Good morning and welcome to Walking with Jesus through the Word, one chapter per day. I am Pastor Jason van Bemmel from Forest Hill Presbyterian Church. It's day 1026, 1026 days together in God's Word and we are Back in the book of 2nd Corinthians chapter 9, this is lots of familiar verses in this chapter about giving. This is one of the best places in the Bible to learn about giving and what God expects from us and wants from us in terms of our giving. So let's pray and ask the Lord's help as we look to this chapter together. Heavenly Father, You are our God and Father and generous and kind and gracious and abundant to us. Father, please teach us from your word how you would have us respond to your grace with generosity and kindness. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. 2 Corinthians chapter 9. Now it is superfluous for me to write to you about the ministry for the saints. For I know your readiness, of which I boast about you to the people of Macedonia, saying that Achaia has been ready since last year. and your zeal has stirred up most of them. But I am sending the brothers, so that our boasting about you may not prove empty in this matter, so that you may be ready, as I said you would be. Otherwise, if some Macedonians come with me and find that you are not ready, we would be humiliated, to say nothing of you, for being so confident. So I thought it was necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead of you and arrange in advance for the gift you have promised, so that it may be ready as a willing gift, not as an exaction. The point is this. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 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. As it is written, he has distributed freely. He has given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. 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. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the need of the saints, but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. 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, while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift. That is 2 Corinthians 9, and it truly is a remarkable passage on giving, and it shows us so much about the right way to handle giving within the church, especially when you combine it with the previous chapter we looked at a few days ago, chapter 8. Things need to be done with integrity, with accountability, with transparency. Things need to be done sincerely from the heart, but giving should be generous. Giving blesses both the giver and the receiver, and far beyond, glorifies God. We see all of these principles here in these chapters. The first thing is to see the practical. It is human nature, which doesn't really change, that people, when they often first hear an appeal about a need, they'll give very generously because they're moved deeply about the need. But then sometimes when the emotional immediacy of it dies down and they have some time to think things through, they might think, well, you know, I would rather spend that money on something else. I know that I said I was going to give it to the hurricane victims in North Carolina, for example, or to, you know, the church in India or in Uganda But, you know, I really was hoping to get a bigger screen TV in time for the Super Bowl. And I was really hoping to be able to buy a new car. And I know that. So we rationalize and we think through what else. So Paul's being very practical and he's saying, you've made a promise. You've said that you were going to give generously. I don't want you to change your mind because that would be bad for you, bad for us, bad all around, really. But I also don't want to just show up and have to kind of force you to do what you're reluctant to do. God doesn't want you to be reluctant. God doesn't want you to give under compulsion. God doesn't want you to be a reluctant giver. God wants your gift to be a willing gift. God wants you to sow bountifully so that you will reap bountifully. Now this verse, verse six, has been totally abused by lots of prosperity gospel preachers who say, you know, if you give $10 to my ministry, God will give you $100 because if you sow bountifully, you'll reap bountifully. Give sacrificially and God will pour out heaven to you. And taking a bunch of verses out of context, first of all, we have to be upfront that a lot of the celebrity prosperity gospel preachers are just very wealthy multi-millionaires who drive very nice cars and who have very nice ministry expense accounts and who eat at the finest restaurants. And what they want your money for is for themselves, not to relieve hungry Christians in Jerusalem and Judea. They want your money. And they say, oh, you'll get it back in return. But so often they're taking from poor people who have very little upon a false promise of manipulated scripture. That is not something that we should endorse. And that's not something that people should give to thinking that God's going to reward it. God wants people to give from the heart. not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. But I think also the balance of scripture would say that God loves a wise giver. And that's why what we saw three days ago in chapter eight is that there's accountability. This is being used for famine relief. And there are multiple brothers of good reputation who are being sent to accompany the gift to make sure no funny business happens. Nobody's going to go out and buy themselves a new tunic with this so that they can look good when they get to Jerusalem. They're not out getting their Armani tunics, you know, to show off and to the, to the, wealthy people of Jerusalem when they arrive. No, this is going where it's intended to go to relieve poor and hungry people. So in churches, In our church, we have deacons who administer the funds and who keep watch over the budget and the spending. And there's an accounting given for everything that's spent. What was it spent on? Why was it spent on that? Is it according to the budget? And there's a careful process in place for transparency and accountability, both on the counting and the receiving of funds, as well as the expensing of funds. And that's appropriate. We want to give cheerfully. We want to give generously, but we want to give wisely. And God, when we give cheerfully and generously as we've decided in our heart, he is able to make all grace abound to you. Now, notice Paul is never saying there's going to be a direct financial reciprocation, but he's simply saying God knows how to take care of you. He will give you everything you need so that you may abound in every good work. He will increase. the harvest of your righteousness. He will multiply your seed for sowing. In other words, if God sees one of his children being faithful with the resources entrusted, he will entrust you with more opportunities to give, to serve, to grow. I'm not saying he's going to make you a millionaire, but he will do everything that's necessary for every good work that he's ordained for you to do. He's not stingy. especially to those who themselves are not stingy with the things that he gives. And then see the benefit. Not only does it benefit the giver because God blesses them, but it also is supplying the needs of the saints. Obviously, that's the primary purpose of it, but it's also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. It will produce thanksgiving to God. Paul says this twice because it's so important to him that God will be praised. The people who will receive it in Judea will say, thank you, Lord, for meeting my needs through the hands of your faithful people. And then the people around them will say, wow, God's being really gracious to them. God's really taking care of them. Maybe we need to think, because a lot of the Jewish people who were not believers in Jesus think that these followers of Jesus are being led astray by a false prophet and are disobeying God and are abandoning God. But if God is taking care of them, if God is being generous to them, what a testimony that is to the watching world. And so, in the end, glory will go to God, verse 15, for His inexpressible gift. What does that mean? That's not talking about money. In the end, verse 15 is saying that we will ultimately give thanks to God for the inexpressible gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. Paul had referred to Him in chapter 8 when he said, you know, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich. He is our model. He's our example. He's our source. And he's our goal for this generous giving. And so in the end, it is thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift. Well, our response and application to today's passage is pretty obvious. We should give generously. We should resolve to give generously. We should follow through on that resolve and give generously to meet the needs of the poor, to advance the work of the church, the faithful church that has integrity. And we should be careful and wise, but also cheerfully generous and open-hearted. because we're returning to God just a small portion of the great generosity he's shown to us, which ultimately his great generosity is shown in the giving of his Son. And if God's given us his Son, anything we give back in return is just a small token of our appreciation. And thanks be to God for it. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your love and for your faithfulness. Thank you for your generosity to us. Please help us to be generous and cheerful givers. Help us be faithful and wise administers of funds that are given. May you build up your church, may you meet the needs of your people, and may Jesus Christ be glorified, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thanks so much for joining me for 2 Corinthians chapter 9. I hope that you have a blessed day.