Give Hilariously!
Stewardship & Thanksgiving • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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“The Colgate-Palmolive Company is one of the oldest in America, going back nearly two hundred years. It was started by a young man named William Colgate.
“He left home at sixteen years of age to seek his fortune, and everything that he owned in this world was tied in a bundle that he carried in his hand.
“But as he walked along on his way to the city, he met an old neighbor, the captain of a canal boat, and the words the old man spoke to him on that day stayed with him his entire life.
“‘Well, William, where are you going?’ asked the canal-boat captain.
“‘I don’t know. Father is too poor to keep me at home any longer, and says I must make a living for myself now.’ William went on to say that he had no skills, that he didn’t know how to do anything except make soap and candles.
“‘Well,’ said the old man, ‘let me pray with you and give you a little advice.’
“There in the pathway, the two of them—a teenager and an old man—knelt down, and the man prayed earnestly for William.
“Then, rising up, the boat captain said this: ‘Someone will soon be the leading soapmaker in New York. It can be you as well as anyone. I hope it may. Be a good man; give your heart to Christ; give the Lord all that belongs to Him of every dollar you earn; make an honest soap; give a full pound; and I am certain you will yet be a prosperous and rich man.’
“When William arrived in New York, he had trouble finding a job, but he followed the old man’s advice. He dedicated himself to Christ, joined a church, and began worshiping there.
“The first thing he did with the first dollar he earned was to give 10 percent of it to the Lord’s work. From that point on, he considered ten cents of every dollar as sacred to the Lord.
“In fact, he soon began giving 20 percent of his income to the Lord, then he raised it to 30 percent, then to 40 percent, then to 50 percent. And late in his life, he had become so successful that he devoted the whole of his yearly income—100 percent of it—to the Lord.
“And even today, this very morning, nearly two hundred years later, some of you brushed your teeth or washed your faces with products from that young man’s factory.” [Robert J. Morgan, Nelson’s Complete Book of Stories, Illustrations, and Quotes, electronic ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2000), 344.]
William Colgate was clearly a man who understood one of the great biblical principle of giving — that God blesses people in proportion to the degree to which they bless others.
In fact, I think we could probably conclude that William Colgate was a hilarious giver.
Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he was the funniest guy in the soap business. Maybe he was, and maybe he wasn’t. Hilarious giving is about something else, and we’ll see what it means as we study through chapters 8 and 9 of the book of 2 Corinthians this morning.
Now, as you turn to this passage, let me warn you that this will be something of a whirlwind tour. Normally, I take time to walk you, verse by verse, through a passage, and maybe we will do that sometime in the future during a study of 2 Corinthians.
But today, as part of this short series on thanksgiving and stewardship, I want simply to hit the high points of the Apostle Paul’s longest lesson on stewardship, so we’re going to bounce through this passage, rather than taking it step by step.
So, let me set things up for you. Paul spent about five years during his ministry collecting money from the churches in Asia for the support of the mother church in Jerusalem.
Things were hard for everybody, but they were especially hard for the believers in Jerusalem. Christians there were ostracized by the Jews, and that meant that it was especially hard for them to earn a living.
Additionally, a famine had come upon Palestine around 46 A.D., and Jewish Christians in Jerusalem had to pay a double tax — one to Rome and another to the Jewish authorities. And finally, as the first Christian church, the one in Jerusalem likely had a large number of teachers, missionaries, and visitors to support. [Constable, Tom. Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible. Galaxie Software, 2003.]
So, from a social and an economic perspective, things were very hard for Christians in Jerusalem, and Paul had spent time at each of the churches he planted or visited talking about the needs in Jerusalem and the opportunity the churches in Asia had to return the blessing they had received when they heard the gospel by sending support back to Jerusalem.
Remember, we are blessed so that we can bless others.
Now, this wasn’t the first time Paul had written to the church in Corinth about the needs in Jerusalem. He mentioned it in passing in 1 Cor 16, which suggests he probably had talked about it with them personally when he had been in Corinth.
And it seems that they had begun their collection at some time previous to his writing this letter that we know as 2 Corinthians.
But for some reason, they had stopped this collection, and word had gotten back to Paul that this was but one of many problems within the church there.
So, he devoted the whole of chapters 8 and 9 to explaining for them the reasons that Christians are called to be generous — and not just generous, but hilariously generous.
Instead of simply bearing down on them with his apostolic authority, though, he started this teaching by giving two examples of great generosity.
The first example was that of the church in Macedonia. Look at verse 1 of chapter 8.
2 Corinthians 8:1–5 (NASB95)
Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints, and this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God.
Now, what I want you to notice is that there were three characteristics that marked the giving of this church in Macedonia.
First, they gave sacrificially. Look how Paul describes the situation at that church. They were experiencing a “great ordeal of affliction.” They were in “deep poverty.”
This wasn’t a wealthy church, and it wasn’t a church that was sitting on a big rainy-day fund. This was a church that had little to give, and so they might have been expected to GIVE little to the much larger church in Jerusalem.
But HOW did they give?
Look at what Paul says. They gave “not as we expected,” or literally “not as we had hoped.” They didn’t even give “according to their ability.” No, they gave “beyond their ability.”
Now, this kind of giving flies in the face of sound financial management. Instead of relying on the advice of their financial planners, this church chose, instead to rely on the advice of Jesus, who said:
“Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.”
This kind of giving requires faith — faith that God will provide for your needs. This is the faith that remembers what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, when He reminded His disciples that the same Father who ensures that the lilies of the field are clothed in beauty will provide for those who love Him and pursue His righteous Kingdom.
“Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
So, the first characteristic of giving by the Macedonian church was that they gave sacrificially in faith that God would provide bountifully.
And the second characteristic was that their giving was not under compulsion — indeed, it was by their own initiative.
Look what Paul says in verse 4. The Macedonians “gave of their own accord.” They were “begging us with much urging for the favor” of participating in this collection for the church in Jerusalem.
Now, that phrase, “favor of participation” can also be translated as “gracious fellowship.” So, the church in Macedonia saw their giving as an opportunity to extend gracious fellowship to their brothers and sisters in Jersualem.
Having experienced the grace of God in salvation, they now wanted to extend grace to the suffering believers in Jerusalem by sending them money to help them meet their needs.
And their generosity seems to have surprised Paul, who wrote in verse 5 that it wasn’t as he and the others with him had expected. Probably, they well knew the poverty of the Macedonian church, and because of it, they did not expect or press for a large contribution.
But that church understood that they had been blessed so that they could bless others, and the way they could bless those who had blessed them by sending Paul to them with the good news of salvation was by giving back to them “beyond their ability.”
So, this church gave sacrificially, and it gave without being compelled to do so.
And that leads us to the third characteristic of its giving. This church was willing to give sacrificially because it had first given itself to God.
We see that in verse 5. Do you see it there?
They had dedicated themselves to the Lord, and they had dedicated themselves to the teaching of Paul, and they had done so by the will of God.
In other words, they understood that their generosity was in keeping with God’s will, that in being generous they were being obedient to God and to Paul’s teaching.
“When people give themselves totally to the Lord and to His servants, their hearts are already open toward others in need. Meeting the needs of others is really service for Christ.” [Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), 2 Co 8:3.]
When Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment, what did He say?
And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment.
But what did He say next?
“The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
Jesus could have stopped with “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” But He didn’t, and I believe the reason He didn’t stop there is because it isn’t possible to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind if you do not love your neighbor as yourself.
We are called to love those whom God loves. And whom does God love? God so loved the WORLD, right?
So, if you are a follower of the Christ who gave His life so that WHOSOEVER believes in Him will have eternal life, then you should have a heart that is tender for those who are hurting, and especially for those within His church who are hurting.
The church in Macedonia clearly had such tender hearts for their brothers and sisters in Jerusalem, so they were the first example of hilarious giving that Paul gave in this passage.
But there’s an even greater example, and we see that in verse 9.
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.
So, first we had the example of the Macedonian church, which had given sacrificially out of its poverty. But now we have the example of Jesus who gave up the riches of His glory in heaven to become a man and then die on a cross so that those who believe in Him could share in His glory.
His sacrifice on that cross at Calvary meant that we who are poor in spirit — in other words, we who are spiritually bankrupt and can offer nothing to God that would put Him in our debt — can now become adopted sons and daughters of God through faith in Jesus and His atoning sacrifice on our behalf.
He who knew no sin became sin — He took on the sins of mankind and their just punishment — so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus traded His glory in heaven for the naked shame of death on a cross so that through faith in Him, we whose shame He bore on that cross could be clothed in His righteousness and receive the gift of eternal life — life in the presence of the Father and the Son the way it was always intended to be.
The financial sacrifice of the Macedonian church was a great one, but it paled in comparison to the physical and spiritual sacrifice of Jesus.
But there’s a reason Paul gave both examples here, and I think that reason was to show that sacrificial, hilarious giving is the responsibility of all who follow Jesus, whether they are rich or poor.
The Corinthian church — much like our own — would have fit somewhere in between, and the message is clear. We who follow Jesus Christ in faith are called to be people who give sacrificially, people who give without compulsion, and people who give from their finances because we have first given ourselves completely to God.
Now, Paul returns to a couple of these characteristics of Christian giving in chapter 9. Look at verse 6.
Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
Do you see that? Don’t give grudgingly or under compulsion. We’ll come back to verse 6 in a minute, but I want to make a couple of other points before we do.
“God loves a cheerful giver.” The Greek word that’s translated as “cheerful” here means hilarious. This doesn’t mean that you’re impulsive or thoughtless about your giving, but that you give with great joy, that giving back to God the blessings He has given you makes you happy and joyful — perhaps even giddy.
Are those the emotions you experience when you write your tithe check each week? Is that how you feel when you drop your envelope in the bucket or offering plate?
Shouldn’t the knowledge that when you give you are directly working to advance the kingdom of heaven here on earth make you feel a little giddy? Shouldn’t it fill us with joy to know that God will use our paltry gifts to bring glory to Himself by bringing others to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ?
If those things don’t make you a hilarious giver, then perhaps this will. Look at verse 8.
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed;
This verse just floors me. Seriously. I’m amazed at the abundance of alls and everys in this verse.
Guess what happens when we give hilariously, when we give sacrificially, without compulsion and because we’ve given ourselves completely to God.
He gives us ALL the grace we need — abounding grace — so that we have ALL sufficiency — all contentment — and an ABUNDANCE of opportunities to do even more good.
That’s just amazing to me.
What Paul is saying here is that “the righteous person who desires to give to the needs of others will not lack opportunity to do so because God will make this possible.” [Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), 2 Co 9:8.]
Remember what Paul wrote in verse 6 about sowing and reaping? He returns to this thought in verse 10.
Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness; you will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God.
If you are giving to God’s work — if this CHURCH is giving to God’s work — He will not only replace the seeds we have planted, He will MULTIPLY them and INCREASE the harvest of your righteousness.
Friends, you cannot out-give God. I dare you to try. Seriously, I dare you.
In fact, I want to challenge you to try, but not because you want God to make you rich. That’s the message of prosperity preachers, and I am categorically not one of them.
We are blessed so we can bless others. I want you to try to out-give God because you want to increase the harvest of your righteousness, because you want more opportunities to give, because you’re a hilarious giver who derives joy from seeing God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
In fact, today, I want to issue a challenge to this church.
But before I do, I want to remind you of something. A couple of years ago, we were in pretty a pretty dire situation financially.
We had a checking account that was hovering far too close to zero. We had significant repairs that needed to be done around the building that were going to deplete our reserves. And in the process of shoring up our finances, we eliminated a couple of positions.
Around that same time, we agreed as a church to renew our commitment to giving a tithe — 10 percent — of the church’s income, right off the top, to missions and evangelism.
And then, during the past two years or so, something wonderful happened. Suddenly, as you’ll hear later, our checking account has a solid surplus. We have money in the trustees’ account that we can use for other needed repairs.
All this happened during a global pandemic, while church attendance dwindled. And it all happened without us going back on our financial commitment to missions and evangelism. In fact, we spent more reaching out to the community and the world with the love of Christ than we have in anyone’s recent memory.
Certainly this is the result of faithful giving from church members, but more than that it was the result of God’s faithfulness to that promise Jesus made — that those who give generously will have poured back in their laps “a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over.”
So today, I want to challenge this church to stretch out in faith the way that William Colgate did, the way the church in Macedonia did.
Today, I want to challenge the church to commit to doubling its contribution to missions and evangelism, which are the true mission of the church.
We have been giving a tithe toward the work of God. Let’s give a sacrificial offering to that work. Let’s be hilarious givers, and let’s see what God does with that.
I dare you.