In his poem “Love Constrained to Obedience,” William Cowper describes the transforming power of the gospel, speaking primarily of the gospel’s ability to transform our motives. Three of the stanzas are as follows:
How long beneath the law I lay in bondage and distress. I toiled the precepts to obey, but toiled without success.
Then all my servile works were done, a righteousness to raise. Now freely chosen in the Son, I freely choose his ways.
To see the law by Christ fulfilled, to hear his pardoning voice, changes a slave into a child and duty into choice.
“Duty into choice.” That’s what 2 Corinthians 8-9 can do to our perspective on generosity. My goal is to stir your heart to see giving, not as something you have to do, but something you get to do.
Here is a brief review of the background of these two chapters: Paul had initiated a collection among some of the Gentile churches that he had planted for the purpose of relieving economic suffering of believers in Jerusalem. After he had written to the church in Corinth to begin the work of collecting money in their worship gatherings (in 1 Corinthians 16), Paul’s relationship with the Corinthians had deteriorated due to the influence of false teachers in Corinth. Now, as he writes 2 Corinthians, Paul has just heard from Titus that the Corinthians had responded well to another letter that Paul sent them (one that we do not have), and so now in these chapters he is calling on them to resume the work for the collection. His main point throughout these two chapters (and thus the main point for this sermon series) is this: abound in the grace of gospel-driven generosity. Last time, we saw in 8:1-7 that Paul appealed to the Corinthians to give to the collection by using the unexpected, sacrificial, and heroic giving of the poor Macedonian churches as an example.
As we see in this section (8:8-15), Paul is anticipating possible misunderstandings of what he has said, leading him to make three qualifications. His first qualification is this: “I am not commanding you; I am proving the genuineness of your love.” His second qualification is: “I do not expect you to give heroically but just to fulfill your intentions.” His third qualification is: “I am not burdening you to relieve others, but seeking equality.”
We saw four characteristics of gospel-driven generosity in vv. 1-7. These three qualifications will demonstrate three more characteristics. May they also encourage us to abound in a generosity fueled, not by duty, but by choice, because of the transforming power of the gospel.
So, to remind you: Paul’s first qualification to what he said in vv. 1-7 comes in vv. 8-9, where he says, “I am not commanding you; I am proving the genuineness of your love.” This leads us to the first characteristic of gospel-driven generosity from this passage:
At Augustine School, where I teach, we have rules. But as students get older, the rules begin to ease off more and more. For example, lower-school students are required to walk down the hall in a single-file line with hands behind their backs. By the time they reach the upper school, we give them the freedom to walk down the hall in whatever way they want, so long as it is orderly and courteous. We could impose a rule that would ensure orderliness, but our goal is not to program robots who don’t know how to do anything without instructions. It is to form mature people. And maturity can only be attained with greater freedom.
Paul, knowing that he is seeking, not robotic, servile obedience, but instead spiritual maturity, says in verse 8a: “I say this not as a command.” He is not requiring the Corinthians to participate in the collection for the Jerusalem church. He does not want their participation to arise grudgingly, out of a mere sense of obligation. So then, what is he doing? He is proving the genuineness of their love, as he says in 8b: “[I say this not as a command], but to prove by the earnestness of others [the Macedonians’ example] that your love also is genuine.” He has brought up the Macedonians as an example of genuine love in order to inspire the Corinthians to demonstrate that they too have genuine love—love for God, for Paul himself, and for their suffering brothers in Jerusalem.
Paul does not command them because he is confident that the work of the gospel in them will produce fruit. In Galatians 5:6 he writes, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” It is very important to get the order right there: faith works through love. Faith—trust in God’s promise to us in the gospel—is the engine that drives love. That is what it does! So Paul writes to a church that has received the gospel in faith with the confidence that such faith will lead them to act in love in this situation.
It is important for you to recognize that your giving to the church is an act of love. Think about what your money does: it helps pay the bills for the cost of this building, for the cost of maintaining it, and for supplying it with utilities. Every member of this church benefits from these things, so when you give, you are not allowing other members to carry the burden of those costs without you. Furthermore, your money helps pay for the ministry of the Word to continue here, because it supports Lee and Tom and their families. It enables them to devote their energy and focus to the tasks we have asked them to do, and they do these tasks well. Your money also helps keep our storehouse fund supplied so that church members who have financial needs can have those needs met. Your money supports the work of church planting in the major cities of North America. It supports ministries to the poor here in Jackson. And through the Cooperative Program of the Southern Baptist Convention, your money aids in the spread of the gospel around the world. Now, when you drop a check into the offering plate as it comes by, it may not feel like you are doing anything special. It may feel like you are doing something ordinary and perfunctory. But you are investing, not just money, but a portion of your life—the fruit of time and energy that you invested to earn it—so that these various ministries can continue. You are giving up the opportunity to enrich yourself with that money for the purpose of enriching others. That is not ordinary, and it is certainly not perfunctory.
Paul goes on in verse 9 to begin with the word “For.” This word indicates a connection between verses 8 and 9, a connection that can be explained like this: “I want to prove the genuineness of your love, and now I am going to show you what genuine love looks like.” So Paul writes 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 by his poverty might become rich.” Having appealed already to the example of the Macedonians in vv. 1-5, Paul now appeals to the example of Christ himself.
There is so much here. Paul appeals to the grace of Christ demonstrated in his incarnation and submission to death, which was the purpose of the incarnation. When Paul writes, “though he was rich,” he refers to the preexistence of Christ. That means that, prior to being born in Bethlehem, the Son of God existed, as Paul says elsewhere in Philippians 2:6, “in the form of God.” That means he was fully God himself, sharing from eternity past in the joy of the inner life of the Trinity. There is no wealth imaginable greater than what the eternal Son of God had prior to his incarnation, as he existed in the closest fellowship imaginable with the Father and the Spirit. And though he was rich, Paul says, “he became poor.” Here Paul refers to the incarnation of the Son of God for the purpose of giving up his life in the shame and humiliation of the cross. This was not an act of divesting himself of his divine nature. He remains fully God forever. It was an act of adding a human nature to his divine nature so that he could experience death as a man. And he did this, as Paul says to the Corinthians, “for your sake.” These are the words Paul is emphasizing, demonstrating to the Corinthians that they are on the receiving end of the greatest love imaginable. The eternal Son of God gave up the riches of his preexistent glory, and became a man so that he could die in the place of his people, suffering under the wrath of God that they deserved. And why did he do all this? “So that you by his poverty might become rich.” Christ, the wealthy one, voluntarily submitted himself to poverty, in order to raise us, who were already in poverty, to share in his wealth. Paul speaks here of the riches of salvation: the forgiveness of sins, justification, reconciliation with God, and all of the blessings of the Spirit. Verse 9 speaks of an interchange that echoes what Paul had previously said in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Or, as P. E. Hughes commented on verse 9: “From highest Heaven He descended to Calvary and to the grave. None was richer than He; none became poorer than He.”
Paul is not browbeating the Corinthians into giving with law. He doesn’t even command them to give at all. He appeals to them through the gospel. This is because Paul knows that it is the gospel that transforms hearts. And because the gospel transforms hearts, true generosity will be gospel-driven generosity. Let us give in imitation of the self-giving love of Christ. Giving from a heart made new by the gospel is an act of genuine love.
Paul goes on to make another qualification to what he has said in vv. 1-7. This qualification comes in vv. 10-12, where he says, in essence, “I do not expect you to give heroically, but merely to fulfill your intentions.” And that leads us to a second characteristic:
As the old saying goes, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” If you find your heart stirred by what Paul says in these chapters, it is important that you not merely develop a vague intention about giving, but that you actually follow through and give.
In verse 10 Paul says, “And in this matter I give my judgment: this benefits you, who a year ago started not only to do this work but also to desire to do it.” Paul speaks of his “judgment” here, which is a word he typically uses to refer to a non-binding opinion, more on the level of good advice. He says that his judgment, or advice, is good for the Corinthians. In what sense is it good for them? He mentions that in the previous year they had begun the work of the collection, but apparently it had stalled when the friction arose between them and Paul. So Paul’s aim is for them to fulfill their original intention. He wants them to bring their generosity to fruition. This will be good, he says, for the Corinthians themselves. It will mean that at the final judgment they will have a fruitful work of love to adorn them instead of a good intention that they once had but then abandoned.
But notice something very interesting at the end of verse 10. Paul has a “not only/but also” statement. Whenever you have one of those, it is always the “but also” part that is greater. For example, someone might say, “Not only could Nolan Ryan throw a fastball over 100 mph, but he could also do so well into his 40’s.” The second statement carries more weight than the first. It is a bit surprising, then, that Paul says in verse 10 that the Corinthians are those “who a year ago started not only to do this work but also to desire to do it.” In other words, Paul places the desiring above the doing. Why? It is because, when it comes to giving, the heart is the most important factor. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:3, “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” So Paul is well aware of the possibility that people might give out a mere sense of duty, without any real underlying desire to do so. But not so with the Corinthians. In the previous year, not only had they begun to do the work of the collection, but they had done so with their hearts fully engaged.
But while desiring is the most important factor, desiring without doing is not enough. The Corinthians had stalled in the work, so Paul encourages them in verse 11: “So now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have.” He wants them to fulfill their original intentions. But why does he add, “out of what you have”?
Keep in mind that Paul has just extolled the Macedonians for giving out of their poverty, even beyond their means. The Macedonians, in other words, had given heroically, more than they could afford to give by human calculations. Paul is telling the Corinthians that he does not mean that he expects them to give in the same way as the Macedonians, as though he will be pleased with nothing less. He says he wants them to give out of what they have, according to what they had originally planned to give. Verse 12 goes on to say, “For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.” That word “acceptable” is a priestly term, often used of a sacrifice or offering that is pleasing to the Lord in the context of priestly worship. Paul is saying to the Corinthians, “You don’t have to rise to the level of the Macedonians in order to please God. Give out of what you have, which is what you intended to do last year, and this will please him.” In other words, let the work of your hands match your heart.
Perhaps you heard the previous sermon in this series, and you heard about how the Macedonians had given out of their poverty, yet they gave beyond their means, and your thought was, “I don’t think I’m ready to step out on faith that far and give money to the church that I might otherwise need to pay my monthly utility bill.” And I want you to know something: that is okay. God gifts us in different ways, and even in our own lives at different times. Some of us are called to give heroically at times, and some of us are called simply to give generously, regularly, and intentionally. And God is pleased with both. If you are thinking, “I’m not ready to give beyond my means,” don’t let that keep you from giving according to your means. You can present to God an act of love that will be an acceptable offering to him and that will bear fruit for his kingdom.
So how can you be intentional so as to make sure that what is in your heart eventually works its way out to what you do with your hands? Here is my advice (not a rule, just advice): live by a budget. A budget is a tool that you can use to ensure that you retain mastery over your money instead of allowing money to master you. A budget is a way of telling your money where it is going to go in advance. When I set up a family budget every month, I make a column for expenses. I always put what I am going to give to Cornerstone first, followed immediately by what I will give to other ministries. I want my budget to reflect a priority of giving. If you live by a budget and make giving a priority in your budget, then you will be a regular and faithful giver. If you have never lived by a budget before, I know there are numerous people here today who can help you learn how to set one up and manage it. Talk to your small group, ask around, or come to one of the pastors, and somebody will be able to make sure you get connected to a church member who will be glad to work with you.
However you do it, make sure you don’t allow good intentions to fizzle into fruitlessness. Paul prayed for the Thessalonian believers in 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul knew that the Spirit would produce in the church many resolutions to do good. He prays that the Spirit would likewise bring those resolutions to fulfillment through action. May it be so for us as well. Gospel-driven generosity is a matter of the heart and the hands.
Paul makes one more qualifying statement in this passage. He tells the Corinthians, “I am not burdening you to relieve others, but I am seeking equality.” So that brings us to a third characteristic:
Many governments have sought to impose, through Marxist ideology, a form of economic equality on their societies: the former Soviet Union, Vietnam, Cuba, and to a lesser degree, China, and European welfare states. It has never worked. Economic equality cannot be imposed by force. Once the major producers in a society realize that the more they produce, the lower percentage of their production they will be allowed to keep, guess what they do? They produce less, making the economy shrink. And on the other side, once a whole segment of able-bodied people in a society realizes that they can live on what the government takes from others and gives to them without having to earn anything for themselves, their incentive to work is also reduced, shrinking the economy even further but maximizing dependence. This is why Marxism does not work.
But what if you had a group of people whose hearts were transformed by the gospel, such that those who were able to earn more were more than happy to give large amounts away? And what if those who had needs were filled with gratitude for what they received, yet eager to work if they were able, and concerned to avoid accepting more than they needed? As a philosophy, Marxism is failure. But the ideal toward which it strives—greater economic equality—is something that can actually be approximated in the church. I don’t mean that the church should be a commune where there is no such thing as private property. I mean that the church should be a place where no genuine economic need ever goes unmet because of the willingness of believers to share with one another.
Beginning in verse 13, Paul switches his discussion from the Corinthians and the Macedonians to the Corinthians and the Jerusalem church. He anticipates an objection from the Corinthians that, by asking them to give to relieve the brothers in Jerusalem, he is asking them to bring hardship on themselves so that others may be relieved. But that is not Paul’s aim, as he says in verses 13-14: “For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness.” In what sense does Paul envision mutual sharing between Jews and Gentiles in Christ? It could be that he means that the Corinthians can bring financial relief to the Jews right now and, if the tables are ever turned, the Jews will be there to provide financial relief to the Corinthians in their time of need. But more likely, I think Paul envisions the Gentiles supplying a physical need for Jerusalem through their money while he envisions Jerusalem providing for the spiritual needs of the Gentile churches through spiritual fellowship, support, and prayer for them. As Paul will say of the Jerusalem church later in 9:13-14, “By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission flowing from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others, while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you.”
And, as Paul makes clear elsewhere, Gentile believers have already received spiritual benefits from Israel. Romans 9-11 makes clear that if Gentiles are going to be saved, it is only by being grafted into the people of Israel. This does not occur through circumcision and living under the Jewish Law. It occurs through faith in Israel’s Messiah, Jesus Christ. In him, we Gentiles have become the children of Abraham, partakers of all of the promises made to Israel. So, just a few months after writing 2 Corinthians, Paul will say to the church at Rome, speaking of his collection again in Romans 15:26-27: “For Macedonia and Achaia [that includes the Corinthians!] have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. For they were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings.” Though we are Gentiles far removed in space and time from the Jew-Gentile issues of the first-century church, may we never forget that we have been saved, not by replacing Israel, but by being incorporated into Israel. As fellow children of Abraham, Jewish and Gentile believers have equal standing in Christ.
But the Jew-Gentile issue is not one of direct concern for what we do with our money today. How, then, can we demonstrate equality in Christ through what we do with our money? We can remember that one reason God blesses us is so that we may bless our fellow believers in need. Ephesians 4:28 says, “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” As you seek to advance yourself economically, let that be one of the goals you keep in mind: I want to earn more so that I will have more to give away as a blessing to my brothers and sisters and as a visible demonstration of our equality in Christ.
God will supply the needs of his people. That is the point of the verse Paul quotes from Exodus 16:18 in verse 15 of our passage: “As it is written, ‘Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.’” The context of this quote from Exodus is the beginning of the supply of manna—bread from heaven—to the Israelites when they came out of Egypt and were wandering through the desert on their way to the Promised Land. They were commanded to gather manna every morning when it was available, and God told them to gather only as much as they needed for that day. Any they kept overnight would spoil. So he told them to gather so much for each individual in the family. So, those with larger families gathered more, and those with smaller families gathered less, but at the end of the day, they all had just enough to support them for that day. God supplied the needs of his people equitably under the old covenant as they made their way to their promised inheritance. Paul is telling us with this quote that God will supply all of our needs as well as we make our way to our heavenly inheritance. But the implication of his teaching in this passage is that one of the ways he will supply our needs under the new covenant will be through our sharing with one another.
I commend the practice of saving. It is wise to have money set aside for emergencies. It is also wise to invest a portion of your income for a future day when you may not be able to work in order to support yourself. And while I commend you for doing this, I also want you to beware of the danger of hoarding. Hoarding fosters idolatry and promotes inequality. It concentrates money in your own hands and ignores the needs of your fellow believers. Do not prioritize saving and investing for the future over giving. Do not seek to accumulate a retirement fund that would far exceed anything you would need to live on during your years of retirement. If you do that, you will leave too much money on the table that could have been used to enrich the lives of others. When Jesus taught us to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven rather than on earth, he said in Matthew 6:21, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” What does this mean? You might expect him to say, “Where your heart is, there will your treasure be also.” But he reverses the expectation. And I think what Jesus means is that your heart will naturally follow your biggest investment. If you are most invested in this world, your heart will be drawn to the things of this world. But if you are most invested in the age to come, there will your heart be. With our money, let us give testimony to the power of the gospel in forming a new humanity of diverse people who are equals in Christ and, thus, eager to share with one another.
So let us abound in the grace of gospel-driven generosity. Let us demonstrate genuine love in doing so. Let us connect the desires of our heart with the acts of our hands. Let us pursue a visible demonstration of our spiritual equality in Christ by giving of our abundance to supply the needs of fellow believers. There is a saying of Jesus that is not recorded in any of the four Gospels, but we do find it quoted by Paul in the book of Acts. In Paul’s words to the Ephesian elders, he quotes Jesus in Acts 20:35: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” I have been on the receiving end of your kindness numerous times. And I have to say that it is a blessed thing to receive as I have received. I am grateful for every act of kindness that you have done for me. And I’m sure you all know the same blessing of being the recipient of kindness from someone else in this body, or from the church as a whole. As wonderful as that is, Jesus says it is actually more blessed to give than to receive. How can that be? It is because when we give, we imitate the character of God, who has not only given us everything we have, but whose very nature, within the life of the Trinity, is turned outward in self-giving love. Giving from a heart of love is one of the most God-like acts you can perform.
And what kind of God is this? It is a God who gave his own Son over to death for us. If you have never trusted in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, call upon him. Know that he who was rich, who was eternally God, became poor by taking on a human nature and becoming a man. He lived a life without any sin, but he experienced the deepest depths of poverty by submitting himself to the shameful, humiliating death of crucifixion, and he did it for sinners. In that moment, he endured the wrath of the final judgment of God that is coming on the world, and he did it in the place of all who would believe in him. But the story does not end there. God raised him from the dead on the third day and exalted him to his right hand, so that all who believe in him will come to share in his riches. If you don’t know Christ, you are in spiritual poverty. Trust in him, and all of his riches are yours. Demonstrate your union with him in his death and resurrection by baptism.
If you are a believer who has testified of your faith in Christ publicly and are a member in good standing of a gospel-believing church, you are welcome to partake of the bread and the cup by which we remember the death of Christ for us. Eat and drink, knowing that in giving you the bread and the cup, Christ gives you himself. Come and welcome, to Jesus Christ.