“Grace of Giving”
Golden Text: 2 Corinthians 8:9
You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich

Focus: as a follower of Christ, we should imitate His generosity

Objectives:
1. evaluate if we are giving generously
2. see how Christ’s generosity should influence our generosity
3. check our attitude in giving

When Larry Lea, the author of “Could You Not Tarry One Hour”, met Paul Yonggi Cho, he asked him this question, “Dr. Cho, how did you build such a great church?”. Without any hesitation, Pr. Cho replied, “I pray and I obey”. Now I want to tell you, that is the key to your spiritual life. Pray like your very life depended upon it because it does. Then obey because you are driven to be what God wants you to be. Prayer and obedience go hand in hand. Sure, it takes courage to obey but what’s the point of praying and asking God if you don’t subsequently obey? Let me illustrate as simply as I can. You pray for God to forgive you, yet your conscience haunts you and in your spirit there is an uneasiness, an unrest. There are people in your life that have wronged you. You say that you have forgiven, but somehow you just can’t forget the thing that has been done to you.
God is speaking,
Matt 6:14-15
14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Obey…
You are married and things just haven’t gone the way you expected. You have prayed things haven’t changed. Husbands pay attention
1 Peter 3:7
7 Ye husbands, in like manner, dwell with (your wives) according to knowledge, giving honor unto the woman, as unto the weaker vessel, as being also joint-heirs of the grace of life; to the end that your prayers be not hindered.
Wives, this is for you
1 Peter 3:1
3:1 In like manner, ye wives, (be) in subjection to your own husbands; that, even if any obey not the word, they may without the word be gained by the behavior of their wives;
Employees
Col 3:22-24
22 Servants, obey in all things them that are your masters according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord:
23 whatsoever ye do, work heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men;
24 knowing that from the Lord ye shall receive the recompense of the inheritance: ye serve the Lord Christ.
If you have people that work for or under your supervision
Col 4:1
4:1 Masters, render unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.

I believe that there is power in prayer. But disobedience will render your prayers weak if not useless.
Let’s face the facts. We’ve been praying, but we are spiritually still immature. We are praying but the fact is, we are a part of a powerless church.
When Jesus came into the temple and saw the activities going on, it angered him.
He made a whip and drove out the sellers of sheep, oxen and doves.
The people wanted to have a relationship with convenience. They didn’t have to select a lamb or oxen or dove from their own herd and make the trip to the temple. After all, then you have to cart food for the animal with you. It would be a whole lot easier if you could just show up at the temple and purchase what you need.

We are guilty of doing the very same thing. We want His presence in our lives and in this church. But we don’t want His path of purity before praise. The children of Israel heard but did not heed the voice of God. God’s plan did not include wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years. God said “go up and take the land”. They said, “we can’t”.

If we are going to talk about the “Grace of Giving”, we need to understand it from the aspect of a proper response to God. In the words of an old hymn,
When we walk with the Lord
In the Light of His word
What a glory He sheds on our way
While we do His good will
He abides with us still
And with all who will trust and obey
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

In 2 Cor 8, Paul begins to lay out further instruction to the church. When we pray for God to bless us, we may be thinking, we will be more generous if God blesses us. Paul uses the church at Macedonia as his example. We tend to think about generosity in terms of the haves. Those that have more should give more. The church at Macedonia was a poor church but they had provided a very generous offering to help the church in Jerusalem. Paul credited this to “the grace of God”. Grace refers to God’s work in our human hearts. This is where God does His work. To be generous, we need to meditate on God’s grace.
You may think that giving is a dollars and cents thing, but it has more to do with the relationship you have with God than anything else. Paul knew the source of the Macedonians generosity. They were growing in the grace of the Lord. As they yielded their lives to God, He was showing them His character.

What do you think, is God generous?
Generosity begins in God’s influence upon our hearts. When we find ourselves reluctant to give to God’s work, it really reveals our relationship with God.
When God has our full devotion, he also has our full resources.
God gave generously when He gave Jesus.
He gave the greatest possible gift-His life.
Paul sent Titus to Corinth to help remind the Corinthians to make good on their promise.
2 Cor 8:7-12

We know that God loves a cheerful giver. Where does a cheerful heart come from?
Jesus gave up the splendor of heaven for poverty on earth.
He did it to rescue us from the moral poverty of sin so we could experience His eternal wealth.
How do we apply those principles to our lives?
To truly understand our lives as Christians, we must come to understand the attitude and heart of a servant.
Our source is from the master
Our motivation is to please our master
Our instruction is from our master

That brings us to the law of sowing and reaping.
You want to be loved, plant the seeds of love
You want to be understood, plant the seeds of understanding
Likewise, if you want to be forgiven, plant the seeds of forgiveness.
It’s a law that governs our relationships as well as our physical world.

To you and I, it gets even better.
2 Cor 9:5-8

Sow generously, it is planting the seed. It sets you up for a bountiful harvest.
Can I say that with any sort of assurance?
Luke 6:38-39
38 give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall they give into your bosom. For with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again.

Now get this, God does not measure by how much you give, but by how much you have left for yourself.
Mark 12 records Jesus observing people coming to the temple. Men with wealth came and placed money in the offering plate. They were followed by a widow who didn’t have much. She dropped two coins in. Jesus said that she gave more that those who proceeded her because she gave out of her want.

Generosity starts with Gods influence on our heart.
When God has our devotion, he also has our heart.

You may have never thought of it like this before, but giving is Christ-like in every way.
It may seem difficult

Let me leave you with four things to consider
1. giving imitates Christ. He gave himself. Can we do any less
2. God delights in giving. It please Him when we give generously
3. God measures our giving by how much we keep, rather than how much we give
4. God blesses generosity.