2 Corinthians 9:6-15
Sermon
I smile a little bit when I ask you, is there anything I can pray for you about? And you say, no, everything is good. I chuckle a little to myself and say, good, I’ll join you in praising God!
Isn’t it great that we have many reasons to praise God?
You don’t ever have to feel bad or guilty about sharing praise.
There are plenty of cranky, unhappy people
Great praise is a great thing. Football … the parents love to praise the coaches.
Praise is to express delight, to say enjoyment
Adventure
God isn’t the only one who can directly produce praise. We can produce praise. Like players on a football game.
He says this today in 2 Corinthians 9. He makes two points.
First, he says that the church is supposed to be a group of cheerful and generous people.
Second that generosity will lead people to praise God.
We can tell the church is the church in part when people praise God for what we do. The church is not the church until people praise God for what we do.
Development
First, we have to actually do things that lead to praise.
God says it like this, “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 7 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” (verse 6-7)
And then later on he says, “You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.” (verse 11, 13)
He is speaking of money.
He invites the Corinthians to join him in giving.
An offering for the people in Jerusalem.
He says, if you do this well, people will praise because of you.
I find this hard to imagine. I feel like I get criticized even for the good things that I try to do. Vicinia, kicked out over latest COVID scare. …
And now, I’m supposed to do things that are so good that people will praise God because of them. Doesn’t Paul know how bad I am at so many things? Doesn’t Paul know how much I mess up at so much of life? Doesn’t Paul know how critical people are of religion and religiosity and religious belief?
Paul knows all of that too well.
Paul had been that person.
At one time, Paul had been deeply opposed to the Christian faith.
Paul had been highly critical of everything that Christianity did.
Paul understood exactly the mindset that said, there is nothing that these Christians can do that is good.
Paul had already gone through the challenge of overcoming that mindset. What I mean is, he had already gone through the challenge of becoming the person that other people praised God for him.
Paul made tents among the Corinthians. He didn’t ask for a thing from them.
He even gave back and supported the Corinthians from what he made.
There was an irony here. Paul probably went to about 20 cities. He worked in other ones. Only Corinth tells us he made tents.
Paul is saying, I overcame all the criticism. I became that generous person. He modeled the very thing that he is telling them to do. To be generous, to be giving in such a way, that people praise God.
2 characteristics of giving that leads people to praise God, then 2 motivations. 2 characteristics, 2 motivations.
First, 2 characteristics.
Heartfelt - “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give” (verse 7)
What Paul wants to point out here is that the kind of giving that leads to praise is not just head giving.
We’re all taught this basic principle that says some amount of giving is necessary in life. You need to learn to be a generous person. Probably something like “to whom much has been given much shall be required”. We even pass that principle on to our kids.
Paul says, the kind of giving that leads to praise comes from a heart conviction, not just a head conviction.
Andrew Carnegie is a helpful example here. By the age of 33 he had built up the company US Steel and was a multimillionaire. He wrote himself that said, “Everyone must have an idol. The amassing of wealth is one of the worst kinds of idolatry.” He wrote in this note that he was going to quit business at the age of 35 and then spend his life learning. “systematic instruction” he said. (Keller, Counterfeit Gods, pg 69) That’s the key. He went for the head. Not the heart.
If you’ve watched the documentary “The Men Who Built America” you know Carnegie didn’t quit at 35. He became a billionaire. And he was incredibly generous. He built the library system. And yet, what did many people point out? He left his men working in poverty. “We didn’t want him to build a library for us, we wanted better wages.”
What’s that say for you and for me? We will never give like Carnegie. Around here we aren’t going to outgive the MacPhersons.
Heart giving, giving that is driven by compassion and empathy and sympathy and mercy will turn so many more heads.
Genuine giving - “not reluctantly or under compulsion”
What Paul wants to point out here is that our giving can’t be seeking. If we are forced to give, then we are giving to get. Even if it is just giving so that others will leave us alone. That kind of giving won’t produce praise.
Comparison two men bring home, hate to use it, it’s cliché so it works, two men bring home a bouquet of flowers.
The one lady says oh thank you, they’re so beautiful. Let’s put them out and enjoy them.
The second lady says, what, thanks a lot, that’s going to get you really far. What’s going on there? You might think that he bought roses when she prefers daisies (that’s my family). You might say he overspent the budget for the month and she is ticked. But more likely you’d say he is just trying to win her favor, he is just trying to get back in her good graces.
He is just giving to get.
Paul says, if you want to give in a way that leads to praise, you can’t give under compulsion. If you’re compulsed, you’re forced to do something. You might be giving so that the person stops bugging you. You might be giving so that your coworkers think you’re good. That’s the thing, so much of our giving is giving to get. We aren’t actually giving to give.
If you want to produce praise, you need to actually give. Not give to get.
That’s the kind of giving the church does.
The church is still not the church until people praise God. We not a humanitarian group. If all they talk about is us, that misses the point.
How do we become people who help people pivot their praise?
The Bible says, “10 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God”
There’s no better illustration than this. Charles Spurgeon, the old Baptist preacher, used to say what if you knew you were dying of something and I had a medicine that could cure you for sure? You said, “I want to buy that medicine.” And he said, “Well, if you go to the distributor, it’s extremely expensive and you might have to lose your home. You might have to lose your record collection. You might have to lose everything in order to buy it.” What would you say?
You would say, “What good is my home if I don’t have that? What good is my record collection if I don’t have that? This thing is so precious, this medicine is so precious, that all these other things that always were important to me, that seemed very expensive to me, look cheap. The preciousness of that medicine has made everything else in my life expendable.”
He says, “he will increase the store of your seed”. That means he will give you the stuff to be generous.
He also says, “he will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.” (verse 11) What does that mean?
It means that on the cross, God said you are worth infinite value to me. Jesus said there was a medicine that was worth everything. I won’t hold anything back from you.
In another place God says Jesus has become our righteousness (1 Cor 1:30)
Luther says every day a Christian is somebody who gets up and says, “I’m rich. I’m rich. I’ve been adopted into the family. I’ve been accepted in the beloved. I have a guarantee to rule and reign forever. I have his holy power living in me, that will inevitably overwhelm all my flaws, all my weaknesses, all my sadnesses.” A Christian is somebody who feels absolutely rich, and therefore can help people pivot their praise.
Let’s be God’s people and listen to people praise.
Action
I know this time is financially crazy.
I think I’ve said this before, the church is experiencing some of that.
I’m not asking you to give more. What I want you to do is believe that we are God’s people and we can help people pivot their praise.
I hear people say, no one praises God, no one has anything good to say about God. Then let’s do this. Let’s be God’s people and help people pivot their praise.