Brethren, let's turn to 2 Corinthians
chapter 8. Years ago, there was a man at
my home and he was helping do a project that I was working
on and he asked me what I had been studying. And I had been
studying 2 Corinthians 8 and I was just My heart was overflowing
with what I was seeing from this chapter. And so I began to tell
him. And all he heard was me talking about giving. And that's
not all I was talking about. I wasn't even really talking
about that. I was talking about what this chapter teaches us.
But that's all he heard. And he packed his tools up and
started to leave. Just before he left, he turned
around and told me that, he said, I left the church I was in because
they preached on giving. And he said, no man is going
to tell me to give and no man is going to tell me how much
to give. Brethren, if that's true, we would have wear into
glory. Giving is the grace of God. Giving comes from the grace of
God. Just like anything else a believer does, believing on
Christ, repenting from your dead works, anything that a sinner
does is by the grace of God. I want to see that in this chapter.
Repeatedly, Paul calls giving grace. That's what he calls it,
grace. And that's a good name for it.
Because what I want you to see in these first few verses is
the source The Spirit and the order of the grace of giving
is all of God. The source, the Spirit, and the
order of giving is all of God. That's our subject. The source,
the Spirit, and the order of giving. Now Paul here is speaking
to the church at Corinth and he's telling them how the churches
in Macedonia gave to provide for the needy saints in Jerusalem. You know, the northern part of
Greece was called Macedonia. That's where you had the churches
of Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea. The southern part of Greece
was called Achaia, and that's where you had the church of Corinth.
The northern part of Greece was a poorer part of the country. The southern part of Greece,
where Corinth was, was a wealthier part of the country. And Paul
here is telling them how generously these brethren in the northern
part of Greece gave for these needy saints. But he starts out
by saying the source, the source of this grace of giving is by
the grace of God given to us. Look here in verse 1, ìMoreover,
brethren, we would have you to know of the grace of God bestowed
on the churches of Macedonia.î See, the grace of giving begins
with the grace of God given. Just like anything else that
a sinner does in the name of Christ in truth, this grace of
giving begins with the grace of God given to us. We're empty. We're bankrupt. We're God-hating,
man-hating, self-preserving, self-providing sinners by nature. So anything that comes from a
sinner that's gracious is of the grace of God, worked in that
sinner. That leaves us with nothing to
boast. It's just like everything in salvation. It's all by the
grace of God. It was by God's grace freely
bestowed upon us that God chose a people in Christ before this
world was ever made, not based on any good or evil in us. That
wouldn't be grace if it was based on merit in us. Grace of God
is not earned. The grace of God is not merited. Grace means God chose His people
freely because He would. The grace of God sent His only
begotten Son into this world. Talk about giving. The grace
of God gave His only begotten Son to be the propitiation for
our sin. And by the grace of God, Christ
gave Himself. He laid down His life. He shed
His own life's blood unto death. to redeem His people. The grace
of God is the only way you and I know any of this and believe
any of this. The grace of God given in giving us the gospel
and giving us His Holy Spirit and giving us life and faith
in Christ. This was all the free gift of
God's free and sovereign grace to His people. How is it we persevere
in faith? How is it we're here today and
want to hear the gospel and continue wanting to hear the gospel and
looking only to Christ and not to our works? It's the grace
of God given, preserving us by His grace. Everything that you
and I have and shall have, both spiritually and temporally, everything,
is by the grace of God given to us. And it's just the same
way with this grace of giving. If any man gives and does it
as God chose us, He will accept. It's going to be by the grace
of God bestowed upon us. That's how these things come
about. So we have nothing in which to
boast. Nothing of which to boast. When
you think about this grace of God given to us, it's like the
need. The need. There's a brother somewhere
that has a need. Do you know that that need is
given to us by the grace of God? He put that brother in a place
of need and that was given to those He's going to use to provide
that need by His grace. So the need was given by God's
grace. The substance to give was given by God's grace. The
heart to give was given by God's grace. And the ability to actually
go through with it and do it is the gift given by God's grace. We have nothing to boast in. So if I'm going to make my boast
that no man is going to tell me to give, I'm going to give
when I want to and how much I want to. Oh indeed, God says, let
a man Let a man, as he purposes in his heart, give. But who put
that purpose in the heart? The grace of God did it. Everything
involved in this thing is by the grace of God, just like all
parts of our salvation. So when a believer gives, he
says, to me is this grace given that I should be able to give
so abundantly. To me is this grace given. Alright? Secondly, The spirit of the grace
of giving. The spirit, when God bestows
His grace upon us, the spirit of giving is a joyful spirit,
it's a sacrificially generous spirit, and it's a willing spirit. Watch this, verse 2. He's speaking
of the grace of God bestowed upon them. How that in a great
trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy... See, this was
done joyfully. That's the Spirit. and their
deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. That's their sacrificial generosity. That was a spirit of generosity.
For to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power,
they were willing of themselves. You see, the Spirit is willing,
the Spirit is joyful, it's sacrificially generous, and it's a willing
Spirit that God gives by His grace. Watch this, they prayed
us with much entreaty that we would receive the gift and take
upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. God
gave these Macedonian churches a great trial of affliction. That means a proving test of
affliction. He gave them a test to prove
them by this affliction. Now, when God gives us a trial,
God doesn't need proof Himself of our faith. God gave us the
faith. God looks upon the heart. He knows what He put there. He
knows what He's created. He created it. He sustains it. So He knows the heart already
in His sight. So what's He proving by? He's
proving, in this case, He's proving that it was all the work of God's
grace. That's what He's proving. Every
bit of this was the work of God's grace. He makes it apparent that
He did it. And when God's going to work something, just like
He gave them this poverty, He did it so that everyone would
acknowledge the grace of God did this. That's who did this. And so God made them poor and
worked this abundance of joy and this generosity and this
joyfulness in them in order to work grace in the hearts of their
Corinthian brethren and stir them up to follow the example
of these northern brethren. You see, if there's a member
of my body that's hurt, when I broke my wrist for instance,
Well, ministering to that one member of my body was ministering
to my whole body because I needed that rest. The rest of my body,
all my other members are dependent on that rest. I need it. Well,
it's so with the church, brethren. Christ is the head of His church
and the church is His body. And we are members in particular. So whenever he's working in one
member, this grace of God being bestowed upon one member, he's
also working grace in all the members. He's working grace for
the whole body. And that's what he was doing
here. He was working this grace to stir up those brethren in
the southern part of Greece, in Achaia. And he was doing it
by the grace he was working in those northern members. Isn't
that wisdom? Isn't that the amazing grace
of our God, how He can do this? And so by His grace, God freely... Now listen to this statement.
God freely, without a cause, bestowed His grace upon them
and gave the churches at Macedonia great deep poverty. Now we don't usually think about
poverty being the grace of God, but that's exactly what the Holy
Spirit says it was. This was the grace of God. He
bestowed great poverty of affliction upon them. And at the same time,
God was bestowing grace upon His wealthier Corinthian brethren
to stir up those southern Corinthian brethren. Now learn by this,
brethren, that our outward condition Whatever state we're in outwardly
in our life, it does not necessarily mean God's disfavor. Job, when
he came into all that trouble he came into, you know, his friends
that came put all the blame on Job. And God simply summons the devil
to him and said, have you considered Job? Our outward condition doesn't
necessarily mean disfavor with God. God said of Job, there's
not another man like him. He's a righteous man, hates evil,
not another man like him. So this poverty that they incurred,
it wasn't disfavor, it was the grace of God. The verse 1 told
us that. By the grace of God bestowed
upon the churches of Macedonia, they had deep affliction of poverty. deep affliction of poverty. But
by that same grace, He also gave them a spirit to where they abounded
in the riches of liberality. They gave generously, and He
gave them to do it with abundant joy. That was all of God. Just like the poverty was of
the grace of God, the joy in their heart was of God, and that
generosity was of God. You see, by God working in their
hearts, that outward condition of deep poverty, it didn't dry
up the inward fountain of joy and generosity. And their fleshly
grief that they had over their poverty, it didn't dry up that
inward work of God whereby He made them to have a new spirit
and rejoice to give. But what God did do by His grace
is He increased both. He increased their generosity
and their joy. And He did it in the midst of
this poverty. You know what that tells us? Our outward condition,
our outward state we're in, that is not what what makes the inward man. That's
not what makes the inward man be where he's at. I've showed
you before, you could be in the middle of a storm and God give
you peace in the heart and never take the storm away. Our peace
doesn't come from whether it's storming or it's calm. Our peace
comes from Christ. And they had this joy by the
grace of God and they had this generosity by the grace of God
even when they were poor as Job's turkey. And notice in this verse, when
he talked about them giving away their earthly riches so generously
and doing it with joy, God called that the true riches. Look at
verse 2, their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. Now we know that's a proof of
God's grace. We know that's a proof of God's grace that they generously,
joyfully gave in the midst of poverty. We know that's of God's
grace because nothing grieves us more than taking a hit on
our bank account. Is that not so? We get really
down when that happens. Because we depend on that. We
think that's our life. It's not. It's not. What will a man give in exchange
for his soul? He'll give everything he's got.
He'll give it away. See, what's important is you
knowing Christ and being found in Christ. Not anything we have
in this world is important. Being in Christ, being found
in Christ, being robed in His righteousness, that's the important
thing. That's the one thing needful.
But we see this is the grace of God because He worked this
paradox of the believer in them. You know what the paradox of
the believer is? It's this. Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Poor, yet making many rich. Having
nothing, yet possessing all things. That's the paradox of the believer.
The world just sees the first part of that. The world just
sees sorrowful and poor and having nothing and says, Oh, God's pouring
out His wrath on them. They've done something. What
did you do? But they can't see the heart. Sorrowful, yet always
rejoicing. Poor, yet making many rich. Having
nothing, yet possessing all things. And so the Spirit of the grace
of giving, brethren, this grace God gives, this Spirit He gives,
is sacrificially generous and is joyful. And not only that,
He is willing. He is willing. Look here. This
sacrificial generosity was from a willing heart. Verse 3. For
to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power,
they were willing of themselves. And when you read to their power,
it means they gave according to their ability. But when you
read beyond their power, it means they gave beyond their ability. And when it says they did this
willingly of themselves, it means nobody coerced them to do this. God does not measure. Now listen
to this carefully. God does not measure our gift
by the total amount given. That's not how He measures it.
God measures the gift by how that total amount is proportionate
to what we have. And to how willing our heart
is. That's how God measures it. God measures not by quantity,
but by sacrifice from a willing heart. Go over to Luke 21. Here's the example that Christ
gave us. Luke 21. Look at verse 1. He looked up
and he saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury.
And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two
mites. And he said of a truth, I say
unto you that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all. Now get that, he's saying you
take everything that they all gave combined and she gave more. Doesn't look like it, does it?
She didn't give but two pennies. See, God doesn't measure the
way we measure. What's He talking about? Verse 4, For all these
have of their abundance cast unto the offerings of God. But
she of her penury has cast in all the living that she had. God loves a sacrificially generous,
cheerful, willing giver. That means one who really goes
beyond his ability. You know what we call that in
just everyday terms? Giving 110%. That's what we call
it. I went to see William Keller
play football Friday night at their homecoming. And I was pretty
impressed. He played, he played, he gave
the effort to play beyond the ability that he knew he was capable
of. He played hard. And he also got
a lot of tackles. I heard his name called out quite
a bit. And he got an interception. And a coach loves that kind of
player. But the player who aims to just play within the bounds
of his ability doesn't do half as much as he could. That's just
how it works. Who's going to play up to their
ability? The person that's trying to play
beyond their ability. That's who's going to play up
to their ability. Well, brethren, in all service to God, we serve
best when we try to serve beyond our ability. Isn't that so? With the one offering God is
pleased with, Christ our Lord. Look down there. I was going
to try to get to this verse in our chapter 8, 2 Corinthians
8, but I'm just not going to be able to get to it today. We'll
have to look at it another time. But let me just read this to
you. Look at this, verse 9. You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes
He became poor. Did He give? Did He give 110%? Was He giving beyond His ability?
He gave everything He had and He did it. that we might have
everything He has. He did it. He became poor to
make us rich. That's what He's talking about.
That's following the example that Christ has given us. And
I love this. Look now back at our text. These
Macedonians were so willing, they begged Paul to receive their
gift and to just take it upon himself to minister it to the
saints however it needed to be ministered. Look there in verse
4. He said, ìThey prayed us with much entreaty that we would receive
the gift and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering
to the saints.î Doesnít natural religion have this backwards?
Natural religion, the preacher stands up and he begs and begs
and begs people to give. Thereís two things in vain religion
that they always insist upon. Keeping the Sabbath. which is
Sabbath Saturday, it's not Sunday. But they say it's Sunday. But
they insist on you keeping that one because they want to keep
you in the pew. And the second one they always insist on is
giving. See, everything hangs on that.
And without that, the house of cards falls down. But it's so
backwards, the preacher will beg and beg and beg for the people
to give, and then when the people give, they give, they dictate
the terms to the pastor on how he can use it. Grace begs the
pastor, take the gift and minister it however you see that it needs
to be ministered. That's grace. That's the grace
of God working. And he calls this the fellowship
of the ministering to the saints. Let me see if I can illustrate
that. If you're all fellows in the same ship, that's what fellowship
means. We're all fellows in the same
ship. And you know that the well-being of your fellows is your own well-being,
and the poverty of your fellows is your own poverty, then you
will faithfully minister how it needs to be ministered. And the grace of giving, brethren,
this grace of giving works that. It works faithfulness. It works
faithfulness. Let me ask you something. Talking
about just a natural love. when you mothers and fathers
have children that are sick, and you have whatever substances
you need to pay for them to get treatment to get well. Mothers,
do you have to, or fathers, when you give your bride the money
to go and get the treatment, do you have to worry about, I
better keep an eye on her, make sure she's spending that right.
She is going to spend whatever it takes to get that child well.
Because she loves that child. And you don't have to worry about
it. Because you know she loves that child. That's what God works
in the hearts of His people. When you know God is working
grace in the heart of His people, you don't have to worry about
somebody being crooked. I know they love them just like I love
them. And they want to see them taken
care of just like I want to see them taken care of. And I know
God is working that. So I don't have to worry about
it. That's what grace does. So the grace of giving is first
by God's grace, and secondly, where the grace of God is working
in the heart, this spirit of giving is sacrificial, generous,
joyful, and willing. Wherever God's grace is at work,
deep poverty won't be used as an excuse not to provide for
brethren. It just won't. If a man won't
give when he's poor, he won't give when he's rich. So, the
grace of God, it has no bearing on the outward condition. The
grace of God is working in the heart. So lastly now, let's go
to see the order of this grace of giving. First of all, it is
to God and then it's to brethren. Look at verse 5. This they did,
not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord
and unto us by the will of God. Now where the grace of God is
working in the heart, The believer first gives himself to the Lord
Jesus Christ. We won't give ourselves to Christ
except by the grace of God. That dominion of sin that Romans
6 is talking about, that does not have dominion over you anymore,
has to do with the fact that before God came, you were the
servants of sin and that's all we could do. because we were
under the dominion of sin. It means we could not believe
on Christ and cease from our dead vain religious works. We
couldn't do it. But when grace comes and works
irresistibly in the heart, He's going to turn you from yourself
and make you give yourself to Christ. It means surrender to
Christ. It's what Paul was saying back
there in chapter 5 when he said, seeing how he's reconciled all
his people to himself, now you be reconciled to God. It means
you surrender. surrender to God. And that's
what he's saying here. The first thing they did was
they surrendered to God, to Christ. And the only way to do anything,
the only way to do anything under the banner of Christ, the only
way to do anything that God will accept is through faith in Christ. God won't hear our prayers, He
won't He won't receive us. He won't receive anything we
do except in Christ. It has to be washed in the blood
of Christ. We have to be robed in the righteousness
of Christ. We have to be made holy by Christ
so that it comes up to God through that one offering. Brother Ravi
read that psalm and it said, bring an offering to God. What
offering is he talking about? The one offering God wants and
will receive. That's His Son, Christ Jesus.
and He says, I'm going to pour out a new Spirit on my priests
and they're going to bring a right offering to the Lord, they're
going to come with Christ, the blood of Christ. And He makes
you kings and priests by this work of washing you and making
you whole and then you come with Christ, the one offering God
will receive. So before we can do anything in the cause of Christ,
We have to be made by His grace to give ourselves entirely in
surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what they did first.
That's the only way they did above what Paul hoped. This is what they knew. They
knew what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6.19, Know ye not that your body
is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have
of God, and you are not your own? You've been bought with
a price. Therefore, glorify God in your
body and in your spirit, which are God's. That's what surrendering
to Christ is. It's to be made to know from
here on out, I don't own me. And nothing I have in my possession
is mine. It all belongs to God. My body,
my spirit, and everything I have is God's. He's given it all to
me. What do you have that you didn't
receive of God? Why then would I glory as if
I didn't receive it of God? Everything we have, brethren,
God gave it to us. We didn't. We didn't obtain it
any other way. And so this is what surrender
to Christ is, is to know that I'm not my own and neither is
anything I possess my own. We know this, brethren, we know
by God's sovereign grace that He gave His Son, and Christ gave
His blood, and He gave us everything involved in this salvation. He
made Christ our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption,
and this was all freely given to us. And everything we have
belongs to Him. And so knowing that, brethren, He says in verse, look down at
2 Corinthians 9.7, He says, "...Every man according as he purposeth
in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity,
for God loveth the cheerful giver. And 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." In the heart
of faith, I mean, when you have faith, there's been a few times
in my life that I can say, I really believe God to where I knew and
I trusted and I'm certain. And I know this all the time.
I feel this all the time. But I mean, it's a couple of
times when you really, really enter into it that I don't have
a thing in the world to worry about. I mean, it's all taken
care of. I've got the richest father that
any child ever had. And he's... I mean, I see he's
given his son for me. How will He not with Him freely
provide us all things? If He's given me righteousness,
and holiness, and wisdom, and redemption, and He's freely preserved
me, and He's freely put me in a place where I can hear His
gospel, and He's done all this provision for me, why would I
ever question whether or not He's going to provide the filthiest,
stinkiest thing there is on this planet? Have you ever looked
at a dollar? It's just a nasty thing. Look at the filthy corrupted
hands it passes through. And we want to hang on to that
like it's a pristine linen garment. How do I think God won't provide
that for me if I need it? Now there's a big difference
between what I need and what I might covet. God provides His
people's need. He is able not only to provide
that, but to make all grace abound towards you so that you have
all sufficiency to enter into this grace of giving in the way
He will have you to do it. You have all sufficiency. And
I will tell you this, if you don't want to give, don't give
because you are not giving. That's just so. I told that to
somebody one time about coming to church service and they quit
coming. Well, they never did come when they were coming because
they didn't want to. They manifest they didn't want to come. How
can you say that to somebody? Because God makes His people
want to. God puts the want to in His people
and you'll come. And that's the only time you
are coming to Christ and coming to hear Him and enjoying His
worship is when He's made you want to. And it's the same with
giving. The only time we ever have done
it and it was done acceptably in Christ was when He was the
one who gave us the want to. But He is able, He says, to make
you have full sufficiency of want to. So that you do it like
He would have you do it. And who gets the praise for that?
Not me. He does. He does. We got this thing wrong when
we think that, you know, well, I gave so much and so much and
we pat ourselves on the back for that. No, no. We ever give anything in the
cause of Christ. I'm not just talking about money.
I'm talking about bodily service. I'm talking about anything. The
grace of God gets praised, not me and you. And so by this same
grace, they knew their pastor was given to them by Christ.
And so secondly, they gave themselves to be fellow laborers. They gave
themselves to be helpers to Paul and to the other ministers. And
they gave them their full trust. He said, ìYou gave yourself unto
us by the will of God.î That means by Godís will, working
in them, they did this. And this was the will of God
for them to do this. So God-given faith not only trusts Christ
whoís working in us, I donít only trust that Christ is working
in me, I trust Heís working in my brethren. You know, think
of how much they trusted Christ. Think about this. Think of how
much they trusted Christ and therefore how much they trusted
Paul. They took this bountiful gift
taken up from the churches of Thessalonica, the churches of
Philippi, and the churches of Berea. I guarantee you that was
a pretty good sum of money. They took that gift, put it in
Paul's hands, and watched him sell over the horizon with it.
This wasn't like our day where you can check on folks. They
watched him sell away with it. How could they do that? They
knew that same God that had worked in their heart to make them willing
to give that to Paul was working in Paul and made him willing
to take it and minister it like it needed to be ministering.
The grace of God doesn't work suspicion in His people. Because
when you've experienced the power of God working in you and overcoming
your sinful, crooked, thieving flesh, it makes you know He's
doing the same thing in my brethren. And whatever... They knew this.
Whatever Paul does with that money is going to be the will
of God and he can't do anything but the will of God with it.
When you know that, brethren, take it. Give it like it needs
to be given. That's faith. That's trusting
Christ who is the head. You know, just like you would
be in a man's presence and trust that man to take it right over
here and distribute it like it needs to be distributed. We trust
Christ who though we don't see the man when he leaves our side
of view, we know Christ is still in Christ's side of view and
Christ is still working in it and Christ is going to make him
do what needs to be done with it. So you trust him. See, when
you've surrendered to Christ, you trust Christ. You really
trust Christ. And it's not just saying, well,
I trust Christ. No, no. It's going through with
the deed that shows you really trust Christ. This was a proving
test. And that's what they did. James said, Thou believest there
is one God? Well, you do well. The devils
do too. But the devils don't do a thing
for God. They know He exists and they
believe He exists and they know the gospel better than you know
the gospel. And believe it. Believe it so. But they don't
have true faith. Why? How do you know? They don't
do anything for God. He said, Wilt thou know, O vain
man, that faith without works is dead? For as the body without
the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. God gives faith that works. He
makes His people, He makes some not only willing to do something,
He makes them do it. And that's the true grace of
God. It's not just saying, I believe God, you know. I'm really thinking
about doing that, but no, it's doing it. Even when it's beyond
your ability to do it. Here it is. I'm going to sum
it up with Psalm 37.3. Listen to this. All this is summed up
in this one verse right here. This is the whole life of faith
summed up right here. This is it. Psalm 37.3. Trust in the Lord and do good. So shall you dwell in the land
and verily you shall be fed. That's it. That's it. Know this trust in the Lord and
do good. And so you'll dwell in the land
and verily you shall be fed. God will see to it. Now that's
the grace of God in the grace of giving. I pray God will bless
that to our hearts. Alright, Brother Eric.