what God intended her to be, we must participate in every aspect of her life…including the ordinary, practical matters of enabling the church to do what it must do. This is true no matter what church you’re a part of—if you’re visiting today, and this is not your home church, then go back home, and give generously to your church.

Giving is an act of grace, because our participation in the finances of the church gives the church the practical freedom to do what God has called us to do. We give ourselves first to God, then to each other. If we love another, we will give to the church, because we all need the church to serve us, and others will need the church to serve them.

So giving is an act of strategic joy; it is an act of strategic grace; and it is an act of strategic discipline.

Generosity: an act of strategic discipline (v. 10-15)

Calling this an act of discipline seems obvious, because we’re talking about spiritual disciplines. But a discipline is exactly what it is, because while this is at heart a spiritual matter, it works itself out in the most practical way possible. And it will require great discipline if we’re going to maintain it: discipline to see our needs and the needs of others the way God sees them.

10 And in this matter I give my judgment: this benefits you, who a year ago started not only to do this work but also to desire to do it. 11 So now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have. 12 For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have. 13 For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness 14 your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness. 15 As it is written, “Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.” 

Paul begins in v. 10-11 by saying something really obvious: desiring to be generous is good, but it’s incomplete: the giving needs to actually happen if it’s going to make a difference. Most of us, I’m guessing, would like to do what he’s saying here; we’d like to give generously, to not just hoard resources for ourselves…but desiring it isn’t enough. 

So now, Paul says, finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have.

After this, he lays out some precisions which should reassure us.

First of all, he says that those who can’t afford to give a lot should not feel pressure to do so. V. 12: For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have. I think it’s wonderful that the New Testament doesn’t give a number, as in Here’s what each member should be giving. The goal isn’t to burden one person in order to unburden another, but rather to give in such a way that all those who need, have what they need.

Secondly, he shows that it goes both ways: he calls the Corinthians to give to the church in Jerusalem, so that one day, when the tables are turned, the Christians in Jerusalem might provide for the Corinthians. V. 13-14: 13 For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness 14 your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness. 

Now of course we’re not quite in the same situation as them—we’re not giving to the church so that church members might be able to eat (though occasionally that is necessary). But the principle remains the same. If the Christians in Jerusalem have what they need, then they are freed to devote themselves to the work of the ministry. If the church has the funds to do what they need to do, they can do what they need to do.

We’re providing in a practical way in order to reap a spiritual benefit: if the church has what the church needs, then the church can do what God has called us to do. We give because the church needs our finances to continue…and because we need the church to live our lives for Christ.

And that is the crux of the matter. No matter what church you happen to be a part of, whether or not you practice this spiritual discipline well will depend in large part on how convinced you are that the church is God’s primary means of advancing his kingdom in the world today. It will depend on how convinced you are that God uses the church to do his will. It will depend on how convinced you are that you need the church in order to live faithfully for Christ.

If you don’t believe that, then yeah, you’re better off giving to something else. Other initiatives will produce more immediate effects, will do more immediate and practical good (like associations that provide for the poor). If you don’t believe that, then you may be better off not giving at all—just building your nest egg until it’s ready to explode.

If we do believe it, though—if we really believe that the church is God’s primary means of advancing his kingdom in our lives and in the world—then our first priority in generosity will be the most strategic one. At Eglise Connexion, we do believe that. And so we want to strategically invest in the primary means God has chosen to advance his kingdom: the church.

Application

Now, just a couple of quick points before we close.

First: I want to be clear that Eglise Connexion isn’t the primary means God uses to advance his kingdom; the Church is (as in, the universal church). So you may be asking, what church should I give to? 

The answer is: whatever church you go to. 

We talked about this a lot in our members’ classes: every time the New Testament talks about the relationship between the church and church members, in context it is always clear that this relationship happens between Christians and their church. We should call our elders; we should submit to our elders; and elders are responsible for our members. So whatever church you go to, whatever church you are a part of, is the one you should be investing in.

Second: this will always be painful. Giving will always be costly—and I think that’s why Paul goes further than just saying, “Find whatever change you have lying around and give that.” No, he quotes Exodus 16.18, saying (v. 15): “Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.” He says we shouldn’t feel pressured to give beyond our means (even though he applauds it in the Macedonians), but he does say that we should give as much as our needs will allow.

And the reality is that we always think we need more than we do.

That’s why the Bible gives the principle of tithes in the Old Testament. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule—it’s not a commandment which is validated by the New Testament—but it’s still a good way to see what this might look like. The people of Israel were required to give ten percent of their earnings to God. Why this number? Firstly, because ten percent isn’t going to devastate anyone—we still have ninety percent left, which is a lot. But at the same time, ten percent is a substantial figure; we’ll feel it. We’ll be required to make choices and sacrifices to do it. 

Giving will always be painful, and that’s the point: giving helps us see that God takes care of his children, by giving us better things than we would get if we hoarded our funds and tried to provide for ourselves. 

And the main way he provides for us—the main means he has given us to see the fruit of the Spirit grow in our lives—is the church. We provide for the needs of the church so that the church can continue to do her work.

We did a whole series on the vision of our church last year. We would not be here if we did not believe this vision was worth pursuing, that it glorifies God and that it enables us to enjoy him more.

So we invest in this vision. We provide for the church that the church may provide for others (and for ourselves). It is an act of faith: our giving is strategic joy, strategic grace, and strategic discipline. And those who give know—they have seen—that what God gives them is far better than what they could give themselves.