Giving in a Time of Scarcity

Giving in a Time of Scarcity

If you’ve been tracking with us, you know that we are in a series studying the chapter four of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, and we are striving together to memorize this chapter. And so we added a couple new verses this week, and we’re going to recite verses one one through 20 together. All right? And so if I mess up, it’s only because I want to test you. You know what I’m saying? I wouldn’t be a good teacher if I just gave it to you easy. All right? So listen, we’re going to put the verses up on screen. You can read it out loud with us if you’re here with us, if you’re watching online. Read it out loud with us if you’ve been memorizing it with us. Then just close your eyes or look away and recite it with us together. You guys ready? All right, let’s do it.

Reading Philippians

Here’s verse one. “Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved. I entreat Euodia and I entreat Synyche to agree in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. I rejoiced in the Lord greatly because now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but had no opportunity. Not that I’m speaking about being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.”

Here’s the secret. “I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit which increases to your account. I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied having received from Epaphroditus the gifts that you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Can we give ourselves a hand? Good work, good work. Let’s keep putting these verses together. I feel like every week I skip something, and it’s my daughter that points it out when I get home. She shames me and heaps condemnation on me, but I believe in Jesus and there’s no condemnation. All right, we’re going to dive into verses 14–20, and we looked at some of these verses last week. But before we do that, I want to ask you a question to just frame our time together in God’s word this morning.

Are You Giving?

Are you giving away enough of your money? That’s the question that I just want you to answer in your own heart, and you don’t necessarily have to answer it sitting here right now. I want to leave you with that question because as we go through these verses, that’s what I actually want you to intentionally spend some time thinking about and praying about this week. Whether you’re single or married or have kids or whatever, process with your roommates, those in your discipleship group, your spouse.

I want you to think about your answer to that question. Are you giving away enough of your money? Now, here’s the thing. What is enough? Well, that’s something that you and the Lord have to really process together. Nobody will see this as we study these verses. Nobody can necessarily give you that answer. That’s something that you have to be led by the Lord to determine. Are you giving away enough of your money?

And here’s why I bring up that question. And for those of you that are watching, those of you who are here who might not be followers of Jesus, one of the things you know even if you’re exploring Christianity, is that the Bible teaches that we are to be generous, that Christians are to be people who are characterized by generosity. And just like anybody else in our culture and society, Christians aren’t different. We have the same tendencies and inclinations that in times of abundance, we tend to drift towards self-indulgence. We just recited some verses from the Apostle Paul where he talks about he knows how to abound. Well, for many of us, when we are abounding, when the money is coming in, when we have a lot of margin and flexibility, we tend to drift towards self-indulgence. The flip side is in times of scarcity, we tend to drift towards self-preservation.

So in times of abundance we’re like, “Let’s just throw out money, let’s spend. Let’s do everything we can to raise our standard of living and to enjoy everything that we can.” But in times of scarcity, we tend to clamp down. We tend to prioritize self-preservation, either trying to get more in order to preserve ourselves or we’re anxious and we’re fearful about losing what we have because we’re prioritizing trying to preserve ourselves. And as we’ll see, there’s nothing wrong with indulging in the blessings God gives us. There’s nothing wrong in us working to be able to secure our financial foundation or our future or to leave a legacy for our children.

Are You Self-Preserving?

The problem is when we drift towards self-indulgence or self-preservation to the point that we begin to disobey God, that we begin to disobey the pattern that God has laid out for followers of Jesus in His word. And what we see in Philippians 4 is this incredible picture of generosity. Paul is writing this letter to the Philippians like we’ve been talking about, and I want to take you to 2 Corinthians 8 because it gives you a little bit of background about the church that he’s writing to and writing about. We talked about how Philippi is a city in the broader region of Macedonia. And when Paul later wrote to the Corinthians, he talks about the Philippian church.

Look at what he says in 2 Corinthians 8:1–2. He says, “We want you to know brothers about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia.” Listen. “For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.” Hold on. This doesn’t fit. “In a severe test of affliction …” These were believers that were being persecuted. These were believers that were suffering from poverty for a variety of reasons. He says, “In a severe test of affliction, they had an abundance of joy and their extreme poverty overflowed in a wealth of generosity.” See, they were in a time of scarcity, but they did not allow their scarcity to stop them from being generous. And I think for all of us, we’re in a time … maybe our bank account isn’t in a time of scarcity. For some of us it is, but we certainly are in our society and our culture increasingly so in the midst of this pandemic, in a time of scarcity.

And as Christians, sometimes even though we believe the Bible, we tend to drift toward clamping down, being … drifting towards self-preservation instead of modeling what we see here in the Philippian church. And here’s the thing. I don’t want to try to make any of us feel guilty. I know some of y’all already, like I already know, “This is my first time visiting church. I already knew you were going to talk about money.” My goal is not to make you feel guilty at all. In fact, I’m not even trying to convince you today that you should give more.

What I want to convince you of today is that you should want to give more, and you work that out between you and the Lord how much you feel like God wants you to give. Why should you want to give more? Why should you want to be more generous? Here’s the first thing we see in Philippians 4. “When we give …” Listen, “When we give, we retrain our hearts to experience deeper joy.” “When we give, we retrain our hearts to experience deeper joy.” Look at what Paul writes in verse 14. Philippians 4. Says, “Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only. Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again.”

And so we talked about this last week, that the Philippians had a long history of supporting gospel ministry, not just in their local region but also in other parts of the world. So last week, we traced the timeline of their partnership with Paul. So let me catch you up in case you missed it. We talked about how Philippi is one of the cities in the broader province of Macedonia, and Paul had lived in Philippi for a couple of years, sharing the gospel and establishing the church there.
As we saw last week, Paul and the Philippians developed a deep bond, a close friendship that continued even after Paul moved away. And so in Philippians 4, Paul is thanking them not just for their friendship like we talked about last week, but also for their specific support, this specific gift of generosity that they sent through this representative of Epaphroditus. They supported Paul while he was doing ministry and Thessalonica. So he leads Philippi, he goes to Thessalonica. They send support to him in Thessalonica. You see that in 4:16. They supported Paul even when he went out further and was doing ministry in the city of Corinth, which was in a totally different region.

And look at what he says to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 11 now. We saw this last week, he says to them, “And when I was with you Corinthians and was in need, I didn’t burden anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia …” Referring to the Philippian church. “They supplied my need.” So Paul went from Corinth, he continued his ministry moving throughout different regions, and then he’s arrested in Jerusalem for preaching the gospel. And after a series of trials, he is sentenced to prison in Rome. And now after not being able to connect for a while, the Philippians find out where Paul is located. They find out where he is locked up, and they send a Epaphroditus with a donation. We don’t know precisely what it was. It was gifts, it was whatever he needed. It was probably some type of financial contribution to him to care for his needs.

And that’s why Paul wrote back in Philippians 4:10, he says, “I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity.” We talked about that that last week. This long period of time has gone where Paul hasn’t heard from the Philippians, the Philippians haven’t heard from Paul. They track him down, and they send support. Here’s the point. The Philippians were constantly giving even out of their struggle and time of scarcity and their poverty.

They were constantly giving and not just to support Paul personally, but to support ministry more broadly. And this is what I want us to see is that this reveals something about the condition of their hearts. See, what we do with our money always reveals what’s happening in our hearts, maybe even better than anything else in our lives. What we do with our money always reveals what’s happening in our hearts.

This is what Jesus says in Matthew 6:21. Some of you have heard this verse before. He says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” You see, money is a thermometer, right? That gives you an indication of the temperature and condition of your heart. But money is also like a thermostat, Jesus says. That your heart actually follows your money. We know this to be true, because some of y’all are real nervous right now, right? Because you got investments, and you’re looking at the stock market and you’re wondering, “Yo, if we go back to a recession, what’s going to happen?” Because your money is somewhere, your money is vulnerable. Your heart tends to follow your money.

If you send your kid to school on with some tuition, your heart is going to be invested in that college education. Our hearts tend to reveal. Our money reveals what’s in our hearts, but our hearts also follow our money. And so what we see as we look at the Philippians is an example of people whose hearts have been redirected toward generosity.

Willingly Give

And listen, you see it in how Paul describes them in 2 Corinthians 8:3–5. Listen to how he describes them. He says, “For they gave according to their means, as I can testify and beyond their means, of their own accord.” That’s why I said in the beginning, you got to answer the question, are you giving away enough of your money? That’s between you and the Lord. That’s not something that should be done out of compulsion. It’s on your own accord, it’s willingly. And look at how the Philippians approach generosity.

Verse 4, it says, “Begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints.” These people are poor, and they are begging Paul and his ministry partners for the opportunity to take part in the relief of the saints. The relief of the saints was Paul was doing this collection amongst the churches that he planted because Christian brothers and sisters in Jerusalem were going through a famine, a really, really difficult time. And the Philippians are saying, “Hey, we want to be a part of serving those brothers and sisters. Even though we don’t have much, we want to be a part.” Now, that is outstanding, but we see this all the time.

If you’ve ever traveled to the developing world, if you’ve ever gone on a mission trip and you’ve been like around the ultra-poor, literally, and it doesn’t matter where I’ve gone around the world, you see especially brothers and sisters in Christ, even in their poverty, literally they are begging to give you gifts. They are begging you to come into their home so they can share with you some of the rice that they have in their home. It is offensive to them for you to turn down their generosity. And that’s what we see in the Philippian church. When you trace their money, you see their heart. And if we trace your money, what would we see?

What would we see? What would your money, what would your spending reveal about the condition of your heart? And again, I don’t say that to condemn you. I say it because God actually wants to free our hearts. And this is my point here. When I talk about when we give, we retrain our hearts to experience deeper joy. So often we tend to think that self-preservation is the way to secure our joy. That’s the lie that we’ve bought into, that to hoard more, to keep more, to spend more, to preserve, to self-indulgence. That’s the way to secure our joy.
The problem is many of you have experienced what’s on the other side of that.

Actually, it produces more anxiety. It produces more happiness for a little while. I mean, how many wealthy people have to write biographies and have write-ups in the news media about how money does not buy you happiness? It just doesn’t. So we’ve bought into the lie that self-preservation secures our joy, but God says, “You were not designed that way.” You were designed for the opposite. It is when we open our hearts and our lives to be generous to others. When we begin specifically as Christians to align our hearts with God’s heart and invest in what God is doing, God’s work. That is when we begin to experience deeper joy.

And that’s why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9:7, he says, “Each one must give as he or she decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion.” Listen. “For God loves a cheerful giver.” You see, when you give, you are retraining your heart to experience deeper joy. You are saying, “I am not going to buy into the lie that getting more, getting more, keeping more, keeping more, preserving more, preserving more is the way to joy. No, I am rejecting every act of generosity is this protest against this lie, against the tyranny of self-centeredness.” We are saying no. I know I am designed to reflect my heavenly Father and to be generous. And it is out of that generosity that your heart begins to experience a deeper joy. And listen, you know what that feels like. You know what it feels like even when you’re struggling.

You know what it feels like to give to somebody who’s in need and to see the smile on their face. You know what it feels like to be able to swoop in and to serve someone and to provide for something that they’re not able to provide for themselves in this season of their life. And that even when it hurts your bank account, it absolutely thrills your heart. We were designed to experience deeper joy by giving.

This is why Jesus says, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” That word blessed is not that deep. It literally just means happy. It is more joyful to give than it is to receive. And listen, you can’t understand that until you live it, until you live it. And the Apostle Paul and I as one of your pastors and God himself wants you to experience the deeper joy of allowing your heart to be set free from just giving yourself to self-indulgence or self-preservation and giving yourself to generosity.

Two Categories of Giving

Specifically as Christians, we want to prioritize giving in two categories. This is what we see all over scripture. Giving to the poor and giving to advance the gospel. All throughout the Bible, you see those two priorities that God calls us as Christians to give towards, to give toward the poor and to give toward the advancement of the gospel. Everyone who actually believes the gospel should prioritize giving for the spread of the gospel. It’s a shame that so many in our emerging generation, and I understand it, I’m a millennial too.

I’m hanging. I just made it into the millennial generation. You know what I’m saying? But I’m millennial too, and we’ve all seen shady stuff happen in church. All of us. We’ve heard the headlines. We’ve seen pastors taking advantage of congregations. We’ve seen it, and it makes us hesitant to want to give to gospel ministry. It makes us hesitant to want to pool our resources together and partner with brothers and sisters in our local church.

I understand the hesitation, but God says one of the ways that we experience deeper joy together is when we partner together to do more than we can do on our own. And so as a local church family together, we’ve given almost 5 million pounds of food away over the course of COVID. That’s just something recently. That’s just a recent stat, but we are able to pool our money together to be a blessing, to spread the gospel all over the world and to serve those who are in need.

And so we give. We experience the deeper joy of serving physical need, but ultimately also of serving spiritual need. Because if we don’t as Christians give toward the advancement of the gospel, who else will? We are the only people as Christians on the planet who have given a stewardship of the gospel because we’re the ones who believe it. And if we believe this good news that God has made a way for people to be reconciled to him and forgiven of their sin, then that should show up in our generosity.

It’s incredible. It’s amazing. It is a joy to give to a bunch of different nonprofits and NGOs and all of that. All of that is a part of our generosity portfolio, but as Christians, we should also be the ones that prioritize getting the gospel to people who need it. And so when we give, we retrain our hearts to experience deeper joy. Number two, “When we give, we accumulate eternal treasure.” This is what Paul says in Philippians 4:17. He says, “Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit.” And that word fruit was a common word in the ancient business world that basically means interest or profit.

Paul is basically talking about an eternal return on investment. Now, Paul is saying something here either really staggering or really shady, and here’s what I mean. Just think about it. Just be honest just for a second. Think about it. Imagine if I was up here right now trying to convince you to buy me a jet. Somebody laughed up here. You know what I’m saying? Imagine right now if I launched from this sermon on giving into a buy me a private jet fund, and I basically said to you that if you contribute to buying me this jet, and it’s for ministry, you know what I’m saying? Because this anointing just can’t fit in Southwest Airlines. You know what I’m saying? It can’t fit in coach. I need private jet, right? In order for this anointing to make it around the world. So I need you to contribute, and if you do that, your reward is in heaven.

If I said that, if I use that kind of logic, all of y’all would get up and walk out. It would seem super shady. You’d be like, okay, so just interrogate Paul for just a second. Let’s read our Bible critically, not critically in a sinful way, but just honestly. “Paul, when will I see this return on investment?” “After you die.” “Well, by that time, it’s too late for me to know whether you were telling the truth or not.” Either Paul is saying something staggering or he’s saying something shady. Now listen, here’s the difference. Paul isn’t asking for money for himself. In fact, in this whole section where he’s thanking them for their support, he keeps interrupting them with disclaimers in verse 16, “Not that I seek the gift.” In verse 10, he talks about, “Not that I’m speaking of being in need. I know what it means to be content.”

Giving to Advance the Gospel

It’s almost as if he’s uncomfortable with their generosity toward him. And this is a theme all throughout Paul’s ministry. He’s very cautious about accepting money from the people he’s ministering to, the people he’s sharing the gospel with. 1 Corinthians 9, and I want to take some time in this so y’all can stop giving your money to people on TV. All right. 1 Corinthians 9:11, Paul says, “If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do we not even more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.”

He says that to the Corinthians. Look at what he says to the Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians 2:9. He says, “For you, remember brothers, our labor and toil, we worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you while we proclaim to you the gospel.” Paul was a missionary. He’s going into territory where people don’t know him. He doesn’t have a relationship with these people. They don’t know his motives. And the reason Paul is so cautious is because just like today, there were a lot of con artists masquerading as preachers. They were using money, they were using ministry for their own personal gain. They were using ministry to build their own net worth.

And see, Paul isn’t soliciting personal donations from the Philippians. They initiated this gift out of the overflow of what God was doing in their heart, their love for Paul, their zeal for the advancement of the gospel, and this should be a marker of a true minister of the gospel. Not that ministers of the gospel don’t receive gifts from people and donations, all that, but there should be this humble hesitancy. If you see a preacher who is trying to raise money for his own lifestyle, for her own lifestyle, then that should cause you to at least be cautious and ask questions.

Paul is not trying to pimp the congregation. He’s not moving into this city and trying to build popularity in a platform for his own personal gain. This is not what Paul is doing. They send him this gift out of their own accord, out of their love for him and their desire to advance the gospel, and he’s hesitant about it. He adds all these disclaimers. He’s not just thankful for their generosity though. He’s excited about what this means for them, because when we invest in what God is doing, we will enjoy an eternal return on investment. And the problem is that we tend to look at our lifetime as the span between our birth and our death.

What We Have to Gain in Eternity

And Paul is drawing their attention and their heart’s affection to what they have to gain in eternity. We tend to go through our life indulging as much as we can or we time it just right so that after we’ve accumulated as much as possible, we can enjoy it at the end of our life. But the Bible is very clear that this 70, 80, 30 years, we don’t know how long we have. However long we have, it is so short it doesn’t even show up on the radar of life in eternity.

And Paul says this in Philippians, “The gift that you gave me, thank you very much for that. What excites me most though is that there is an eternal reward for your generosity.” I had dinner with a really wealthy friend lately, and I have some friends that are doing well for themselves. I have some friends that are doing well for themselves. He’s rich, he’s wealthy. Let me give example. Here’s the thing. When we were at dinner, we were talking, having a conversation, and I realized wealthy people, they just think different. They think about their stuff differently. Truly wealthy people, wise wealthy people, they prioritize long-term value over short-term satisfaction.

And so I’m talking to my friend, first of all, I’m in his house and he has one painting on his wall literally that is worth more than my life insurance.

I’m talking like, listen, Ashley, my wife. I’m like, “Listen, if I go, if I die, just go grab that painting off Jason’s wall.” You know what I’m saying? I mean the painting, it looks like one of my kids just spilled some paint on some canvas. You know what I mean? And somebody sold it. Anyway, he has this one painting that is one of six in the world. The art on his wall could put my kids through college, legit. College, grad school, PhD program, everything.

I was standing in front of a bookshelf in his house. He was like, well, he was like, “Actually, that’s where the real money is.” I’m like, “How so?” I look. It’s just like these tattered books. These are first edition signed books by these prolific authors worth so much money. We’re at dinner and I’m asking him questions because we’re really good friends and we both started from the bottom. Now he’s here. I’m not there. And so I’m just asking him questions about, what is life like now?

He explains to me why he started collecting designer luxury watches and I just thought because he was bawling. I just thought he just wanted to walk around just flexing on everybody with his nice watch. No, he said The reason why he started collecting these watches, he said to me, he said, “Mike, this watch I have right now, I know if anything ever went south, I could sell this watch and pay off any debt that I’m ever in.” I was like, bro, I’m like, “This Apple watch was a … I prayed about this for two years, bro.” You know what I’m saying? He just thinks different about all of his stuff. He is literally a part of an entirely different banking system. I didn’t even know. He just lives off the interest that he makes from his savings account.

I buy stuff that takes my money. He buys stuff that makes him money. Like everything. His art makes him money. His books make him money. His watches make him money. Even his money makes him money. Whatever he buys, he’s thinking about the return on investment over time. And as I thought about that picture, I wanted you to have that picture in your head because imagine. See, all of that is nice and I’m happy for my friend, super happy for my friend, but he knows, he realizes, listen, all of that, he’s going to get interest. All that stuff is going to be worth a whole lot of money, and then he’s going to die.

All of that stops at the grave. He might pass it on to his kids if he ever gets married and has kids, and then they’re going to die. All of that stuff ends on earth. But the picture I want you to see is that here’s a guy who’s literally collected. His life is full of these possessions that are constantly making him more and more, and I want you to imagine because this is what the Apostle Paul is saying, and he’s echoing what Jesus taught, that it is possible for us not to live lives that are full of possessions that are gaining more and more interest.

We could do that. It ends at the grave. But God says it is possible for us to live a life that is full of generosity, that is constantly accruing more and more wealth for us in eternity. That just like everywhere I looked in his house, there was something that was making him money.

That you can live a life like that where when people look at your life, everything in your life is gaining you eternal rewards, because you’re doing it for the glory of God. You’re doing it to serve other people. You’re doing it out of a heart of generosity toward other people. God says, “It’s possible for you and I to live in such a way that your life accumulates wealth and treasure in heaven.” And listen, if we really believe this, it would completely change the way we think about giving.

How Much Do You Need to Keep?

Instead of asking, how much do I have to give? How much do I have to give? We will be asking, how much do I really need to keep? If we really believed what Paul is saying here, that when we give as unto the Lord that literally we are accumulating treasure in heaven, we would not just be asking, how much do I have to give? We will be asking, how much do I really need to keep? Because listen, this is all over the Bible.

Jesus to the rich, young ruler, Mark 10:17 says, “Sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” To His disciples, Jesus says, Luke 12:33, “Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail.”

Matthew 6:19, Jesus teaches, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” Paul to Timothy, 1 Timothy 6:18–19, he tells Timothy “To teach believers to be rich in good works.” Collect, accumulate good works, works of generosity. “Be generous and ready to share, thus storing treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.”

There is more. I just want to show you that this is not just some isolated teaching. This is something that is all over the Bible. That when we give, we accumulate treasure in heaven. And listen, I’ll be honest with y’all. Even this week studying this, every time I study passages about storing treasure in heaven, it is so difficult for me to wrap my mind around it. It just seems so a abstract. What does that even mean?

I don’t even wrap my mind around it because the Bible doesn’t give us specifics about what that treasure means. And so this is one of those things that requires faith. It requires you to take God at His word. This is one of those things where you’re not going to see evidence of it right in front of you. It’s something where you literally have to take God at His word, that He has said it all over the Bible. It’s unmistakable, and you have to trust Him that He’s going to fulfill it.
It’s like if I tell my kids. We’re on our way home and I’m like, “Yo, kids, Daddy has a treat for you.” Now, listen, if my wife said that, they not really going to believe, because if my wife says, “I have a treat for you,” that might mean celery. You know what I’m saying? But Daddy, they know how Daddy rolls.

You know what I’m saying? We doing Cocoa Puffs on top of ice cream. You know what I mean? With hot fudges. We going all the way. And they know when I say, “I have a treat,” I don’t have to get into all the specifics. The fact that I promised them a treat is enough for them to anticipate that all the way home. They don’t even know what they’re going to get. And sometimes I wonder if God left eternal rewards vague in the Bible because some of us would just be doing cost benefit analyses all the time.

I’d be like, all right, well, this act of generosity is going to get me this and this, and so I’m not going to … That’s how we would be wire. But I wonder if God left eternal awards vague so that our sense of anticipation is in Him, the one who is faithful to fulfill His promises. And if God can create wonder in your heart with a sunset, if God can take your breath away at the sound of a newborn baby. If God can make you … You ever ate food so good, you had to close your eyes while you were … If God can give you ingredients that make you close your eye, what does that have to do with taste? If God can satisfy you and delight you and create all and wonder in your heart on earth which is fractured by the fall, then when we see His promise that He will eternally reward our acts of generosity, oh my goodness, we should be full of anticipation.

We should be giddy living our lives with this secret between us and God, that as I give, I not only get the deeper joy of meeting your need, but I also get the joy of anticipating that my heavenly Father one day is going to satisfy my heart for all of eternity. And this is not just some manipulative way for Him to rig the system and get us to give. It’s God acknowledging that living this life of generosity, it actually does require sacrifice. It does. But God promises us that in His divine economy eternally, we will see there actually were no sacrifices in the kingdom of God. There were none.

We live for a blip on the radar in this life, and then we spend eternity enjoying all of this eternal reward. Now, I want to be absolutely clear that you cannot earn your way into heaven by being generous. This is not what we talk about, eternal reward. You can’t earn your way into heaven by giving away your money. You can’t earn favor with God by giving away your money. Here’s why. It’s like one of my professors said, he says, “Prior to being born again, all your good works are deposits without an account.”

You and I talked about my friend that is an entirely different banking system. You can’t even open an account without two million cash. Imagine me showing up to his bank, knocking on the door if they’re open during COVID, knocking on it and being like, “But I’m a preacher.” Y’all, I hear laughter. Yeah, they have to be like, “Security.” I’m not getting that bank. I don’t have no account in that bank. You got to be able to qualify for a certain line of credit in order to be a part of that bank.

And listen to me. In order for you to open an account in the bank of the kingdom of God, in order for you to really have this kind of covenant promise from God, it requires perfect righteousness. And none of us have that to offer God. None of us have perfect righteousness to offer God. We are morally bankrupt in the eyes of God, because even our best works are not perfect works. Your heart knows that. My heart knows that.

And if we cringe because we tend to fall short of our own standards, then will not the judge of all the earth righteously judge us? He will. And the Bible says that every single one of us, if we are trying to stand on our own good works, it will be like a trap door. It will fall underneath our feet before the holiness of God, and we will be judged for our sin. But the good news of the gospel is that God has provided what we need. He sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sins in our place. Jesus paid the penalty for our sins, and He lived the perfectly righteous life that’s necessary for us to be able to enjoy this covenant relationship with God.

And so the way that we step into this divine economy of God’s grace is not by trying to earn our way into it. It is by us humbly acknowledging I’m declaring bankruptcy. God, I don’t have it to give. My good does not outweigh my bad. God, I know you’re going to judge me for my sin, and my good works are not enough. And God, I am pleading with you to save me. And I know that the only way for me to be saved is to put all of my trust, all of my hope, all of my weight on Jesus. And His credit becomes my credit, and my debt became His debt on the cross.

And so even today, you can pray to God and you can say, “God, I’m turning for my sin and I’m putting all of my trust in you. I want to be in relationship with you, and I want to give my life on this earth to learning what it means to reflect your generosity.” When we give, we accrue because of Jesus, we accrue eternal reward. I got to get through these last three quickly.

Here’s number three. “When we give, we acknowledge that our lives belong to God. We acknowledge that our lives belong to God.”

Philippians 4:18, it says, “I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent.” Listen how He describes the gift, “A fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.” You see, this is sacrificial language taken out of the Old Testament, but in the old covenant, they would present these incense offerings or these burnt animal offerings.

Jesus Is the Final Sacrifice

In the new covenant, Jesus has become the once and for all final sacrifice by giving His life on the cross, by shedding His blood on the cross so we don’t come with sacrifices, literal physical sacrifices. Instead, like Romans 12 says, “We offer our bodies, our lives as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God.” Listen, when we give our money, this is why we call giving in church offering, because it is us responding to God, offering to God, not just our money, but symbolically offering Him our lives. Not to earn anything from Him, but in response to what Jesus has earned on our behalf. And God says it is when we give that way with hearts that say, “God, I’m thankful that you’ve provided for my needs, and I’m giving for your kingdom purposes because my whole life belongs to you.” It says, “That is an offering that is acceptable. It is pleasing to God.”

The problem is so many of us don’t live that way. We live like I used to live when I was growing up. I got two younger brothers. I’m the oldest. And I used to go to Prince George Plaza when I was young, and I used to go to Cinnabon there all the time. And I would be out with my friends and I would get a Cinnabon, and I would eat it there, and I would get an extra one for me to come home with, and I would get home. My little annoying brothers would always be like, “Can I get a piece? Can I get a piece?” And I’d be like, “Hold up, wait a minute.” And I would give them a piece. But you know what? I would give them like that little burnt piece on the edge at Cinnabon, the piece that don’t have no icing on it. I would give them that piece.

Guys, that’s not generosity, but that’s what we tend to do with our money when it comes to God. We tend to say, “Hold up God, hold up God, you can’t have the pieces of my life and the pieces of my budget that I actually want the most. I’ll give you this piece. I’ll give you enough so that it doesn’t actually interfere with how I want to live my life.” But when we give as Christians, we are to give in a way that says, God, everything I have is yours. My life belongs to you. And God says when we give with hearts like that, it is pleasing to Him because it is worship to Him.

Number four, “When we give, we get to experience God’s supernatural provision.” Philippians 4:19 says, “And my God …” Listen to this promise. “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Every need. So we talked about spiritually speaking, there’s these eternal rewards, but God also says, “I will provide for you right now. That when you stretch yourself to be generous, even in a time of scarcity.” When in good conscience between you and the Lord, you actually give, God says, “You can do it with confidence that I will supply your needs.”

God Will Supply Our Needs

And listen, some of you need to hear that. God says, “I will supply your needs.” He doesn’t say, Paul doesn’t say out of his riches. Paul says, “According to his riches.” You know what that means? If I am a millionaire, I can give you out of my wealth. I can give you a $5 bill. That’s me giving out of my wealth. That is not me giving in accordance to my wealth. And Paul says, “What God promises is that he will supply your needs according to commensurate with all of his riches in glory.” There is no recession in the economy of God. And so when you give, you are giving in the midst of God’s divine economy.

He says, “Listen, I got you. I will provide.” And that’s one of the things when you begin to live a generous life, you step into the adventure of watching God provide for you in ways that you could not have even asked for or imagined. It’s God’s supernatural economy. God will do it. When you get a chance, read 2 Corinthians 9:6–11 that elaborates on that point. “God will supply what you need in order to be generous.”

Here’s the last one. Number five, “When we give, we show the world the glory of God.” Philippians 4:20 ends saying, “To our God and Father, be glory forever and ever. Amen.” Here’s what that means. Here’s what that means. You and I have experienced the generosity and the graciousness of God. Every good and perfect gift comes from him. 1 Timothy 6, “He richly supplies us with everything to enjoy. God gives to us, and we respond to God with gratitude.” So giving is not the only way we bring glory to God with our money. We can bring glory to God with our money by enjoying God’s good gifts. But we do it with a heart of gratitude that this comes from God, that we are enjoying the goodness of our gracious God.

Glorify God with Your Money

We glorify God even with our gratitude. So we receive from God with gratitude. We receive the grace of God with gratitude, but then we reflect the grace of God in generosity. And when we do that, we show the people that we’re generous to what our God is like. That our God is a God who loves to give good gifts. He loves to be generous. And that is expressed most clearly in the gospel, that though Jesus was rich, Paul says, “He became poor so that through him we might become rich.” That He left all the wealth and the glory and the riches of heaven to come down and to become a human being. And He literally entered into poverty in a manger, in a barn so that He could live life on earth and die on the cross and rise from the grave so that we can enjoy the riches of God in this life and for eternal ages and ages to come.

And when we’re generous, all glory goes to God because what we’re generous with comes from God. And the effect of that Lord willing is that people begin to see that God is generous in providing for them through us. And so I want to pray for us that God would help pry our hearts off of the things that we clinging to. And I want to pray that if you’re watching this or you’re here, and you have not received the generosity of God in the gospel, that today will be the day you begin this covenant relationship with God. That you step into God’s divine economy, that operates by grace, and that you enjoy it for all of eternity.

Let me pray for us. Father, we thank you so much for your never ending everlasting grace toward us in Christ. We thank you that you invite us to participate in your work. We thank you, Lord God that you provide resources for our needs, God, but you also provide a way, Lord, for us to display your generosity and your goodness and grace to others. And Lord, I pray that you would make us a generous people, especially in this time of scarcity when there is so much physical need around us and so much spiritual need all over the world.

Father, I pray for people who are watching, who are listening, who are here, Lord, who have not yet put their trust and their faith in you, that you would draw them to yourself, Father, that they would know God, that you have made a way for them to be forgiven and to be set free, and that you would save them according to your grace, God. We pray all this in Jesus’ name. Amen.