Preached in Markham Baptist Church, April 3, 2005

HERE AM I - SEND ME!
PART 1: "REAPING AND SOWING GENEROUSLY"

2 Corinthians 9:1 - “There is no need for me to write to you about this service to the saints.”   I must confess that I feel a bit like Paul this morning. Paul is writing to the Christians in Corinth and he is referring here to a great need that has arisen among their fellow Christians in Jerusalem. And Paul says that he does not need to write to them about this service - that is, the service of giving to those in need because they are aware of the need and the Corinthian Christians have responded with a very significant financial promise. 

They are very eager to help. And I feel like Paul this morning because I know of your eagerness to help in sharing the love of Christ through word and deed around the world. I know that you are aware of the need, and certainly this month is designed to heighten our awareness of the need – of the hunger both physical and spiritual that is ravaging our world, of the AIDS pandemic that is tearing across Africa, of refugees in the Sudan, fellow Christians being persecuted in India, China and Pakistan, and the need for the gospel to be preached around the world. You are aware of the need. Many of you give of your financial resources, sacrificially, some of you give your time resources and abilities, volunteering with many mission agencies and care ministries here at home. 

Certainly as a church you have been very generous to our mission budget. As many of you know our mission budget is separate from our general budget in every way. It has a different yearend. Our general budget has a yearend of Dec. 31. Our mission budget has a yearend of April 30. And this year we have reached and exceeded our financial targets for our mission budget. We give thanks to God that He has enabled us to give generously to the work of proclaiming the reality of the grace of Jesus Christ in every way - in feeding the poor, housing the homeless, in teaching the gospel, in training pastors, in distributing the Scriptures. That’s what your money is used for, here at home and around the world. 

You know all the organizations we support and the missionaries that are encouraged because you have risen to the challenge and recognized the need. These are organizations that you help support through your mission giving. 

“There is on need for me to write to you about this service to the saints”. I say, Amen, Paul. He continues, in verse 2 - “For I know your eagerness to help, and I have been boasting about it to the Macedonians, telling them that since last year you in Achaia, were ready to give; and your enthusiasm has stirred most of them to action.” 

You too were ready to give and you gave generously. 

But while Paul does not need to write to them about the service to the saints, he does have a concern that they understand the principle of giving. Paul has not yet received the money from the Corinthians. And for us, as we begin a new fiscal year for our mission budget I thought it would he helpful to remind ourselves of the principles that are laid down here in Scripture for giving. And for those of you who are new to our church to explain the idea behind the Faith Promise offering. 

Paul says in verse 3 and 4 that he is going to send some brothers ahead to prepare the Corinthians for the offering so that their promise would not appear hollow when he arrived to collect on the promise. 

You can imagine the embarrassment if Paul just showed up, “O, Paul - you’re here all ready? We weren’t expecting you! We completely forgot that we had promised to help with the offering to the poor.” Wouldn’t that be embarrassing? 

He says at verse 5, “So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers, to visit you in advance and finish the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised.”  And here in the middle of verse 5 Paul lays down some motivations for giving that we need to take note of as we prepare to give our faith promise offering. What we have here are contrasts between two kinds of giving.

Let’s read the rest of verse 5 and then on to 6 and 7: “Then it will be ready as a generous gift, not as one grudgingly given. Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” 

What we have in these verses is three descriptions of how not to give and three descriptions of how to give - not grudgingly but willingly (verse 5); not sparingly but generously (verse 6), and not reluctantly but cheerfully (verse 7). 

Let’s think about each of these. Not grudgingly but willingly. How can we do this? We see the need and we want to help but how can we give willingly and not grudgingly. 

One way is to plan your giving. This is what Paul is helping the Corinthians do. He is helping them plan their giving, he warns of his coming and he sends some folks ahead of time to help them get their financial house in order. He didn’t want to show up there and have the people give the money grudgingly, “O here is Paul, now I have to give him that money I promised. I was going to do something else with that money, but now I remember I have to give it to him for the poor.” 

And sometimes we face the same situation – because we don’t plan, we aren’t able to give like we would like to and we end up giving grudgingly, griping about what we have to give up, “O, I had other intentions for that money and I was going to do this with the money.” 

How much better it is if we are able to give willingly. How much better it is for our testimony to our friends and neighbours and family if are able to give willingly to the work of God instead of always complaining about giving to the work of God. “Yeah, I was going to do this with my money, but I have to give to the money to God.” What kind of testimony is that? 

The faith promise offering is a way for us to plan our giving to missions. The faith promise offering is not a cash offering. We are not asking you to give what you have right now. We are asking you to consider what God can and will provide you with during the coming year. We are asking you to sit down as an individual, as families, as husband and wife and pray about what you can give during the coming year to the work of sharing the love of Christ here at home and around the world. 

So that you are able to give not grudgingly but willingly, as God provides the funds so that your testimony to others is real and vibrant. Indeed, that is the testimony of the Corinthians to the Macedonians, so that Macedonians gave willingly too, even pleading to be allowed to participate in this offering, we learn in 8:4. 

So lets give willingly not grudgingly. How do we do that? Let’s plan our giving. 

Secondly, in verse six the contrast here is between giving sparingly and giving generously. 

Paul uses a gardening or a farming image here. To sow sparingly is a real temptation for the farmer and the gardener. I have just sown my flower seeds and put them under my grow lights. I’ve been doing this for some years now and I know the temptation of sowing sparingly because there is the odd time, not often, when a tray of seeds just doesn’t sprout. Or if they sprout they damp off and die because of a fungus in the soil. And a whole tray of seed is lost. And the fear is if I sow all my seed and they all die I will have no seed left to sow again. It’s a real fear, so I sow sparingly and what happens? The seed comes up put I don’t have as many flowers as I would have if I had sown generously. 

What makes the difference between the one who sows or gives sparingly – wanting to hold on to everything and those who sow or give generously those who are lavish in their giving? 

Is it not the reassurance that they will be provided for? Is it not the assurance that God will provide for their need? The farmer can generously sow the seed on the land if he knows he be provided for. And so the giver. And this is the point that Paul makes in verses 8, 9, 10 and 11.  “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need you will abound in every good work.”

Look at the verse – God gives abundantly to you so that you can abundantly give to others. 

The problem we have is that we get to thinking that God is the great taker – He wants my life, He wants my money, He wants this and He wants that – and while it is true we are called to give all we have and are to Him, we have to realize that God is the great giver. Everything He created was designed to reflect His giving nature - the Sun gives heat, the clouds give rain, trees help provide oxygen, the earth gives resources - on and on it goes, everything that God created reflects God’s generous spirit - except humanity. We cling to what is ours and refuse to give it up. 

My friends, that is part of your old nature. Now that we are new creations we have been recreated to reflect God’s generosity. Now that you are a Christian whose Spirit lives in you? Jesus’! Is Jesus a giver or a taker? He’s the great giver – and now with His spirit in you, if you are not generous that’s part of your old nature. Your new nature says be generous because we know that God will provide for our every need.

Verse 9 – “As it is written:  He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.  Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion.” 

O how we can sow generously – knowing that we will be provided for by the great God of heaven who is the great giver!

Now the faith promise offering. A faith promise involves trusting God for an amount that we do not have, cannot see and therefore must depend on God to enable us to give. It is a step of faith. Please when you go to fill out your faith promise card don’t simply fill them out after you have calculated your yearly income and you think how much you gave to missions last year and decide to increase it or keep it the same because that’s what you can afford. That’s okay to an extent I don’t want you to be foolish about this. 

But, if that’s all you do, you are missing the thrill of this exercise, the thrill of seeing God provide funds in ways that you never dreamed possible. We are asking you to consult not your books, not your accountant, but our Lord. We are asking you to go to your prayer closet, shut the door and ask God what you can depend on Him to provide so that you can give to missions this year.   It is a step of faith. 

Please, do not cut what you give to the general fund and give half to missions. We are asking what you can trust God to provide over and above what you give already to give to the work of missions. 

Some of you don’t even fill out a faith promise. You simply say, I’ll just give as the money comes available. My friends if you do that you will not be planning, and end up giving grudgingly. You will miss the thrill of depending on God and watching how He will provide the funds for you to give. 

It is an act of faith. Whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly and whoever sows generously will reap generously. This is a promise with a condition. In order to reap generously – that’s the promise – you must sow generously – that’s the condition. The first act is sow generously with dependence on God.  You trust God with your soul! Why not trust Him with something incidental as money? 

A faith promise involves trusting God for an amount that we do not have, cannot see and therefore must depend on God to enable us to give.

Now there is one more way to give, we read in verse 7. Let’s give cheerfully and not reluctantly. How can we give cheerfully? We can give cheerfully and without reluctance if we know that God will provide for our every need. But more, if we realize that what we are giving away isn’t really ours in the first place we can be very cheerful about giving it away! Have you ever heard it said, “I can be very generous with other people’s money.” Well that’s true for every Christian. We are simply stewards of all that we have. God is our Master and we are simply caretakers of the wealth that we have, so when we give it away, we do so knowing that it is not ours. 

And we can give cheerfully knowing the great work that we are doing through it. There is some money we have to give that doesn’t bring much cheer to our hearts. Taxes. No one likes paying them. Bills - I know no one who dances to the mailbox to mail in their bill payments. But when you give to God’s work in missions you can give cheerfully for your contributions are actually making a difference in people’s lives. Lives are being transformed.  People are being helped. The Ontario government likes to post a sign above any road construction: “Your dollars at work”. Well, when you give to missions your dollars are truly at work, transforming not highways but lives. 

So we are asking each one of you, each child, each teenager, each adult, to be in prayer about this – asking for His leadership in this endeavour.

Now you may be asking, How can God make a faith promise offering possible? How does God provide it?   Sometimes when you make a faith promise God will provide it right out of nowhere. It just kind of happens. Sometimes God will provide that amount right out of nowhere. He does an incredible miraculous thing. And sometimes that happens. 

But most times that is not how He does it. Most times when God provides a faith promise offering – He does it through your life. God goes beyond the dollar issue and does a work in a life. And you and I begin to reprioritize our lives. And suddenly things we thought were important, some luxuries that we think are important – become very unimportant when we compare them to the needs of Indonesia, to the needs of Kenya, to the needs of Brazil. 

So what God does sometimes is to begin to teach us more about Himself, and the needs of those around the world and we begin to cut back here or cut back there. And through that sacrifice God begins to provide that faith promise. 

There are other ways that God provides the faith promise. Another way is through additional sources of income. There are all kinds of stories of people who have done this – women who have raised hundreds of dollars for missions by making pies, men who have used a hobby to generate funds for missions, boys and girls who have washed cars, delivered papers, all sorts of ways God has given to raise the faith promise. 

Everyone gets a card. You will be given one of these every Sunday during mission month. Take a moment to look at the wording at the side. It is personalized – “MY faith promise”. There is place there for your name - we ask you sign them so that we can verify any outlandish promises that may be made. Also, we realize that people take the promise more seriously if they put their signature to it.

And a blank – for what you believe you can trust God to give every month.   Look what it says.  “Through dependence upon God I…”

When you begin to pay your faith promise, you can pay it through your offering envelope designated on the “Missions” item line. 

The target for our mission’s faith promise offering this year is 53,000.000 

My friends during the next three remaining weeks, four worship services we will be receiving the faith promise cards. Please be in prayer and ask God for His leading in this area.

May you do so willingly, thoughtfully planning and preparing what you can give. 

May you do it generously, knowing that God will gives far more than you are able to give. 

May you do so cheerfully knowing that you are bringing light to a dark world through your offerings.

Copyright MBC and Tom Cullen - April 2005

 

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