Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 9. We've been going through this
chapter, chapter 8, looking at the various aspects of giving. It's all of grace. God gives
the heart. It's all provided by God. And
we come now to this last part, the law of giving. Let's read
again in chapter 9 verse 1. For as touching the ministering
to the saints, it's superfluous, it's needless for me to write
to you. For I know the forwardness of
your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia.
that Achaia was ready a year ago, and your zeal hath provoked
very many. The zeal of those brethren in
Corinth and Macedonia had provoked, I mean in Achaia, had provoked
those in Macedonia to a good work. He said, Yet have I sent
the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this
behalf, that as I said you may be ready. lest happily if they
of Macedonia come with me and find you unprepared, we, that
we say not ye, we should be ashamed in this same confident boasting.
Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren that they
would go before unto you and make up beforehand your bounty
whereof you had noticed before. that the same might be ready
as a matter of bounty, as a matter of blessing, and not as of covetousness. Now, our subject, I'm going to
stop here for sake of time. We're going to go down to verse
11, but the subject is the law of giving. And by law, I mean
this. There's a law in giving that
is sure and certain because it is fulfilled by God. A law is
a principle. It's a rule that you know is
a standing rule that is going to happen because it's a law. Paul was talking about the fact
that a believer has an old man and a new man. And so that sin
is mixed with everything we do. And so he said this in Romans
7.21, I find then a law. This is always the case. It's
a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me. You
see what a law is? A law is a rule, is a principle
that is always going to be so. Now, in our text, in chapter
9, there is a rule concerning giving that will always be so
because God does it. He does it. But now, the first
thing I want you to see is this sheer law that's brought to pass
by God concerning giving is only to those who give secretly. without blowing a trumpet, without
drawing attention to themselves, secretly. Look here in verse
5. He said, I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren that they
would go before unto you and make up beforehand your bounty,
whereof you had noticed before that the same might be ready.
Paul was coming there to preach, but he didn't want to be ashamed,
first of all, when he got there. He had made all this boast about
the brethren in Achaia and how that they were ready to provide
for the poor saints of Jerusalem. He didn't want to be ashamed
that he had bragged on them so much. But also, he didn't want
to get there to have this meeting to preach the gospel and they
have to first start off by doing this big collection of money
to send to the saints. He didn't want to focus to be
on collecting money. He wanted to focus to be on Christ
when he came there and preached. He didn't want the focus to be
on those brethren there. He didn't want to bring reproach
on the gospel. He didn't want to bring reproach
on the brethren. He didn't want people to look
at him and say he was just in this for the money. And also,
he didn't want the the giving of the church and
the willingness of that church to be in all this ministering
to the poor saints. He didn't want that to be what
attracted people to that church. We don't ever want that to be
the attraction. Christ must be the attraction. Go over with
me to Matthew chapter 6. This is why the Lord said this
when He walked to serve. Matthew 6 and verse 1. Take heed that you
do not your alms before men to be seen of them. Otherwise, you
have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore,
when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee,
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they
may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have
their reward. But when thou doest alms, let
not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine
alms may be in secret, and that thy father which seeth in secret
himself shall reward thee openly. So first of all, this rule I'm
going to show you is only towards those who give secretly, privately. We're not wanting to focus to
be on us or on money or anything like that. We want to focus to
stay on Christ. And then secondly, this sure law of giving only
applies to those who give in singleness of heart, in simplicity. That is, they give because of
the blessing God's given them. And they want to bless God. They
want to thank God for what He's done for them. It's not a matter
of covetousness. It's not a matter of have to.
It's a matter of blessing. Look here in verse 5. He said
at the end there that the same might be ready as a matter of
malty and not as of covetousness. Believers are so blessed by God
our Father, so blessed by the Lord Jesus Christ, so freely,
so abundantly, that a believer wants to bless God. He wants
to return the thanks to God. He wants to. And one of the ways
that we do that is by providing for God's needy people. When
God's made it so that they're going through a trial and it's
a tough time, one way you bless God, thanking God, is to provide
for His needy people. But this is done in simplicity.
That means singleness of heart. That means with an eye towards
the Lord. Not feeling like you ought to be commended for something
you've done, but for the Lord. The man who gives grudgingly,
who gives covetously, what he's doing is he's giving thinking
about himself, his money, how he's the provider of himself,
how he's got to use his money to be his salvation and to provide
for him. And so he gives grudgingly out
of covetousness. And that's to rob God of His
glory. That's to rob God of this blessing we're talking about.
God's people give because they want to bless God. They want
to thank God for blessing us. but to give covetously is to
rob God of that blessing. And not only that, it's to rob
His people. He said in Malachi 3.8, Will a man rob God? God
said that. Will a man rob God? Yet you have
robbed Me, He said. You say, where have we robbed
thee? In tithes and offerings. You've cursed with a curse, for
you've robbed Me even this whole nation. Now we're not under a
tithe, we're not under the law. This is a willing, free matter
of grace we're talking about here, but it's still robbing
God to do it with covetousness. He says there in verse 7, Every
man according as he purposes in his heart, so let him give,
not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver. That's the kind of giver that
God loves, not a grudging giver. But now, to those who do give
secretly, and they give simply as a matter of blessing. The
sheer law that I'm talking about, this law that accompanies giving,
is that God always makes His child reap bountifully. Now this
is a sure, certain law of giving. God always makes His child reap
bountifully. Look in verse 6. But this I say,
he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which
soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. When the scriptures
say shall, it means this is a sure thing. It's a sure thing. Look at verse 8, God is able
to make all grace abound towards you, that ye always, having all
sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work, as
it is written, he hath dispersed abroad, he hath given to the
poor, his righteousness remaineth forever. Now he that ministereth
seed to the sower, both ministereth bread for your food, and multiplies
your seed sown, and increases the fruits of your righteousness.
So it's a standing law of giving that he which sows sparingly
shall reap sparingly, and he which sows bountifully shall
reap bountifully. Let me read you that same word
Paul gives. He gives it again over in Galatians
5. Listen to this. Be not deceived,
God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh,
that's the man who does things covetously. Looking to himself,
expecting that he's going to indebt God. He wants a reward. He wants God to notice him. That's covetousness. That's vain
glory. He says, he that soweth to his
flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. But he that soweth
to the Spirit, that's what we're talking about here. Doing this
for God's glory. for God's grace toward us. He
that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
Let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap
if we faint not, if you continue in the faith. As we therefore
have opportunity, let us do good unto all, especially unto them
who are of the household of faith. So that's what he's saying here.
Now you think about this law of sowing sparingly and reaping
sparingly and sowing bountifully and reaping bountifully. Just
talk to a farmer and ask him if this is not a sure rule. If
you go out in the field and you sow just a little bit of seed,
you're going to get just a little bit of reaping. A little bit
of crops are going to come from that. But if you sow bountifully,
it'll spring up and you're going to get a bountiful harvest from
it. So that's just a standing rule. And in this area of giving,
it's such a standing rule that God tells His child to test Him
and prove Him to see if it's so. This is the only area I know
of where God says, test me and prove me on something. Listen
to Malachi 3.10. He said, Bring you all the tithes
into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and
prove me now herewith. God's saying that. Sayeth the
Lord of Hosts, prove me, test me. And see if I will not open
you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that
there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke
the devourer for your sakes." Anybody that would destroy this
reaping, I'll rebuke him. I'll destroy him for your sake.
And he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground. Neither
shall your vine cast a fruit before the time in the field,
said the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you
blessed, for you shall be a delightsome land, said the Lord of hosts. Now I realize that today false
preachers use that to try to tell sinners that this is like
investing in Wall Street. If you invest, this is such a
sure bet that you're going to reap and it's going to give you
a good return on your investment. And so they normally tell you
to, here's my address, this is where you can send it. That's
not what we're talking about here. That's the covetous spirit of
a man sowing to his flesh. That's not what we're talking
about here. Remember those first two points. This is for a man
that's doing this secretly. He doesn't want to be noticed
for this. This is a man's giving because he simply feels like
he's been blessed by God. It's not about covetousness.
It's not about trying to better myself or get God indebted to
me or anything like that. That's called works religion.
When He talks here about rewards, there are no rewards in glory.
When we get to glory, we're going to have eternal life. That's
the crown. Life with Christ. You can't get
better than that. There'd be no better, no worse
there with that. But He does give rewards here
on this earth. You sow sparingly, you'll find
out you won't reap. Sow bountifully, trust in God,
and the reward will be God will provide for you here. You don't
have to worry about it. But this law is sure now because
of this. Look, God is able. God is able
to make all grace abound towards you that you always, having all
sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. Now
what you think about if God is able to abound to you in grace?
You know how God's people came to be God's people? Because God's
able to abound to us in all grace. He abounded toward His people
by sovereignly, graciously choosing whom He would, not based on anything
in us. Paul said in 2 Thessalonians
2.13, we're bound to give thanks always to God for you. We don't
have anything to boast in. Men didn't make God to choose
His people. We're bound to give thanks to
God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God has
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth, where to He called you
by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Is God able to abound toward us in all grace? Yes.
The grace of Christ's redemptive blood abounded toward us freely. That was God's grace abounding.
The blood of Christ being shed for those chosen people that
God gave to Him. To declare God just and the justifier. To redeem us from all iniquity.
And this was manifested, the love of God toward us. because
that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might
live through Him. That word might doesn't mean
possibility. It means that we shall. Everybody
Christ died for shall live through Christ the life. That's the abounding
grace of God. What about the grace of God abounding
in the Holy Spirit's effectual call? Here we were dead as stones,
dead as the rocks out there lining that edge of that bridge out
there. Just dead, hard-hearted, dead sinners is all we were.
God was able to bring you unto the Gospel. He was able to give
you life through the Holy Spirit and bring you to completely trust
Christ for all your salvation. Is His grace abound, effectually
abound? Is He able to make all grace
abound toward you? This is the record God hath given
to us, eternal life and His life's in His Son. He didn't try to
do it. He didn't come and try to make
a bargain with His people to do it. God hath given to us eternal
life. We know that the Son of God has
come and hath given us an understanding that we might know Him that is
true. And we're in Him that is true,
even His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God in eternal
life. I didn't give you understanding. A preacher didn't give you understanding.
You didn't give you understanding. If you have a true understanding
of this God, it was because God is able to make all grace abound
towards you in all things and God's own Son has given you an
understanding that you might know Him. All providence. God is able to abound towards
us in all grace in all His providence. That is everything that comes
to pass in this world. It's for our good. Whether it
be health or whether it be sickness. whether it be joy or whether
it be sorrow, whether it be good times or whether it's hard times.
That's God making all grace abound toward His child. That's what
it means in Romans 8, 28. We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God. They don't work together
for bad, they work together for good. to them who are called
according to His purpose. Everything that He does in this
world, everything that's coming to pass right now in this world
is for the good of His people and it's coming to pass exactly
according to what God purposed from eternity. That's a mighty
big God. That's a God unlike any little
pygmy God that men talk about. A God who can tell you from the
beginning what the end is going to be like and then make the
end match what He said from the beginning. Now that's God. That's
the kind of God I want. That's true God. And God is abundantly able to
even use His grace, shed His grace, and increase our fruits
of righteousness, that is, to make us cheerful givers. If we
do this that He's saying here, it's because God abounded toward
us to make us do it. Look there at the illustration,
2 Corinthians 9. As it's written, he hath dispersed
abroad, he hath given to the poor his righteousness remaineth
forever. Now he that ministered seed to
the sower, both ministereth bread for your food and multiply your
seeds on and increases the fruits of your righteousness. This is
a fruit of the Holy Spirit we're talking about here. This is not
just a man, a believer just decides one day, well I'm going to read
this and I'm going to obey this, I'm going to do this. I hope
you do that. But if you do that, it's going
to be a fruit of the righteousness of God. It's going to be the
Holy Spirit working it in you so that He gets all the glory.
And you don't want any glory. You want Him to have all the
glory. So, here's what I'm saying to you. When we read here, God
is able to make all grace abound towards you. What do you have
that you did not receive? What does a believer have that
he didn't receive from God? It was God's ability. It was
God making grace abound towards you. That's so in nature, all
things in nature, everything in creation. It's so with all
things in grace, all things in salvation. It's so with all things
in time, everything that happens while we're in this time-space
continuum that we're living in until we reach eternity. Everything
that's coming to pass here is of God's ability. It's true of
all things in eternity. When we get to glory, we're going
to thank God that He made all grace abound toward us. So everything
we're talking about here is the free gift of God's grace by God's
ability. Now look here, why does God promise
to make this law sure to us? Verse 9, that you always having
all sufficiency in all things may abound to ever good work.
This is one of my favorite passages in the whole Bible right here.
God promises always, not occasionally, not just if He looks upon you
and says, well now He looks like He's doing a fine job. Because
God don't ever look upon you and say He looks like He's doing
a fine job. Except for He looks at us in Christ. But He promises
always. Always. And then He says this,
that you'll always have all sufficiency. You realize that in order for
God to get all the glory from His people, God has got to provide
all sufficiency. All our sufficiency has got to
be of God or you won't give God the glory. You realize this,
you cannot worship any God but a sovereign God. That's so. If a God is depending on you
for anything, it's impossible to worship such a God. I'm not
saying it's not impossible for me to bow down and claim to be
worshipping, but you're not really worshipping that God because
you're actually depending on yourself to provide something.
You can only worship a God that provides all sufficiency. Because
He's the only one worthy to be worshipped. And with Him, a true
believer knows everything I have. All my sufficiency is of Him.
And that's true worship. And this is in all things. It's
in the heart. It's in the hand. It's in the
ability. It's in the opportunity. Everything about this thing of
giving, not to mention everything else about our salvation, in
all things, this is all the sufficiencies of God. Always. Why? That you may abound to every
good work. You see, God saves His people
to save His people. God saves His people to save
His people. A long time ago, God saved me
down in South Arkansas and gave me a new heart to believe Him,
trust Him. And God saved a bunch of people
in these different churches that y'all have visited and that y'all
have seen. that church where brother Henry was pastor and
they sent tapes to us and they ministered to me and all of that,
God saved them to do that for me. And then God saved some men
here through the same means and He brought us together to provide
what needed to be provided to have a building and have a place
so we could hear the gospel preached. And through that, Melissa, God
saved you, God saved Cheryl. God saved Rob
and Kristen. You see what I'm saying? God
saves His people to save His people. And He does it by providing
everything for you to make you abound in every good work so
that the gospel can be preached. That's the main thing. Christ
can be exalted and Christ can be heard and through that message
He calls His people out. This thing of good works It's
not about just going around so everybody can look at you and
say, boy, what a good work. It's so they can see your light.
And I don't mean what the world means by that. I mean it's so
they can sit down in a place and hear Christ the light preached.
That's our light. It's not so everybody can look
at you and me. Christ said, don't do anything to be seen of men.
Don't do anything so that men are attracted to come to your
congregation because of you. You won't be attracted because
of Christ that He preached. We don't have anything here to
offer anybody but the gospel. That's it. That's the only attraction. If anything else attracts a man
into any kind of religion, it's vanity. It's false. But God alone has got to call
you. God alone has got to plant you. God alone has got to provide
all sufficiency for you. And He does this for His people,
and when He's done this for you, you know He'll do this for you,
and so He makes you a cheerful giver, because you want to see
others brought to behold Christ and rest in Him too. That's the
purpose of this whole thing. He says there, therefore as you
abound in everything, He said back in 2 Corinthians 8, 7, as
you abound in everything, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge,
and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that you
abound in this grace also, this grace of giving. Now you think
about this, God's calling upon us to believe something which
is contrary to our natural reason. Isn't it? You ask any wealthy
man and they'll tell you they didn't get wealthy by giving
it away. That's why most wealthy men don't. Very seldom does God
ever use a wealthy man in a congregation to provide for his congregation.
Very seldom. Usually when they leave, you
won't see a difference in the financial report. A man don't
get rich and heap up riches by giving them away. That's contrary
to reason. God said, you want to heap up
riches? Give these things away. That goes against everything
our flesh says stands to reason. But Christ said, it's more blessed
to give than to receive. Why? Why is that? Well, here's
one reason. Because when you depend upon
God, you receive the reality of God's faithfulness towards
you. You enter into the reality that what God has promised here,
God sure does it. You test Him and you prove Him
and you find out, yes, it's true, He does what He says He'll do.
And we experience His grace towards us. We experience Him being all
sufficiency toward us. We experience that the greatest
gift a man can receive is happiness and contentment in God, in the
heart, knowing God shall provide. What price can you put on that,
brethren? What monetary price could you put on having contentment
that God is all my salvation and shall provide for me? And
you come into the realization of this by delighting to make
others blessed, to give to them and provide for them. And as you do so sacrificially
to the point that you trust in God, like that poor widow with
the two mice gave away her whole living. But she found out everything
God promised her, God was able to perform. She proved God. And God proved to her, I am who
I say I am. I do what I say I do. That's
the most blessed thing you can receive. So it's better to give
these temporal things than to receive temporal things. You
want to give them away. When we truly believe God, then
we realize that our giving is really God giving to us. First Chronicles 29.14, David
had given all this to the temple and he said, Who am I? What is
my people that we should be able to offer so willingly after this
sort? For all things come of thee of thine own have we given
to thee. You and I don't have anything
that really belongs to us. It was all given to us. Can you
imagine your child that lives under your roof coming to you
and giving something to you and telling you that here I've got
something that belongs to me, I just want to give it to you.
And it's something you gave them. They don't have anything but
what you gave them. But if they took what you gave
them and gave it to their brother or to their sister that needed
it, or gave it to somebody outside of the house that needed it,
wouldn't that make you glad? They trust you. You heard them
say, I am not worried about giving this away. My dad is going to
provide for me. That made me happy as I could
be. That is what God is doing with His people. Bringing us
to trust Him to provide. So Paul said this, and this is
the end of our giving. This will be our message next
week. The fruit or the end of giving, right here, verse 11.
Being enriched in everything to all bountifulness, it causes
through us thanksgiving to God. This whole thing, I'm not going
to preach next week's study, I'm going to leave it, but I'll
just say this. This whole thing is to glorify God. And that's
what believers want. We want to see God get all the
thanks and all the glory. So, but for now, remember these
things. Those who give secretly, not
to boast, not to show off, secretly. They do it with singleness of
mind, with their heart set on Christ. They're doing it as God's made
them do it this way. And here's the rule. This is
the standing law of everybody that gives in this right way.
God is able. to make all grace abound towards
you that you always having all sufficiency and all things may
abound to every good work. That's a standing rule. It's
sure and certain because God's able. Amen. Let's stand together. Father, thank you for this blessed
gift you've given us to give and be a blessing to our needy
brethren. Lord, thank you for showing us
that you're the full provision in everything we have and all
our salvation, all our everyday temporal things and everything
that comes to pass in providence, all sufficiencies of you and
you're able to make all grace abound toward us. Make us know
this, make us believe this, make us test you and prove you like
you commanded. Thank You, Father, that You provide
Christ, Your Son, and that in Him You provided us everything
we need. Forgive us our doubting and forgive us our covetousness.
Lord, keep us by Your grace. We ask it now in Christ's name.
Amen.