Will you join with me to pray? Father, again, we give you thanks for all that you've given us. Begins with our life, with the breath that you have put into our lungs that we may, that we can live, that we can move and see and hear and speak and touch You have given us things physically in order that we may live, food and shelter and clothing, as well as you've given us by your son. I just read that you sent your son who was rich in your glory. He came to this earth and was poor. And ultimately, he gave his life, his perfect life, on our behalf to pay the penalty for our sins in order that then we may be richly blessed spiritually. And as it says, that we have every spiritual blessing in the heavens with you because of what Christ has done. And so we pray that we can be continually reminded of that, of those great blessings which you have showered on us, which you have lavished on us, which we by no means deserve. Lord, we I just continue to thank you for your continued faithfulness in our lives, that you, despite, again, our failings, that you are continually working in our lives to make us more like your son. You do not give up, you do not abandon us, but you are there to continually complete the work, to complete the work which you began in our lives. And with that, we ask, since you have promised that, that you will do that in our lives, in this day, in this week, in the coming months ahead in our lives, that you continue to grow us, continue to fashion us, that we may be more like your son, in order that we be equipped to honor you, to serve you in our lives, in our day-to-day things, whether it is just the menial things of things around the home, cleaning, washing, or it's in the workplace, or it's in other public spheres where we have opportunity to see others, Lord, to make you known, Lord, that you would grant us that wisdom. Lord, we also lift up The families of Caleb, Katie, Greta, Josiah, Annika, Elijah and Micah and Eleanor, Lord, that you would continue to bless them and guide them in their lives. Lord, that you would give them wisdom as they continue to grow as a family, that you guide and direct them, that you would give them unity, that you grant them patience as there are many personalities, many different desires within the home. But Lord, that you would give them a unified desire to seek after you. Lord, it is well for Pastor Phil and Connie that you would continue to guide and direct them, give them wisdom in their influences, in their areas that you have granted them to speak into the lives of others. Lord, it is well for Pastor Phil as he continues to teach from your word that you would give him wisdom to accurately proclaim your truth. Lord, we again pray that as we hear your word that you'd open our eyes and our hearts and our ears to your truth, that we may submit to it and grow in the knowledge and love of you. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, I invite you to 2 Corinthians chapter 8 this morning, and I want you to think through the question, what does grace look like? We sing amazing grace, how sweet the sound, but what does grace really look like? I would argue it's akin to what does wind look like? Right? Out here in East Dakota, it's always windy, right? There's always a breeze of some kind. Sometimes it's only 20 miles an hour. Sometimes it's 30 miles an hour. Sometimes higher. This morning it was, I think one mile an hour. We could hardly walk. It was just hard to, how do you stand when you're not leaning, right? But what does grace look like? I would argue that verse nine gives to us the personification of grace. I think a similar question can be asked, what is a summary of Christmas? I think the answer is the same. It was what is grace? Now, this is not intended to be a Christmas sermon. I'm saving that for the next five weeks in December. However, what we're gonna see here in verse nine is what grace looks like. So what should grace look like in my life? Verse nine, right? What should grace look like in your life? Same answer. So if we can this morning, I want us to look at these four things. Paul's gonna talk about the importance of grace-giving. He's gonna show us the example, the theological example of grace-giving. He's gonna talk about the application of grace-giving, and lastly, the principle of grace-giving. So these four, these are the four main points here this morning. First of all, the importance of it, and he first of all commends of the church at Corinth, which very few people do, but Paul commends them for several things. Now, do they deserve to be commended? The answer is yes and no. Yes, because of these things he's gonna highlight for us. He's gonna highlight five things. No, because they've been dumb enough to listen to the false teachers, right? And then start criticizing Paul. So yes and no. But Paul, in this maturity of Christian character, commends them. After all of the criticism, after all of the accusations, unsubstantiated accusations against Paul, he commends them. So how does he commend them? He commends them, first of all, in the present tense. He says, but just as you abound. You're overflowing. And if there's one word, perhaps, that characterizes the church at Corinth is they overflow. Good or bad, but they overflow. Right, they overflow in their criticism of Paul. They also overflow in these things that he's gonna be talking about. There are people who are, they're pendulum Christians, right? They're one extreme or the other, but they're overflowing. And Paul is saying, I wanna, I thank God. He says, I commend you. You are abounding, first of all, generally in everything. But then he says, specifically, you're abounding in, first of all, in your God-word trust. You are overflowing in faith. You're growing. Secondly, he says, in your word, in your God-word communication, you're learning to talk to people and about people better. Thirdly, he says, you're abounding in your knowledge, in your understanding from a God-word perspective. Fourthly, he says, in your God-word diligence, in all earnestness. These were a passionate people. That can be good or bad, right? You can be passionate about the wrong things. You can be passionate about the right things. Some people are just passionate people. They're passionate about their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, right? It's the best ever. You think, well, maybe. It's a sandwich, right? But you can be passionate about good things, right? Paul says, you have all earnestness. And lastly, he says, in this love that we inspired in you, a God-word love. So he says, right now, presently, you're doing well. Good, good for you. But he says, in the future, he says, see that you abound in this gracious work of God. Also, what is the gracious work of giving to the believers at Jerusalem? This work of grace. In other words, what he is saying is you need to overflow. Back up in chapter eight in verse two, that in a great testing by affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty abounded, overflowed unto the richness of their generosity. In other words, you in Corinth, you need to become like the Macedonians. Right? Macedonians, who would want to be like them? I mean, we're in Corinth. We have everything. We live in Corinth. We're down here in the south. We're so much better than the people to the north. No, you need to become like them. You need to overflow like them. So he says, first of all, I wanna commend you, but he says, secondly, I need to clarify some things for you. Verse eight, you see it? He says, first of all, I'm not speaking this as a command. In other words, I'm not forcing, we talked about this downstairs earlier this morning. I'm not forcing you to do this. Now, I could, because I'm an apostle. So, I could tell you to do it, but I don't want to do that. I would rather, he says, secondly, I would rather see this as a way to prove through the earnestness of others the sincerity of your love. In other words, what? Wouldn't it be better if you gave out of love than merely out of obedience? I have to give, right? Or you could give lovingly, right? You could be like the Macedonians who begged for the opportunity to give. But here he says, I want you to demonstrate the sincerity of your love. I want to put you to the test. I want to know that you as a Corinthian church, that you guys are growing and maturing. And so I'm giving you an opportunity to demonstrate that you're actually making progress. Now I could force you to do it, but I don't want to do that. So he says, let's look at a theological example. Let's see what grace looks like. Let's see what giving out of love instead of mere, sheer obedience looks like. Do you see that? In verse nine. And Paul assumes that they have some knowledge. He says, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. You're not stupid. You act foolishly sometimes, but you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. They've experienced this grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, I want you to understand what grace looks like in the life of Jesus. And I would say to you, as I say to myself, I want to demonstrate grace like Jesus did. So, what does he say this looks like? First of all, grace is self-sacrificial. And it springs from abundance to an absence. Do you see that in verse 9? He says, of Jesus's eternal pre-existence, he says, though being constantly being rich, characterized. Again, it's a grammatical thing, but it's important. Paul uses a present active participle, so Jesus is characterized by being rich. Now, what does he do with that? Now, real quick, the Macedonians were not rich. The Corinthians were rich. But Jesus is richer, right? He owns all things. So, although he was characterized by being rich in his eternal pre-existence, Yet, there was a deliberate incarnation. Jesus, it says, yet for your sake, emphatic in the original language, he voluntarily became poor. That's grace. You say, but if I give to the Jerusalem, to the offering for the Jerusalem believers, that means I will have less. Kinda like Jesus. In one sense. Though he was rich, yet for your sake, you Corinthians, for your sake, he became poor. Now the word for poor here is the poorest of the poor. The destitute ones. The lowest on the economic spectrum. So he was eternally existing in abundance of infinite wealth. Yet for your sake, he became infinitely poor. Grasp that? Now again, that doesn't mean he ceases to be God. It doesn't mean he gives up his godness or any of the attributes of his godness. Yet through this incarnation, he went from owning all things in his infinite godness to understanding total abject poverty as a human being. Does that make sense? We can restate it as Murray Harris does. Christ himself chose to exchange his royal status as an eternal inhabitant of heaven for the slave's status as a temporary resident on earth. That's grace. To put it another way, the king takes the initiative to impoverish himself for treasonous rebels. This impoverishment is not the result of bad fortune. nor is it the result of bad judgment. Right? Now, we've all made, well, I shouldn't maybe speak for you, but some of us have made bad financial decisions. It happens, right? Why? Because we're human beings. Sometimes we experience bad fortune, so to speak, events that we had zero control over that happened to us and we find ourselves poor. That's not what happened to Jesus. He deliberately chose to become poor for your sake. Deliberate poverty. Now, we have said that this grace is self-sacrificial from abundance to absence. but its purpose is beneficial. The goal is not impoverishment, right? We're not talking about socialism here, the equal distribution of poverty. We're not talking about that. We're talking about the king giving himself for the treasonous rebels so that the treasonous rebels might become rich. There's a purpose for this incarnation. To be beneficial to others, he says, in this incarnation so that you, through his poverty, what? Might become rich. You become rich in this life. However, it is not your best life now. Your best life is yet to come. so that you through his poverty might become rich both now and in the future. So unlike the Macedonians who were extremely poor, Jesus gave when he was incalculably rich. Now you as Corinthians are also rich in comparison to the Macedonians. So, Like the Macedonians, Christ gave himself. Right? You see that, remember that from verse five? In this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God. That's what God desires. God doesn't need your money. God is not sitting in heaven going, man, he's not like a government official, right, who's got all these pork barrel projects, who's saying, boy, if I could just get some more money out of people, then I could do more. That's not the way God works. God already owns everything. He doesn't need your money. But he wants your heart. He wants your life. If he has your heart, he has everything else. And Jesus, out of his abundance, his infinite abundance, gave himself so that you, through his poverty, might become rich. That's grace. To benefit others around you. To give of yourself for the benefit of others. There's another word for this, right? It's called love, right? It's love. Desiring God's best for the other individual, whether they are worthy of it or not, but for their benefit. It's called love. So, real quickly, the application of all of this in verses 10 through 12. First of all, Paul says, you've made a good start. I give my opinion in this matter. In other words, what? I've been thinking about this for a while. Right? I've been thinking about this. I'm in Ephesus, and you're in Corinth. But let me give you my opinion. My opinion is this, for this is profitable for you who were the first to begin a year ago, and not only to do this, but also to desire to do it. In other words, what? You've made a good start. Now, some of them might say, but we haven't had enough time. Paul could say, well, you've only had nine to 15 months to get this done. And he doesn't say it that way, but he does say, you've made a good start. However, he says, you need to have a good finish as well. You see that? In verses 11 and 12, he says, but now complete doing it also, so that just as there was a readiness to desire it, so there may also be the completion of it from what you have. You need to finish the job. And in this he says there is what we can refer to as graduated giving. It has nothing to do with commencement exercises. It has to do with how much do you have and how much do you give. Everybody's different, right? That's what he says. For if the readiness is present, it's acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does. Not have. Well, I don't have as much as they have. You're right. Accurate description. Doesn't matter though. Right? The issue is a readiness which springs from you having given your heart to God. That's what matters. Doesn't matter how much you have. Have you the readiness. If the readiness is present. Graduated giving. What Paul is really saying, what we would say in our culture is, it's time for you to put your money where your mouth is. You talk about loving other believers, and you should. The Jerusalem believers, our other brothers in Christ, the need exists. It's time to help, right? Now, real quickly, what is this principle of grace giving? You see it in verses 13 through 15. And the first of all, the principle is that of equality. For this is not for the relief of others and for your affliction. In other words, Paul is saying, I'm not here to make you suffer so that they can not suffer. That's not my point. My point is to balance this out to some extent by way of equality. At this present time, your abundance be in a supply for their need so that their abundance also may become a supply for your need. In other words, you don't know what's gonna happen that perhaps we're gonna be taking an offering for the believers in Corinth. That can happen. Talk to the Macedonians about that. Right? In the abundance of their affliction. So you don't know how the financial, your financial status is going to be. At the present time, your abundance being a supply for their needs so that their abundance also may become a supply for your need that they, should be their maybe equality. but he says also there's authority, as it is written, which is a nice Jewish way of saying, the word of God says, right? Now, you'll notice that most of this is in capital letters, because it's a quote, and that's the way this edition of the Bible does quotes, but the words gathered are are not, and they're assumed, we assume these words, and they're good assumptions. As it is written in the book of Exodus, he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little had no lack. Remember, that's talking about the manna, right? Everybody had the same amount. Yeah, but I gathered more than you did. But did you have enough? Yeah. What about the guy that gathered less? Did he have enough? Yeah. That's the point. You have enough. Isn't that what sufficient means? You have enough. So Paul is saying, I could make you do this. I don't want to make you do this. I would rather you respond to the grace of God with love and grace and minister to the needs of those around you. So they got to be glorified. So two things I want to wrap this up with. First of all, Paul uses two common approaches to encourage the Corinthians. He gives them a positive example of the Macedonians, and he also gives them sincere praise. You are abounding, and that's good. The second thing I wanna leave us with is this. The Macedonians gave when they were desperately poor. Jesus gave when he was incalculably rich. You have two extremes there, right? Abject poverty, infinite wealth. And they both gave. Say, well, I'm not either one of those, and that's Paul's point. Right? We've dealt with those who don't have anything to him who has everything, and you're somewhere in the middle. So you don't have any excuses. The Macedonians gave out of the abundance of their poverty. Jesus gave out of the infinite wealth You can give. That's his argument. You and I are fitted somewhere between those two extremes, right? Every one of us. Is anybody here infinitely wealthy? No, I know you. None of you are infinitely wealthy. Are any of you in abject poverty? I don't think so. You might not have everything that you think you should have, but none of us are in abject, destitute, poverty-level conditions. If we want to look at some of that, we can go to another country, like Haiti, right? Or some places in Africa. But nonetheless, all of us fit in between those two extremes. And God in his infinite wisdom dispenses his grace to each of us so that we are able to meet the needs of those that we're aware of. Back up to verse nine, let me just read that one more time because I think as we come into this Christmas season, We need to be reminded of this. Too often we succumb to our cultural expectation that Christmas is about receiving gifts. Right? So easy. You ever had somebody come up to you, completely unexpected, and they come up to you and they say, you know, if you want to get me something for my birthday, you could do this for me. Hmm, I could. I could. God says to them, through the Apostle Paul, in the providence of God, the Jerusalem believers are suffering, right? Through drought, through famine, through all that has been occurring over there in the Middle East. Does God know what's going on in Jerusalem? Yeah, did God in his infinitely wise providence allow them to end up in those circumstances? Yeah. And you in Corinth have been enjoying a surplus because maybe you're involved in the shipping trade there in Corinth or whatever the case, but you guys have been doing pretty well financially. Way better than those poor people up in Macedonia. Share that grace with those who have a need because there's gonna come a time when you need grace displayed to you. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word this morning. Thank you for grace displayed in the person of Christ, in the incarnation of Jesus through For we know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though being rich yet for your sake he became poor so that you through his poverty might become rich. As believers we are rich. Rich in grace, rich in love, rich in forgiveness, rich in mercy. Though we financially may not have as much as some other people, As has been said already this morning, we have all been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. We are rich people. It's a matter of perspective. It's a matter of setting our mind on the things above, not on the things of the earth. It's a matter of looking at eternal things rather than the temporary. And Father, for this we need grace. We all are tempted to think our circumstances are too difficult, our circumstances are too tough. We are too poor. We have too much need. And yet, Father, perspective is needed. Grant us grace to this end. Give us grace to imitate Jesus, being willing to give out of the abundance that we have to meet the needs of those who are hurting. Give us grace to give ourselves first. Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee. Use us by Your grace. In Jesus' name, amen. We'll ask you to stand for our benediction this morning, which is taken from Paul's first letter to Timothy. And in this letter to young Timothy, as Timothy is trying to come to grips with the ministry that God has given to him, Paul says, now to the king of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, to him be honor and glory, forever and ever. Amen. You are dismissed.