422: Generous Self Interest | Dave Sloop

Introduction

Good morning, everyone. So good to be with you. If you are new or visiting with us, we are completing this long series that we've been doing for two weeks. Last week, we started this as a series on stewardship—how we manage the stuff that God has given to us. Last week, Tim talked to us about our time and our talent. What are we doing with the time that we have and the talents that God has given us? I loved that message. I loved it. One of the reasons I loved it the most is because his living illustration was you. He gave example after example of how people in this congregation have been freely giving of their time and their talent to bless the Blue Ridge fellows and this house that they were so richly given. I was even more so moved because I was listening to this sermon live on a beach at Saint Martin as I pondered all of the serving that you folks were doing. I vowed that I would come back and serve. So, Tim, we can talk about how I might offer some talent, but you can have some more time.

This week, you can probably guess, we talk about time, we talk about talent, and this week, we're going to talk about treasure. Now, I have to be honest with you. I knew that we were doing this series, and I wasn't that excited to talk about money, giving it away. I just know, like, if you guys got a bulletin in advance, and it said, come listen to a sermon on giving your money away, you might not have come today because that is just not everyone’s first choice. We'd rather come to church and hear about how we might love God more. I want to encourage you with something. Today's sermon is about loving God more. That is what I discovered as I prepared this week. I don't think I've ever been more convicted personally preparing for a message that I had to preach from right here. Jesus will not let us get away. He will not separate money, radical generosity from loving God. He will not let you do it. Did you know that? Do you know that 15% of all of Jesus's recorded words were about money? It is the topic he spoke about more than any other topic, more than heaven and hell combined.

What was it that Jesus understood about money that we don't? I want to start in kind of an unusual way today. I want to pray. And I'm going to pray that God would give us hearts to hear perhaps something. Maybe it's old, maybe it's new, but my prayer is that it would land on your heart in the way it landed on mine this week. Would you pray?

Father, we want to love You more. And it seems that Your word suggests that radical generosity is not only the evidence of our love, but it is also the recipe for how we can love You more. Would You make this sink deep into our hearts? We pray in Christ's name. Amen.

The Context of the Passage

We're going to be looking at 2 Corinthians 9. In the first service, I said First Corinthians. But it's actually 2 Corinthians 9. Originally, I had planned to teach through that entire, you know, eight or nine verses that we read. I think we're going to look at two, maybe three. There's a lot to get through.

Let me give you just brief context. Paul is about to come to Corinth, to the church there, and pick up a gift that had been previously promised. It was a generous gift. In fact, it was so generous that the promise of this gift had stirred up other churches to give generously too. And Paul, in anticipation of his arrival, he sends Titus and a couple others ahead to prepare the people to give what they had promised. He wanted to make sure that he didn't show up and be embarrassed, and that they would be embarrassed that they weren't ready. He didn't just want their gift. He wanted it to be given in the right spirit.

This passage that we're going to look at is about the motivation for radical generosity. In verse six, Paul is going to give us a perspective that if we adopt, he will also then give us a promise.

This is verse six. Let's read it together. It says:

The point is this—whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

What is the perspective Paul wanted them to have? Everyone to whom Paul was writing was a sower. What is a sower? A sower is someone who takes the seed in their hand and scatters it so that they could get back a harvest. Seeds in your hand—if you ever thought about this—they're useless. You can't eat them. They are potential, but they don't become beneficial until you lose them from your hand, and they can become a tree that produces not only fruit that you can eat and that others can eat, but also seeds that you can continue to spread.

Financial resources are obviously a metaphor for the seeds in their hand. In verse 10, Paul will make it abundantly clear that the seeds in your hand to be sown have been supplied by God. Here's the perspective: you're a sower, and you have been given financial resources—this is God speaking—from me. They're in your hand, and they are not meant to be kept. In fact, they're useless in your hand, but if you give them to me, I will do something with them. Everyone to whom Paul wrote was a sower. And can I tell you something? You are a sower. See what I did? Might be cheesy. We are sowers. And God, through Paul, is asking us to adopt a perspective. The perspective is this: everything that's in your hand is something that God put there. And we have an opportunity to do something with it that will create something far better than we could ever imagine. But the financial resources in our hand—they don't become beneficial until we lose it from our hand.

It feels and sounds counterintuitive, but to anyone who would be willing to adopt this perspective, there is a promise attached to it. I'm going to read it again. This is verse six:

Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly; and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

What is Paul saying? The more you give, the more you will get back. Do you believe that? I mean, deep down. Do you really?

Now, before we jump too quick to wanting to spiritualize away the money component of this—because that is the temptation, isn't it? Well, he must mean something else. He doesn't really mean that if I give him my money, he'll put more in my hand, does he? But before we jump too quick to spiritualizing money out of this verse, I want to read you a couple other verses. These are Jesus's words.

Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. — Luke 7:38

And how about God the Father?

Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house; and thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. — Malachi 3:10

Jesus, Paul, and God the Father—all talk about more than just spiritual blessings. They are talking about money.

Now, these verses are suggesting that if you would be willing to lose what's in your hand, I will put more back in it. I know these verses can and have been taken out of context by health, wealth, prosperity gospel folks that suggest this: if you give God a thousand dollars, he'll give you 10,000. If you give him 10,000, he'll give you 100, and then you can have a bigger house, a fancier car. Why? Because God wants you to be rich. It's a sign of His blessing. You shouldn't apologize for that. That is not what Paul is saying.

In verses 8 through 12—though we're not going to have the time to get to all of it today—he unpacks what he means by this promise. I want to read just one verse of it. This is verse 11:

You will be enriched in every way, to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.

What is he saying? If you freely give to God what he has put in your hand, he will put more in your hands so you can keep giving it back to him. That's what he means. Do you believe it? I mean, test me, he says. Do we take God at his word?

Giving with the Right Heart

To the degree that we are willing to trust that promise, God is going to produce—or at least invite us to take on—a new posture of generosity. Listen to what he says in verse seven:

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

If you take verses six and seven together, here is the negative side: here is how we are not supposed to feel and think about giving. It is not supposed to be sparingly, just a little bit. It is not supposed to be begrudgingly or reluctantly. It is not supposed to be under compulsion.

Does giving feel that way sometimes? I would be lying if I told you it doesn't feel like that to me. And if it does for you, as well as for me, here's what it means. It means that there are parts of our hearts that yet remain unaffected by the reality of the gospel. I don't say that to shame any of us. That's just the truth. If we're not taking God as His word, it's because there are parts of our hearts that we have cornered off, sectioned off, that we haven't quite given Him complete access to. We don't yet realize it's all His anyway. We don't trust that if we let go of it, He'll give it back—that's what it means.

But He gives us a posture. He invites us to take on this posture: one of intentionality, bountifulness, and cheerfulness. Read it again, verse seven:

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

First, He wants us to give intentionally. Can I make an observation? Giving generously to God will be a choice. I know that doesn't sound like rocket science, but let me put it another way, which might land a little differently. If we have not decided in advance how much or what percentage of our income, net worth, or wealth we're going to give away, here's what that means: it means we have decided passively that we are not going to.

Here's the point: we aren't going to stumble into radical generosity. You will know that you are doing it, and you will feel it. Because even though it is the natural byproduct of a heart transformed by the gospel, it is unnatural to give what is in your hand away. You will feel it. God wants us to give on purpose.

When is the last time you or, if you're married, you and your spouse sat down and asked, are we giving in a way that honors God? Would He have me let go of a little more? If this is a new habit for you—or if you're hearing me talk about this and you sense God is speaking to you—I want to give you a place to start. It's what the Bible calls the tithe. That means a tenth. And by the way, it means the first tenth before the government gets its piece. When God puts a hundred dollars in my hand, I immediately give Him ten.

Now, I want to acknowledge something. As soon as I say the word tithe, I don’t like that word. It carries with it a negative connotation, I think, for some. It might even sound legalistic. But maybe this is why it's uncomfortable for many—to hear a pastor on stage saying, give me your tithe. Can I promise you? This is not an appeal for the church's budget. I don’t want your money, neither does God.

What I am aiming for—and what God is unapologetically after—is your heart. And if He doesn't have your money, this might sound uncomfortable but it’s true: if He doesn't have your money, He won't have your heart. They are connected biblically. That is why God established the tithe. Not because He needs it—He owns everything. He can turn five loaves and two fish into food for thousands. He doesn't need our money. You and I need to give it away. And the more we do, the less it owns us. The more we do, the more our heart, as Jesus would say, moves toward what we give it to.

You want a recipe for loving God more? Start to give Him your money and watch your heart change. God wants you to decide on purpose. The second aspect of this new generosity posture is that it is bountiful. And I want to promise you, when Paul said bountiful, he was not thinking about the tithe. Did you know that biblically, the tithe was not even considered generosity? It was referred to in Malachi 3 as a debt owed to God. He actually says in Malachi 3, how can I bless you when you are robbing me? How are we robbing you? By withholding the tithe. Again, not trying to shame anyone, but this New Testament radical generosity—when Paul said bountiful, he wasn't talking about the 10%. The tithe is where we start, but it’s not where we stay. Because when the gospel grabs hold of your heart, something happens: Christ becomes more valuable to you than your stuff and possessions and money.

Think about some of the gospel encounters with Jesus. Think of Luke 7—the woman who broke that expensive bottle of perfume at Jesus' feet. It was foolish generosity. Some of the disciples, the Pharisee, they thought, we could’ve fed the poor for a year with that. But Jesus blessed her for it. Why? Because her heart had been transformed—she didn't care about her stuff anymore. She wanted to use her stuff to bless Him. Think about Zacchaeus. Do you remember what happened in Zacchaeus's life? He had an encounter with Jesus, and what did he say? His first instinct: he would give away half of what he had to the poor. And anyone he cheated, he would pay back four times.

Have you ever noticed the order of those two things? He didn't say, I’m going to pay back the poor or pay back the people I cheated with what's left over. He said, I’m going to give half to the poor, and then with what's left over, anyone I cheated—you're getting a 400% return. He must have been close to broke. You know what Jesus said after that?

Today, salvation has come to this house. — Luke 19:9

What was His point? His point was this: radical generosity is the hallmark of someone who has been transformed by Jesus. It is the natural byproduct. It just happens. Jesus said, I want you—I’m sorry—Paul said, I want you to give on purpose. I want you to give bountifully.

Can I tell you one more story? You know John Wesley? He lived in the early 1700s. He believed Christians ought to increase their standard of giving at least as much, if not more, than their standard of living. Is that challenging? He started his ministry making about 30 pounds a year—which would have been $20,000 to $30,000 today. He received 30 pounds, and he gave away 20. By the end of his ministry, he was making 1,600 pounds. Adjusted for inflation, that’s like 250,000 pounds now. You know what he was living off of? Those initial 30 pounds.

See, radical generosity doesn't just ask the question, God, how much do you want me to give? It’s willing to ask, God, how much should I keep? It’s all His. It’s how do you want me to live?

Giving with a Cheerful Heart

The third hallmark posture of generosity is cheerful. You know that word cheerful in Greek? You know what it means? Hilarion. That’s where we get the word hilarious. It’s an exuberant, spontaneous outburst of joy. God loves a cheerful giver. How do we begin to give like that?

Have you ever given in that way before, where you just burst with joy? I bet you have if you're a parent. I want to show you a video. This was Melissa and me unveiling to our children that they were going to Disney World tomorrow. Take a look.

Here you are. Stay close together.

Okay. So, we're changing rooms because this room is not close enough to what we're doing tomorrow. So, close your eyes. Nobody open their eyes. We're going to put something in front of you and see if you can guess. Do not open your eyes. Do not open your eyes. On the count of three, you can open your eyes and guess what we're doing tomorrow. Ready? One, two, three. Disney World? Yeah. What?

Guys, I get a little emotional every time I watch that video. Partially because it was such a fun memory, and partially because the trip to Disney World was just pure misery. It was awful. In fact, the night before, I couldn’t sleep. I was so excited about the reveal; Melissa was too. We were just laying in bed, so excited about what we were going to tell our kids. But the next day was miserable. This was right after COVID, during spring break, and it was sold out. I don’t know what we were thinking. The truth is, what we gave to our kids ended up being pure sacrifice.

I want to show you a different video. This doesn’t add to my sermon at all, but I think you’ll enjoy. Melissa, this is her favorite video of all time of me. This is me standing in line—not really standing—waiting for two and a half hours after I’d already waited forty-five minutes just to get a black coffee. Let’s watch.

Come on up a little further, Daddy.

Alright. That’s enough. I did that for two and a half hours. It was the worst. We were at Disney for four hours before, and we’d ridden one ride.

Okay. I’m going too long. The point is this: I’d do it all over again. Wait—are my kids in this room? I would prayerfully consider doing that again. You know why? Because the look on their faces—when you adore someone, it doesn’t matter—you just want them to have it all.

How do you become someone who gives like that to God? I read a book over the last ten days that has radically transformed my life. In fact, I told Melissa I’ve never been more changed in preparing for a sermon than this, because I realized I’m not treating my money the way the Bible so clearly tells me I should.

He said in this book a couple things. One, he said that when we realize our central purpose—which is to live for one person and one place—Jesus Christ and heaven. We are not made for this world. We are passing through—James tells us we are a vapor. We’re here, then we’re gone. Yet, what distracts us most from loving Him, Jesus says, is the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things.

We weren’t made for this world. Can I tell you something? God has given us a way to send our money to the world we are made for.

One illustration from that book: imagine your job calls you overseas to France for six months or a year. While you're there, you stay in a hotel. How would you spend your paycheck? Would you refurnish the hotel knowing you're leaving in six months? Would you buy an expensive car you can't take back? No. You’d take what you need and send the rest home.

You know that Jesus is not opposed to us aggressively hoarding wealth. He just doesn’t want us to do it here. He says, don’t store up treasure here on earth where moth and rust destroy. Instead, store it up in heaven—you can send it there.

Tim touched on this briefly last week. It's not discussed enough as a church. It is the doctrine of eternal rewards. There will be two judgments for the Christian: one for sin, based entirely on Jesus’ work—paid for, paid in full, we contribute nothing; and a second, called the judgment of works, based on what we've done with what we've been given.

There will be rewards in heaven. Our salvation is not conditional—it's the finished work of Christ. But the second judgment—what we’ve done with what God entrusts us with—will determine our rewards.

You can send your money—your investments. Many of you think about your retirement portfolio—I do too. But are you planning for your forever retirement? Are you sending your investments there? Imagine, in the new heaven and new earth, there will be oceanfront property in Maui. Where will you be?

Just one more thing. The other reason I love that verse—God loves a cheerful giver—is that it’s not just about us learning to give cheerfully, but that God loves when we do. Because He loves to be trusted. And when we let go of what’s in our hand, we're forced to trust Him—and He loves that.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He earnestly rewards those who seek Him. — Hebrews 11:6

This picture here is the spontaneous joy of our giving. Returning to Him what He has just so generously given to us. When we do it, it evokes love from Him. And what is this a picture of? It’s a picture of a mutual, self-giving love shared in the Trinity from eternity past. And when you and I give sacrificially, we are invited into the dance.

What is He asking you to send home? Can I tell you something? The greatest expression of self-giving love was this—that Jesus lost everything from His hand. He lost His life so He could send you home. When you get this, it’s all His.

Conclusion

Let's pray. Father, help us to trust You. Help us to take You at Your word. Forgive my greed. I pray that we would be a church marked by authentic transformation and love for Christ. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.