Poverty to Riches

2 Corinthians 8:1-9

Is it fair to say that many people in our society think that all the church is interested in is your money? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that from people, particularly as I’m doing evangelism calls and things like that. Yeah, I’m not going, all they want is my money. And in a way, I don’t blame them because what you see on TV, you see the Joel O’Steens, and you see the other preachers on TV who are spending way too much time talking about money, way too much time talking about it in a way that’s not biblically accurate. And unfortunately, with the end result, usually the preacher becomes rich. Yeah, how do you think that goes over with most people? Not very well. So here’s the temptation. The temptation is for Christian pastors to avoid the subject of money completely. Make sense? I want to make sure you know I’m not just interested in your money. I’m interested in your soul. I want you to go to heaven. So because of that, I’m not going to talk about money issues whatsoever. That’s a problem. We need to get back to the middle. Why so? First of all, because the Bible talks about money a decent amount of times. And why does it do that? It’s because money things get to people’s hearts. Luther one time said it this way. I’m convinced that the pocketbook is the last part of a person to be converted. And I think Luther’s right. Why? Because giving offerings to the Lord or even the way we use our money in general, but particularly bringing offerings to the Lord, forces us to ask the question, who or what do you trust? I got a lot of bills coming up this month. I’ve got a retirement I need to fund. The economy is just in such wacky shape. Who knows what’s going to happen and all this tariff talk, I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Maybe I better cut back on my offerings. Who or what do we trust? Oh, that’s a challenging question, isn’t it? By the way, this is why I don’t like talking about offering amounts or offerings in general under the seventh commandment, you shall not steal. That’s often where it gets talked about. I much prefer talking about offerings under the first commandment. This is really a first commandment issue. You shall have no other gods. And the way we use our money really forces us to come to grips with and think about that question, who or what is my God? Amen? But it’s hard, isn’t it? I’ve got this and this and this and this and this is so unstable. This is such a big question mark. You are right. I’m still going to bring my offering. Is it fair to say that on a lot of occasions as you slip that offering amount into the — what do we call those things that we pass around? I don’t even know what they’re called. The offering holders, we’ll call it that. As we put our offering amount into there, that a part of us is saying, “Man, I don’t know how I’m going to make it this month. Man, I don’t know if I should have done that. Maybe I should void that check.” True? And that’s why every single one of us has work to do on this whole issue because every one of us struggles to trust God 100%. We just do. If you say you don’t, you’re lying because the reality is each of us has that sinful side to us that doesn’t trust God, that hates God, that wants nothing to do with God. And so every one of us struggles in this area of financial giving and particularly giving back to the Lord the way we use our finances. Now please don’t hear me wrong. Does God say it’s wrong for you to plan for the future? No. God in fact urges us to plan for the future. Is it wrong for us to do things like save up for some purchase that needs to be made or to save up for our retirement? No. In fact, God would suggest that those things are wise and can be even very God-pleasing. But at the end of the day, who does God want to be first in our lives? Him. And so at the end of the day, giving offerings back to the Lord should be absolutely number one on our plate. As we come to our text, we hear Paul talking about it to the people in Corinth. And he uses the Macedonian Christians as an example of that. Probably people from Philippi, possibly Thessalonica, maybe Berea, we’re not exactly sure. All of those are in the region of Macedonia. And did you catch how he talked about it? We want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Should back up just a quick minute. What was going on? What was going on is that the believers around Jerusalem were really struggling. Probably because of a famine, something, there might have been some persecution that was ramping up and becoming more intense, but it probably was because of a famine. And so what Paul was doing was he was gathering up an offering from the Gentile believers primarily because most of the churches in Europe and in Asia were primarily Gentile. He was gathering up an offering from them to take back to Jerusalem so that the Christians in those areas who had enough could help the Christians in the Jerusalem area who didn’t have enough physically. And so that’s what’s going on. And now he’s urging them to bring that offering to completion. Brothers and sisters, we want to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. The what? The grace. It’s the exact same Greek word that’s used for God’s wonderful undeserved love for you and for me. Why in the world should God love a sinner like me? He shouldn’t. But he does. That’s grace. That God simply loves us because he has chosen to love us. That’s grace. And the fact that these Macedonian believers and you have even any interest in giving back offerings to the Lord is because of God’s grace. And the fact that you have an interest in giving offerings back to the Lord means that God’s grace has been poured out upon you. And that part of the grace he has given to you and to me is that we are now first and foremost interested in the things of God, not the things of human beings. That’s grace. And so the fact that you and I even get to give offerings to the Lord is an aspect of God’s wonderful grace to us. And by the way, you’ll notice that through this text, that word grace occurs a couple more times. That God wants to emphasize that this is part of his love for you and me. And oh, by the way, it wasn’t that the people in Macedonia were loaded. Did you hear how Paul described it there? He talks about them being impoverished. He talks about them having great need. And yet what did they do? They came and begged Paul for the opportunity to take part in this offering. All right. How many of us do you think would have begged to be able to bring offerings to the Lord? Isn’t that incredible that they begged for the opportunity to bring offerings to the Lord? What incredible grace from God that they begged to be able to do this. Lord Jesus, fill us with that sense of willingness. Amen. Amen. For sure, for sure. But the key thought or one of the key thoughts comes in verse five. They exceeded our expectations. They gave themselves first of all to the Lord. And in the Greek, the word themselves is in the emphatic position. What is God really interested in? Does God really care if you write a check? Does God really care if you drop cash into an offering envelope? Does God really care if you have money deducted from your account and electronically sent as an offering? Does God need it? No. God’s fine. But what does he want? He wants your heart and he wants my heart. Did you ever wonder why our ushers bring our offerings up to the front and put them on the altar as a part of our worship? It’s meant to symbolize this, that we bring our offerings to the front and we put them on the altar because we’re wanting to symbolically say, “God, this is yours. Please do with it as you see fit.” But it’s meant to be a picture of something much bigger. It’s meant to be a picture of this, “God, I am yours. God lead me to give myself 100% totally and completely to you. God may the deeds that I do be deeds that you would have me do. God may the words that I say be words that you would have me say. God may the thoughts that I think be thoughts that you would have me think. God lead me to give myself to you.” And hopefully, as our ushers bring those offerings all the way and put them up to the front, and by the way, we don’t have the pastor take it. Why? Because this is a God thing. It’s not a pastor thing. Make sense? But this comes from each of us and it is given to God. What would be the best is if each one of us came up to the front and put our offering on the altar ourselves, right? We do that on Thanksgiving evening. I like doing that on Thanksgiving evening as a reminder of that truth. But that’d be a bit of a logistical nightmare. So we have our ushers do it for us. But in reality, it’s meant to be a picture, “Lord, I give myself to you.” And why in the world would we do that? Look at the last verse of our text. 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. Jesus was up there in heaven. He had all things under his control. He owned the universe and all that is in it. And yet he became a babe wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. He became an adult wrapped in burial cloths and laid in a tomb. He became poor. Could he have become any more poor than that? I think not. Why did he become poor? So you through his poverty might become rich. Oh not necessarily rich in regards to financial stuff. God doesn’t promise that. What he does promise is that you are rich in regards to his forgiving love. It has been poured out richly upon you. You are rich in knowing that you are the children of God because you were baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and became children of the most high God, inheritors of the most wealthy person that there is. You became richly fed because God feeds you with himself, his true body, and his true blood. That you can know the depth of his forgiving love for you and for me. You become rich knowing that when you leave this world you will enter into the glories of heaven. In every way that it matters, you are rich. And so what is God’s desire? I think you guys have seen these before, haven’t you? They’re based on Romans 12.1 but the thought of our text is exactly the same thought. In view of God’s mercy and where does God’s mercy show itself the most clearly? Is it not at the cross? Why did Jesus go to the cross? Because he loves you and he loves me and he loves the world. In view of God’s mercy, what does God desire? God desires that we now offer ourselves to him as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God. Doesn’t it make sense to do it? Of course, it does! Because God became poor for our sake so that you and I could become rich. And so again, what would God like to see in us? He would like to see the deeds that we do be thank you’s to God for the deeds he has done for us. God would love to hear the words that we use be words that are words of thanks for the words he has spoken to us. God would like the thoughts that we think to be thank you’s to God for the wonderful thoughts he has thought about us and even chosen to tell us about. And wouldn’t it make sense that generous offerings would be a part of that? Of course, it does. Should the church talk about money? Absolutely. But why? Because it’s this wonderful opportunity for you and for me to say thank you to the God who has loved us so richly. He became poor so that you and I through his poverty might become rich. And oh, you are so rich. Amen? And Amen.