As Christians, we celebrate Christmas as the season of giving because it is in the incarnation of the Son of God that the triune God has given the greatest gift that's ever been given. In the God-man, the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, fallen humanity is given a perfectly sufficient, perfectly suitable savior from sin and judgment. He's fully man, and so therefore he is able to stand in man's place to bear man's punishment, to accomplish man's righteousness. And yet at the same time, he's fully God and therefore able to bear the wrath of God without perishing eternally like like we would, and he's able then to bestow his infinite merit upon the innumerable sinners who come to him in repentance and faith. Christmas is the season of giving because Christmas is when God gave man the world's greatest gift. And we who are Christians give gifts to one another in order to magnify the beauty of that greatest gift, because our hearts are satisfied and made glad by the bountiful grace of God. And so we desire to imitate that grace in generous giving. Well, as we turn to the book of Second Corinthians chapters eight and nine, we find the Apostle Paul taken up with this very theme, Christian giving as fueled and shaped by the grace of God displayed in the gospel, whereby we have been gifted with the precious son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, these two chapters are shaped by two what we might call Christmas texts. In chapter eight, verse nine, Paul captures the glory of the incarnation in an economy of words when he says, 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 through his poverty might become rich. And then in the final verse of chapter nine, verse 15, Paul closes this section on giving with the exclamation, thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. The incarnation of the Son of God, whereby he who was rich for our sakes became poor, is God's indescribable gift to us. And the gospel of grace, that is to fundamentally drive and shape our own giving. Now, the historical setting for this instruction on gospel driven grace produced giving is the apostles administration of a financial collection for the saints who belong to the church in Jerusalem because of persecution, because of other circumstances orchestrated by divine providence. The believers in Jerusalem are unable to provide for themselves the basic necessities of life. And so Paul has arranged to take up this offering from various Gentile churches to offer the saints in Jerusalem relief. And he writes these two chapters to stir up the Corinthians to bring to completion the offering that they had begun in the last year, so that when Paul comes again to Corinth, he can receive their offering and transport it to Jerusalem. And the directives that Paul issues in these two chapters concerning this 2000 year old offering, they become to us and to Christians of all ages, the closest thing that scripture has given us to a systematic theology of Christian giving. And as these chapters are rooted in and shaped by the two Christmas texts of chapter eight, verse nine and chapter nine, verse 15, We find that this portion of scripture outlines timeless principles for giving that is produced by grace, that is shaped by the gospel, and therefore is glorifying to God. And in our series of expositions so far, we have gleaned several such principles, and I direct you to the website or to the back table for if you haven't gotten all those messages, they are available to you there. Now, last time I was with you, we turned to chapter eight, verses 16 to 24, where Paul writes something of a letter of commendation for a three man delegation consisting of Titus and two unnamed brothers whom Paul decides he's going to send to Corinth ahead of him. And these three men will assist the Corinthian church with the logistics of taking up the collection for Jerusalem. And they'll set things in order in preparation for Paul's arrival. And Paul urges the Corinthians at the end of that passage to receive these men as messengers of the churches and to follow their directives for the offering. Well, as we come to the first five verses of chapter nine, we really have a continuation of Paul's thoughts from that previous section concerning Titus and his team. In particular, he goes on explaining precisely why he finds it necessary to send this three man delegation and to send them ahead of himself. So let's read our passage for this morning. Second Corinthians nine verses one to five. For it is superfluous for me to write to you about this ministry to the saints. For I know your readiness of which I boast about you to the Macedonians. Namely that Achaia has been prepared since last year and your zeal has stirred up most of them. But I have sent the brethren in order that our boasting about you may not be made empty in this case, so that, as I was saying, you may be prepared. Otherwise, if any Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we, not to speak of you, will be put to shame by this confidence. So I thought it necessary to urge the brethren that they would to go on ahead to you and arrange beforehand your previously promised bountiful gift. so that the same would be ready as a bountiful gift and not affected by covetousness. And once again, in the practical matters of this 2000 year old collection for a church on the other side of the world, the Holy Spirit so super intends the pen of the Apostle Paul as to teach us several lessons concerning our own giving to the Lord and to his people. And because we understand that our giving is first and foremost an act of worship to God himself, and because we desire that our worship be acceptable and well-pleasing to him, we must be concerned to learn the lessons that he himself teaches us in his word for how people must give to his work. And 2 Corinthians 9, 1 to 5 provides us with five lessons that ought to inform and shape the way that we think about the faithful stewardship of the resources God has blessed us with and also teach us how we ought to think about Christian obedience and pastoral oversight in general. And as we move through this passage, we'll seek to learn those five lessons. The first we find in verse one and that first lesson is that giving is ministry. Giving is ministry. Paul says, for it is superfluous to me to write to you about this ministry to the saints. Now, throughout our exposition of the first seven chapters of 2 Corinthians, I repeated in almost every sermon what I believe to be the theme of this entire letter, namely joyful, enduring ministry, even in the midst of affliction. Throughout Paul's defense of his own apostolic authenticity against the attacks of the false apostles, he has taken pains to extensively define new covenant gospel ministry. And one of the reasons that I chose to preach through a book so dominated by the theme of enduring ministry is because I wanted to unmistakably instill in your minds that ministry is not something that is left to the professionals. It's not that pastors and elders and professors and missionaries are called to ministry, but the believer in Jesus who works a secular job is, you know, he does something else in the church. No, one of the greatest lessons that the New Testament teaches us, New Testament in general, and second Corinthians in particular, is that every Christian is called to ministry. Chapter three, verse six of this letter, if God has called you to salvation by the new covenant, he has called you to be a minister of the new covenant. Chapter five, verses 18 and 19, if you have been saved through the message of reconciliation, you have then been entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation. And it is Ephesians 4, 11 and 12 says Christ has given his church pastors and teachers not to do all the ministry so that the saints sit by and watch as spectators and consumers. No, he's given pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, the text says. And so we are all called to new covenant gospel ministry. We're to preach the gospel of reconciliation by which we ourselves were reconciled to God. We're preached that to those who yet remain God's enemies. And on top of that, we are to minister to one another in the body of Christ so that we might be built up and grow into greater and greater maturity in Christ. I've said it before. I'll say it again. We are all called to ministry. But then we come to chapters eight and nine, and it seems almost like Paul has transitioned away from his main theme. And in fact, liberal scholars have observed the seeming disjunction of chapters eight and nine and concluded that, well, they're not really part of the original letter at all. They're just an interpolation of some other piece of correspondence. But when we recognize that giving is ministry, it's plain that Paul hasn't deviated from his theme in the least. This collection that Paul is administrating is described in verse one as the ministry to the saints. In chapter eight, verse four, the NAS translates this exact same Greek phrase as the support of the saints, but it is literally the ministry to the saints. And then if you flip to chapter nine, verse 12. Paul calls this collection the ministry of this service, adding to the word ministry, diakonia, the Greek term laetourgia, which is where we get the English term liturgy or liturgical. And in Greek, it was a technical term for the priestly temple service of the Old Testament. And what was the ministry of the priests and Levites in the temple? Well, it was to offer sacrifices. And so in Philippians 4.18, when Paul receives from Epaphroditus the financial gift given by the Philippian church, he speaks of their support in the language of Old Testament sacrifice. He says, I received what you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. It was as if, Paul says, my physical needs were an altar and your gift was the sacrifice laid upon that altar. And because it came from a heart that was made glad and made eager to give by the grace of God, when Epaphroditus set those coins before me to meet my needs, it was as if a soothing aroma wafted into heaven. Then God smelled that sweet smelling aroma of a spiritual sacrifice and was pleased. And Paul saying the same thing here to the Corinthians, when the needs of the saints in Jerusalem are fully supplied by your gifts, this offering will be shown to be what it always was, the ministry of spiritual sacrifices to God by means of serving his people. So giving financial resources to give aid to fellow Christians who are in need is ministry, friends. And when we engage in the ministry of this service, we are acting as the very kingdom of priests that scripture says we are as the church, that we are 1 Peter 2, verse 5, a holy priesthood offering up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. And Hebrews 13, 16 says, Do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices, God is pleased. So sharing our resources in order to meet the needs of the saints is the ministry of new covenant sacrifices by new covenant priests. And that describes each and every one of us who belong to Christ. So are you looking for a way to serve in the new covenant ministry to which you've been called? Are you thinking that I want to serve in some ministry? I'm just not sure what to do. There don't seem any opportunities or avenues open to me. Well, consider that the giving of your financial resources to give aid to fellow Christians who are in need is ministry. Romans chapter 12, verse eight lists giving as a spiritual gift right alongside service and teaching and exhortation and leadership and mercy. So just as some of us teach and preach, just as each one of us speaks the word of God to one another to build one another up, just as we counsel one another from the scriptures, just as we offer loving reproof, reproof and admonition that every man might be complete in Christ. Just as we pray for one another. And just as we meet practical needs, like we've heard already this morning, bringing meals to one another, helping one another with practical needs like yard work, home repairs, any number of things. So also do we give to one another to meet legitimate financial burdens. And so as you seek to engage in the ministry of the new covenant to which you've been called. When you learn that your brothers and sisters have a legitimate financial need, not a need that is born of laziness, not a need that's born of sinful waste, but a legitimate need from someone who is a member in good standing of their local church. You need to prayerfully consider the way that the Lord might employ you in ministry in that situation and that it might be to give generously to meet those needs. Giving is ministry. The second lesson that we learn from this text comes in verses one and two. And that is number two, that Christian obedience in general and giving in particular is chiefly a matter of the heart. It is chiefly a matter of the heart. And this is a bit of a subtle point, but note it carefully in verse one in the first part of verse two. Paul says, for it is superfluous to me to write to you about this ministry to the saints, for I know your readiness. Now, in the final verses of chapter eight, Paul has commended Titus and the two unnamed brothers to the Corinthians and urged them to receive those men and to give sacrificially according to their direction. And then he says, it's superfluous for me to keep writing you about this. I don't need to keep repeating myself here. And why is that? Verse two says, for I know your readiness. I don't need to write any further about this for because I know that you are ready to participate. Now, this word readiness is a word that Paul uses several times in these two chapters. It's prosumia. It speaks of an intense willingness, a forwardness of disposition, an eagerness to do something. The only other place this precise form of the word is used in the New Testament is in Acts chapter 17 verse 11 where Luke tells us that the Bereans were more noble minded than those in Thessalonica for they received the word with great eagerness examining the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. And when you hear that, you picture a congregation chomping at the bit to get ahold of the word of God, eagerly shuffling through its pages with excitement to try to discover its teaching and decipher whether this new teaching is consistent with it. This is not a group of saints who have to be constantly nudged and cajoled into searching the scriptures. These are people who are internally driven by their own disposition and love for truth. Well, this is how the Apostle Paul describes the Corinthians. They were ready to participate in this offering for Jerusalem. He's already said it about them back in chapter eight, verses 10 and 11. He says, You were the first to begin a year ago, not only to do this, but also to desire to do it. And then he says, but now finish doing it also so that just as there was readiness to desire it, there may also be completion. They genuinely desired to meet this need. Their hearts were in it. And so Paul says, I don't need to write any further because your hearts are already engaged to give and obey spontaneously. You see, pastoral instruction is unnecessary when the people of God are ready to obey from the heart. And if that's true, that means that the purpose of pastoral instruction is to ready the hearts of the people of God for obedience. The purpose of pastoral instruction is to ready the hearts of the people of God for obedience. Do you see that from the text? If Paul doesn't need to give further instruction because the Corinthians are ready to obey, then the purpose of pastoral instruction is to so affect the hearts of the people of God that they are moved by God's grace and and through God's word to obey willingly and eagerly. That's what I'm doing here. That's what I'm doing here. Each time I stand before you is to so affect the heart with the truth of God's word and by the power of God's grace that you would be moved to follow Christ and obey him eagerly and willingly. And so I say that Christian obedience in general and giving in particular is chiefly a matter of the heart, both with respect to giving and with respect to all other aspects of Christian obedience. Sanctification does not consist merely in external behaviors. It consists, first of all, in such a change in the state of the heart. That the regenerated believer loves what God loves and hates what God hates and therefore acts in accordance with that renewed heart. It's a genuine Christian obedience and genuine Christian generosity in particular can't be fabricated. It can't be counterfeited by moralists who merely clean the outside of the cup. Why? Because God cares not only about our doing, which we could force ourselves to do externally. He cares about our readiness to do as well. He commands us to be in such a frame of heart as not only to perform righteousness, but to love righteousness, not only to give, but to be ready to give, to give cheerfully, he says in verse seven, and to give from a motive of willing generosity and not covetousness, he says in verse five. And that means that we need to examine ourselves, don't we? Because we can write large checks and put copious amounts of cash into the offering plate and know nothing of genuine Christian generosity. Because genuine generosity is not a matter most fundamentally of what passes through your hands, but of what is in your heart, whether your heart is possessed of a readiness of an eagerness, of a cheerful willingness to give of your own resources to bless the people of God. And so that means that we need to prepare our hearts. We need to labor to get ourselves in the proper frame of heart so that our gifts won't be given from covetousness. But from the beautiful freedom of Christian love. so that our gifts won't be given merely as a mechanical task, void of any feeling, void of any genuine motivation, heart motivation, but would overflow as a bountiful gift, Paul says. We'll have more to say about this as we come to verse five, but for now, let us learn that Christian obedience and Christian giving in particular is chiefly a matter of the heart. We find a third lesson that comes in the bulk of verse two. That is number three, that boasting is legitimate. Boasting is legitimate. Verse two, for I know your readiness of which I boast about you to the Macedonians, namely that Achaia has been prepared since last year and your zeal has stirred up most of them. Paul says, Dear Corinthians, not only do I know of your readiness to partake in this ministry to the saints, I boast about you to the Macedonians. I've been boasting to the Macedonians that that readiness is so present with you that you have been prepared to participate in this collection since last year. See, a year ago in 1 Corinthians 16, Paul had given the Corinthians instruction concerning this collection. 1 Corinthians 16, 2 says on the first day of every week, each one of you is to put aside and save as he may prosper so that no collections be made when I come. When I arrive, whomever you appoint and approve, I will send them with letters to carry your gifts to Jerusalem. And from that day. The Corinthians were eager to serve the saints in Jerusalem. Once again, in 2 Corinthians 8 10, they not only began to save their money, as Paul had instructed, but they genuinely desired to do that. Paul says, when my ministry took me into Macedonia and when I made known to them the needs of the Jerusalem church, Jerusalem church, I boasted to them of how eager you Corinthians were to share this burden. And in the same way that Paul opens this chapter or opens this section, rather chapter eight, By boasting to the Corinthians about what the grace of God had accomplished to the Macedonians, sacrificial giving. Paul says before they gave, he was boasting to them about what the grace of God had stirred up in the Corinthians. And when the Macedonians heard about the Corinthian zeal for this task, it was that very zeal that stirred the Macedonians to overflow in the generosity that amazes us all, even in the midst of their great ordeal of affliction and their deep poverty. They beg to give. Paul says, that zeal was stirred up by your zeal. And so I conclude from this that boasting is legitimate. That is to say, it is right to boast to the people of God about what the grace of God has accomplished in other believers. Now, you hear that and you might say, wait a minute now, doesn't Paul himself quote the prophet Jeremiah in first Corinthians one thirty one, let him who boasts boast in the Lord. And didn't Paul himself wrote right to the Galatians in chapter six, verse 14, but may it never be that I would boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, but that is precisely what Paul was doing when he was boasting of the Corinthians to the Macedonians, just as he boasted of the Macedonians in the opening verses of chapter eight. Now, brethren, I wish to make known to you the grace of God, which has been given in the churches of Macedonia. So also, then, when he boasts of the Corinthians, he doesn't attribute any goodness to them natively. He attributes it to what the grace of God has accomplished in them. By boasting in what God has done in the Corinthians, Paul is boasting in the Lord. He is boasting in nothing but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, because it's only by the power of the cross that sin is so conquered and grace comes to so reign in the heart as to make the heart eager to part with one's own even meager resources for the good of the people of God. And so we learn from Paul's example here that it is right to boast to the people of God about what the grace of God has accomplished in other believers. And not only that, but we can also observe that it's right to tell those of whom we boast that we that we do boast in the grace of God at work in them. Notice that Paul doesn't shy away from telling the Corinthians numerous times throughout this letter that he boasts about them. Chapter seven, verse four, great is my boasting on your behalf. 714, our boasting before Titus proved to be the truth. 824, show them the proof of our reason for boasting about you. And then here in chapter nine, verse two. You say, wait a minute, won't that puff them up with pride to know that Paul is bragging on them to other believers? Well, Paul doesn't seem to think that he's laying a snare for the Corinthians by flattery. And that's because if the grace of God has so worked in the hearts of God's people as to warrant boasting, it's legitimate to suspect that that grace of God will work in the heart so as to keep it from being puffed up with pride as a result of hearing the report of such boasting. And so in that spirit, I want to tell you, Grace Life, that I regularly boast of what the grace of God has accomplished in you. When I speak with others of the pastors and elders of Grace Church and they ask me, so how are things going in grace life? Almost without fail, I smile and say grace life is just wonderful. It's the most enjoyable part of my ministerial responsibilities to lead and to shepherd and to teach you precious saints. It's a special gift for a preacher to preach to a hungry congregation, to a congregation that loves the word of God and that desires no fluff and no frills and no entertainment. Just scripture, 16 ounces to the pound. I boast of your warm heartedness, of your care for me and my family, I've experienced firsthand, and then your care for one another that I hear and witness among you all. I boast that the grace of God has seemed to especially work in this group a lack of pretentiousness and the absence in so many of you of a hypocritical compulsion to appear more spiritually mature than you are. And the absence again in many of you of a celebritism that is impressed with your pastor simply because more people than normal know our names. I love that you're not impressed by that. So I boast about you. Now, are there things, there are areas in which we can improve? Of course, I think that we could be more devoted to fellowshipping with one another more regularly. I think more of you should be involved in Bible studies, which meet as an extension of the shepherding that goes on in this fellowship group. And in all areas, of course, I think we can excel still more, as Paul says. But I boast about you. And based on Paul's words here, I'm in good apostolic company in doing so. And one of the reasons that such boasting is legitimate. Is that it serves to motivate other believers to obedience by the godly example of those of whom we boast. Look again at the end of verse two, Paul says, I boast about you and your zeal has stirred up most of the Macedonians. The zeal of the Corinthians had stirred up the grace-induced generosity in the hearts of the Macedonians, so much so that now Paul is boasting in the Macedonians in order to stir up grace-induced action on the part of the Corinthians. Now this teaches us that, as one man of God put it, it is perfectly proper and morally right for the people of God to be stirred to holy desires and actions by a report of such desires and actions in others. And so the power of a godly example can't be underestimated. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11 1, be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. And 1 Thessalonians 1 6, you also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word with much tribulation in the joy of the Holy Spirit. And so when we hear reports from other Christians boasting in what the grace of God has accomplished in other believers, we ought to be stirred up by their zeal unto the same holy affections and holy actions. When we read in scripture of how the Macedonians, in spite of their great ordeal of affliction, in spite of their deep poverty, nevertheless begged Paul with much urging for the favor of the participation in support of the saints. When we read that. When we read the biographies of faithful Christians through the history of the church who gave their lives on the mission field so that Christ would be worshipped among the nations or who loved not their lives even unto death and poured out their blood for the sake of bequeathing to us the pure doctrine of the gospel of Christ. And when we hear reports of how the grace of God has so worked in other faithful Christians in our own day, perhaps even in our own church, So as to produce these exemplary patterns of obedience, we ought to be roused to lay hold of that same grace ourselves. We ought to warm our hearts by the fire of their passion for holiness and say, Lord, I've seen you at work in my brother's heart, in my sister's heart. Oh, Lord, work in my heart, enlarge my heart, pour out on me the grace that you have so generously lavished upon them. Baptize me with that same spirit of generosity with which you have baptized the Macedonians. Work in me the passion for the loss that fired the hearts of William Carey and Adoniram Judson and John Payton. Give me that sacrificial love that you've given Ron and you've given Paul and you've given Pete and you've given Carlos and so on. We need to catch fire by the fire that the grace of God has ignited in others. And so we boast and we tell others that we boast and we observe the example in those of whom we boast. So far, we've learned that giving is ministry. The giving is chiefly a matter of the heart and that boasting in these circumstances and in this manner is legitimate. We find a fourth lesson in this passage that comes in verses three and four. And that is number four, shame can be helpful. Shame can be helpful. Verses three and four, but I have sent the brethren in order that our boasting about you may not be made empty in this case, so that, as I was saying, you may be prepared. Otherwise, if any Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we not to speak of you will be put to shame by this conference. Now, Paul has said that he has no further need to write to the Corinthians concerned in the collection. They're ready, but he does keep writing and he does so not because they need further motivation to give, but because they need practical directions as to the logistics of taking up the offering. And so here Paul explains why he sent Titus and his team ahead of himself. And his major concern is that they be prepared. Verses three and four consist of one long, somewhat complex sentence. But if you strip out all the extraneous details in the sentence, he states the core of his purpose in two ways, first positively and then negatively. First, he says, I have sent the brethren so that you may be prepared. And then starting from the beginning again, he says, I have sent the brethren lest you be found unprepared. So both ways. Now, if you're like me, this comment at first makes you scratch your head a little bit because all Paul could talk about in verses one and two was the readiness of the Corinthians to participate in the offering, how he's boasted of that readiness and how that readiness has stirred up the Macedonians. How can he be concerned that the Corinthians might be found unprepared for his visit? Well, he's speaking about two different kinds of readiness, two different kinds of preparedness. One commentator calls them a preparedness of intention and a preparedness of completion. He says, the readiness of which Paul speaks in verse two is described in chapter eight, verse 11, as the readiness to will. Their preparedness was a preparedness of purpose, but as yet only of partial fulfillment. See, Paul had been boasting of the Corinthians' willingness to participate. But here he's concerned that they might not have everything ready when he comes. The money still needs to be collected. It needs to be counted and double counted. It needs to be put in the appropriate travel bag so it can be taken on the long journey to Jerusalem from Achaia, from Corinth. And because Paul doesn't want to come to Corinth with some companions from Macedonia only to find the Corinthians unprepared, scurrying about and hastily throwing everything together, he's going to send Titus and the brothers to set things in order. And the reason he doesn't want to come to find them unprepared is, verse three, in order that our boasting about you may not be made empty in this case. He says, don't forget, I've boasted about you now. But if I come and I find that your preparedness of purpose didn't issue in the preparedness of completion, all the boasting that I've done is going to prove to be nothing more than mere talk. If you don't carry your readiness of desire through to completion, my boasting in the grace of God's grace of God at work in you is going to be made empty. It'll just prove hollow. And what would be the result of that? Look at verse four again. Otherwise, if any Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we, not to speak of you, will be put to shame by this confidence. See, it would have been expected that in addition to Titus and the two unnamed brethren, several other members from the Macedonian churches would have accompanied Paul on his journey from Macedonia to Corinth. And so here he is with Macedonians. Imagine the potential for humiliation here. These brethren from the Macedonian churches, according to chapter eight, found themselves in a great ordeal of affliction and deep poverty. And when they heard that the comparatively well-off Corinthians were so ready and eager to give to this collection project, well, the report of the Corinthian zeal so stirred them up that according to their ability, the text says, and even beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord freely, begging Paul with much urging for the favor of impoverishing themselves for the sake of supporting the saints in Jerusalem. And now these destitute but joyful believers accompany Paul to Corinth where they excitedly expect to see the fruit of the Corinthians readiness that they had heard so much about that had spurred them to obedience. And they show up and they find the upper middle class Corinthians totally unprepared. Everything is disorganized. There's been no final collection. There's been no final count. Everything's been thrown together in a frenzy. And they look at Paul and they say, didn't you tell us that this was the congregation that was so eager to participate in this collection? This isn't anything to boast about. This is an eager, willing readiness. They don't give any evidence of their hearts being engaged to share in this ministry. Nothing is prepared. If it was in their heart, he would follow through in their hands and nothing is prepared. And not only would the Corinthians be put to shame for failing to live up to their reputation, for failing to follow through on their promises, but Paul would have been utterly disgraced for having boasted so confidently and yet to have nothing to show for it. And he's saying, dear Corinthians, don't do that to me. Don't give me a red face. And from this, we learn our fourth lesson that shame can be helpful. or stated a bit more thoroughly, it is proper for overseers to exhort their congregations to obedience on the basis of the desire to avoid shame. It's proper for overseers to exhort their congregations to obedience on the basis of the desire to avoid shame. Say, oh my goodness, what a fleshly enslavement to the opinions of men. No, it's not fleshly to desire to avoid shame. It is gravely wicked not to desire to avoid shame. Where does shame come from? It comes from your God given conscience, accusing you of sin on the basis of the law that's written in your heart. And the only people who don't have a genuine desire to avoid shame are those whose consciences are so seared, those whose rebellion against God is so severe that God abandons them and gives them over to a reprobate mind. Paul calls them in Philippians 3 18 and 19 the enemies of the cross of Christ whose end is destruction whose God is their appetite and whose glory is in their shame. When you find someone who glories in their shame and has no sense of shame for the things that ought to cause shame you found an enemy of the cross. I mentioned earlier that many things for which I boast of the grace of God in you. Imagine for a moment that I've boasted to a friend of mine about how warm hearted and loving you are as a people. And imagine that on that basis, a friend of mine counsels an interested, unbelieving friend of his to visit Grace Life because she's going through a rough time in her life. She's lonely and she and he and he knows based on my testimony that she'll be warmly received. And let's say that for whatever reason on that particular morning, you're cold toward that person. that she recognizes several people seemingly intentionally trying to avoid eye contact with her, that during the break or after the service, no one engages her in conversation, that she slips out of this room of 400 people without having made genuine contact with anyone. And imagine my friend then comes to her the next week and asks her about her time in grace life, and she's forced to say, that she was ignored and neglected, or at least felt so. When my friend comes to me and relays that to me and says, Mike, what happened? You boasted of your people's warmheartedness and love, and they seem to go out of their way to avoid her. What do you think will be my reaction? I'll be embarrassed. I'll be ashamed that my boast was nullified by your actions. And would that be wrong? Would that be fleshly of me to feel shame and to want to avoid that shame? No, it's entirely appropriate. Paul is teaching us that your desire to avoid that shame, both shame for yourselves and for your pastor who's boasted about you, is a perfectly legitimate motive for striving for obedience. Your highest motive is always to bring glory and honor the Lord Jesus Christ, to enjoy him. on the path of obedience where he is revealed. But an extension of that ultimate motivation is the subordinate motivation fueled by the God given desire to bring no shame upon yourselves nor upon your leaders who boast of the grace of God at work in you. Shame can be helpful. When we come to a fifth lesson that emerges from this text. And that is that. Prepared hands make a proper heart. Prepared hands make a proper heart. And this comes in verses three to five, but especially verse five. Paul says, I don't want you to be unprepared. I don't want you to void my boast. I don't want you to bring shame upon the both of us. So verse five, I thought it necessary to urge the brethren that they would go on ahead of you or head to you and arrange beforehand your previously promised bountiful gift. so that the same would be ready as a bountiful gift and not affected by covetousness. And I say that this teaches us that prepared hands make a proper heart, which is sort of a rhetorical way of saying that diligent preparation and organization concerning our giving allows us to cultivate the proper heart attitude so that our gifts will be acceptable to God. I'll say that again. Diligent preparation and organization concerning our giving allows us to cultivate the proper attitude so that our gifts will be acceptable to God. Paul says he's going to send these brethren ahead of him so that the Corinthians have adequate time to make adequate preparations. By this, he ensures, look at the end of verse five, that the gifts that they've pledged would be ready as a bountiful gift and not affected by covetousness. And that term bountiful gift translates the single Greek word eulogia, which so often refers to a blessing. It's where we get the term eulogy from. And here it has the sense of a generous gift. The new King James translates this verse that it may be ready as a matter of generosity and not as a grudging obligation. So you see the same gift. Okay. What the Corinthians were going to give, they were going to give. The same gift can be a gift of bounty or it can be a gift affected by covetousness. The same amount can be a gift fueled by generosity or a gift fueled by grudging obligation. And Paul says the difference between those two states of heart between bountiful generosity and grudging obligation affected by covetousness is prepared hands. The difference is whether you're going to have the time to carefully prepare, to look through your finances and prayerfully consider what you're able to offer God as a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, to pray for the needs of the saints to whom you'll be giving, that God would use this spiritual sacrifice that you're preparing to genuinely meet needs and bring honor to his name. to organize how those carefully considered gifts and prayed over gifts will be collected in an orderly, God honoring, excellent fashion filled with integrity. See, Paul doesn't want to come to Corinth and have the Corinthians be reminded of the collection simply by his presence. Oh, no, Paul's here already. I've been meaning to sit down with my wife and figure out how much we can give to this, the offering to the saints in Jerusalem. Man, the time just got away from me. Okay, all right, let me go grab some money. Okay, but how much should I give? What can I afford? Well, I've got this expense, I've got that expense. I wish I was able to give more, but this is just going to have to do. You see how virtually impossible it is that such a gift thrown together in such a hasty fashion as that could come from a heart of generosity? Do you see how easy it would be for covetousness to restrain generosity when you haven't prayed to the Lord, when you haven't filled the mind with truth, when you haven't filled the heart with affection for the brethren, when you haven't labored to get your heart touched by a sense of the grace of God to you in Christ? Paul says, I don't want to get to Corinth and have you surprised by my presence. And because, you know, you want to save face with me here, have the collection be a matter of my wringing your gifts out of tight-fisted and narrow-hearted hands? I want you prepared. I want you reading over this letter, assimilating its directives and applying its principles, praying that the Lord would accomplish this, would accomplish this grace produced gospel shaped genuine generosity in your hearts, that if your hands were tight fisted, that as you read this letter and as you consider the grace of God, they would moment by moment, slowly open and open and open. Prepared hands make proper hearts. We heard before that Paul likens Christian giving to the ministry of Old Testament priests. And in that sacrificial worship, the priests didn't just prepare the offering. They were also to prepare themselves. They were also to wash with water, to don the priestly garments, to anoint their heads with oil. And though our preparation is going to look different than that, the need for the preparation of the heart of the worshiper is only increased for us priests of the new covenant. When it comes to our weekly offerings or when it comes to considering how we might give abundant above and beyond our regular giving to meet the needs of the saints, we can't just casually throw that together and make that decision flippantly. We need to prepare for that ministry of giving. We need to cultivate the proper hard attitude so that what comes through our hands is genuine generosity produced by the grace of God, shaped by the gospel of God, because it's only then, when it's produced by grace and shaped by the gospel, that it's glorifying to God. So you ought not to be writing the check for the offering on the car ride down here. Your decision about how much monthly support to pledge to a missionary ought not to be made in haste at the end of a presentation they gave or just before it's due. As you consider the financial needs of the members of your Bible study, it ought to be done with the prayerful reflection that brings the heart into contact with a sense of God's grace. Set aside time so that the preparation of your giving will make it the act of worship that it ought to be. Review your finances. Thank God for his provision for your needs. Ask for his continued provision and pray that he would enable you to give sacrificially from a genuinely generous heart, cheerfully and not begrudgingly, but delighted to imitate the Lord in giving grace to others who has so richly poured out his grace upon you. And in meditating on that point, we see once again how far this is. from the externalistic moralism that conceives of Christianity or conceives of righteousness or conceives of goodness and good works as merely the performance of a checklist of external duties. No, as I've said, this generosity which we're commanded to can't be counterfeited. It must be organically produced in the heart by the grace of God. And where has that grace been preeminently revealed to us? You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although in his preexistent eternal glory and deity, that he was in possession of spiritual riches whose wealth words are unable to describe. he nevertheless voluntarily and sacrificially renounced those riches and embraced the poverty of life and death as a human being. Precisely so that we who were destitute of God's favor and destitute of God's blessing could be enriched with the very righteousness of God himself. That grace that fuels genuine generosity has been revealed to us supremely in the father's indescribable gift. In the incarnation and the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ that we turn to celebrate this Christmas season. And if you're here this morning and you're not yet united by faith alone to Christ, if you've not personally drunk from the fountains, the sweet fountains and and personally feasted at the banquet table of the gospel of grace, It is impossible for you to be generous in the way that this text commands you to do it. It's impossible. You don't have a heart that has been opened and enlarged by divine grace. And it is only by divine grace that that genuine generosity dwells in the heart. So if you sit here today still dead in your sins, still clinging to your own sinful pleasures, still clinging to your own quote unquote good works, the filthy rags of your own righteousness, I call you to turn from your sins, turn away from those filthy rags and trust in Christ alone for the forgiveness of your sins, for a right standing before a holy God. Christ stands ready to receive you. God, the model giver whose loving heart renders him eager to pour out the gifts of the blessings of his grace. The father who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, the son who came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. The one who said, dear woman, if you knew the gift of God, you would have asked me for a drink. Then I would have given you living water that would satisfy you forever. The one who says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Dear sinner, don't die in your sins. Come to the Christ who's eager to give this gift of salvation, receive the indescribable gift that God has given in salvation and through the Lord Jesus Christ. And for those of you who have received that gift, those of you who are our believers in Jesus, who who have trusted in him for righteousness alone, open your heart to give generously to others, to your brothers and sisters, because doing so magnifies that grace. It magnifies the grace that you yourself have been so generously shown by God. Let the grace of God displayed in the gospel, displayed in the cross that has rescued your heart from sin and the bondage to fear and death. Let that grace empower you to give generously. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would accomplish that very thing, even in saying it. Grace needs to do this. The dynamic power of God's sanctifying grace needs to accomplish this in the hearts of his people. And so, Father, we ask you to so accomplish it on the basis of the merits that your son has purchased for us through the efficacy and the execution that the Holy Spirit works in us. Accomplish this in your people. that we might be genuinely generous, not only giving large sums, but having a heart that freely parts, freely and joyfully gives of our resources to make your name known and to help others who share that name just as we do. And I do pray that you would regenerate, that you would save those who are not yet yours, whose hearts know nothing of this kind of grace at work in it. We pray that they would see the impossibility of of just imitating these things, just doing these things outwardly, that they would see the need for an entirely new heart to genuinely obey any of the commands of scripture. Father, give them that new heart. Call them to repentance and faith in your son for the glory and honor of your own name, we ask in Christ's name. Amen. For more information about the ministry of the Grace Life Pulpit, visit at www.thegracelifepulpit.com. Copyright by The Grace Life Pulpit. All rights reserved.