The Grace of God
2 Corinthians 8:1-15 · Vern Peterman · Jul 25, 2010
1 & 2 Corinthians, No. 56
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926210547838

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We have some momentous times here at Holly Hills, and I need to first warn you that things will be a little sideways today. Actually, not me, the handout, okay? We've reoriented it here in order to fit another few slides in. And so the slide will be, or rather the handout will be turned from its usual direction. Now, I want you this morning to begin by bracing yourself. I don't mean to do self-orthodontics. That's probably not a good idea. But what I do mean is this. I want you to brace yourself.

We're going to talk about money. I know it's a frightening thought to think about talking about money at Holly Hills, but we're actually going to do it today. I'm going to be brave and actually bring the subject up. And the reason we're going to do it is because the passage talks about it. Certainly often have to press and pry. People are puzzled at times. What? No offering plate. How do I give money? Well, we'll real reluctantly tell you where the slot is.

Pretty much it's a secret at Holly Hills. We just don't talk about that much except for today's passage and actually for the next couple weeks because of what the passage covers. Paul writes to these saints here at Corinth more than to any other church. I would almost say, I haven't done a scientific study of this, almost say as much as all other churches combined.

He talks about money. Now here's another factor in that. There are two letters one before 1st Corinthians and one between 1st and 2nd Corinthians. He may additionally have talked to them about money. So it's amazing. These folks really got the treatment. When we taught through 1st Corinthians 6, 1 through 4, that was back in February when we had a whole different set of temperatures. Hassan would have really enjoyed it in February. We had 1st Corinthians, it says 6 should be 16. Can you correct that, please? 16, 1 through 4. Now, concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you do also. And he goes on in those verses to explain about 1 Corinthians.

We're about to see Paul's address of the subject for most of these next two chapters. Now, the flip side is we'll only be covering it for a couple more weeks. But nonetheless, two chapters are given to this topic of money. Now, maybe that'll put you to sleep, or maybe you applaud that. That would be fine. Either way, it's OK. Now, one of the things we're also going to see as we look at these chapters is we're going to be amazed by grace. What do I mean by that?

The Greek word that's translated grace, typically, shows up 10 times in these two chapters. If you're going to look for that word grace and try to count ten times, however, you are going to be a little puzzled. And the reason is that it's sometimes translated other than grace. Grace is seven times, at least in the New American Standard. Some other translations may vary. Gift, one time, and thanks, two times. But a total, same word, ten times.

And one of the things that I think we're going to find here, we will be amazed by grace because as we go through this passage, we'll see grace is greater in definition each time it shows up. Grace is one of those things that we can never get too much of. As a matter of fact, God is so convinced that you can never get too much of it, that you're going to be shown God's grace. It's going to be demonstrated on into eternity.

One of the passages that I love to point to is Ephesians 2.7, where it says after, in verse 6, where you've been seated with Christ and the heavenlies, in the rolling ages to come, He will show, that word for show means to demonstrate visibly. He will show his grace on into the rolling ages to come.

We will continue to look with awe at grace. So as we go through this passage, I would invite you to do that, to look at this word grace as it keeps showing up and showing up and showing up. Because what Paul is underscoring, he weaves it like a thread through the entire passage. What keeps showing up is that giving in the body of Christ is about grace. It's about grace. And he wants them not to forget that. And that's why the word shows up ten times. No thumb screws or arm twisting in this. None of this, you know, ow, ow, ow, okay, I'll give, right? No arm twisting? Oh, I guess I will, right?

We're going to see that while the Apostle Paul here addresses the issue at length, two chapters, while he has the option, he certainly has available the opportunity to give a command, to say, look, you guys need to do this and this and this. He deliberately steps away from that. specifically using that word and saying that's not what this is. He is so focused on grace that he's going to keep weaving the word grace through it and he's going to deliberately step away from giving a command about giving. And we're going to see why here in a little bit. Instead he gives them, and consequently us, a gracious guidance He gives us insight into how God wants giving to be done. The basis for giving that's spiritually motivated, not based on guilt, not in hype, no thermometers. And instead, he puts the focus on one's relationship with the Lord and who the Lord is.

We'll see and hear what God doesn't desire and explicitly what God's looking for. One of the things that we have record of is in the pagan cultures during New Testament times, some of the pagan people would be frustrated. They would write, I don't know what the God, and they're talking about their plurality of gods, I don't know what the God wants. I have no idea what the God wants. Of course, they were praying for odd abilities. They would pray to be able to steal better and to lie better.

But one of the things that becomes abundantly clear as we see this passage is God does want us to know what he wants. Isn't that great? No guessing. No wondering. I have no idea what God wants. This tells us exactly in this passage precisely what God wants.

And just so we don't lose sight of it, he keeps weaving the word grace through the passage all the way through, beginning to end. These two chapters will be telling us that God desires that our giving comes from the heart. Got that? God desires that our giving comes from the heart with spiritual motivation and not just external compliance.

And yes, The Bank of Uganda, 10,000 shillings notice for us on. OK. Now, what's not in this passage? One item we will not be using as we go through this passage, because we won't see it, is the word tithe. You just won't see it. In fact, nothing in God's Word that is directly addressed to the church, intended for us to carry out and live out, mentions a tithe. Nothing. Not one. Zip. Nada. There are several reasons for Paul not to command or even encourage or even suggest the tithe. We in the church have died in relationship to the law. This tithe was a tenth part. That's what the word tithe means. It's a tenth. A tenth part.

It was from the law of Moses. But we in the church have died in relationship to the law. That's Romans 7, 4 through 6, Galatians 2, 19 and 20. The law is not for us to go and pick and choose from. The law is not something that's been placed into our heart. The law has not been placed into our heart for us to live out from the inside. We have died to it. The intimacy that we have is not with the law in our heart. The intimacy that we have is we've been identified with Christ in His death, and his burial, his resurrection and ascension and seeding. That's the intimacy that we have, not the law written on our heart. Okay, what the tithe was for?

We need to address this so that we get the context and don't grab it out of the context. The tithe which is given not only but substantially in Deuteronomy 14 was to provide primarily for the tribe of Levi, there are other complications to it, which had no land in Israel as did the other tribes. Now there are, again, other complications to it. One of the complications was if you lived too far, and by the way the law doesn't define what too far is, if you live too far to be able to bring your goods into the storehouse, then you were to throw a party. You had to set the tithe aside and throw a party, and I'm not kidding. It's in there in Deuteronomy 14. I won't go through it, but there's more complication to it than you might imagine, including you must, under penalty of law, throw a party.

One of the things that the tribe of Levi did is that tribe was responsible for working full-time in the temple. They had temple responsibilities of various sorts. And certainly one of them was working at the altar. But in fact, they had other responsibilities as well. Here was the middle part of the temple. The entire temple courtyard in the time of Christ was about six football fields. OK, soccer fields. Six football or soccer fields in size. This was a smaller area inside that larger courtyard. It was around the outer courtyard was where Gentiles could come and they weren't picky about who was there. This area that you're seeing right in front of you, only qualified Jews could enter. And the women were only permitted up to that gate that you see in the middle.

Matter of fact, let's step into it here. Here is looking from the front, from the east, into this temple area. This area up front was the area where, you recall the account, one place where the one fellow says, I'm so glad I'm righteous, and the other fellow says, Lord, forgive me, I'm a sinner. That takes place in this front area here. The widow who gives her mite, that little coin that's all she could afford, that's in this front area in here, in this inner part of the temple. Now, what would happen is the Levites would carry out their sacrificial system in behind this wall and that gate, between there and that larger building that you see standing there. And so all the sacrifices would be taking place in that area. And something else that would go on, right in here, you see that little semicircular area?

Several times during a day, there were Levites who were trained as a choir and they would come out and there would be a men's choir in that kind of reverse semi-circle and the men's choir would sing during that time and they would also have harps that they would bring out at the same time, a cathara, root of our word guitar, that they would bring out at the same time. Some of the Levites also had trumpet playing responsibilities. As a matter of fact, from the ruins of what the Romans shoved off the Temple Mount, one of the things that is available in one of the inscriptions that still remains is the trumpeter's place. So there were various responsibilities Levites had. They also had to keep the fire going. There are those who are responsible for just keeping track of the genealogies. Lots of responsibilities. That's what the tithe was for. They had responsibilities of the temple.

They didn't have any land. And so there were storehouses available for people to bring their crops and even the animals to. in order that the Levites would be able to have food. Why? They had no land of their own for farming. It was not part of their inheritance.

The tithe, however, was not all that Israel gave. And this is what people frequently forget. You'll get, you know, sometimes pastors will come and, you know, beat and bang on the congregation, forgetting that when people added up all that the people in Israel gave, somewhere between 25 and 33 percent of their income went to things relating to the temple and the land there. And what do I mean by that? There was a temple tax. There were all the sacrifices and offerings in the temple.

They had to leave the corners of their field. And by the way, that's not defined either. So the rabbis had to define that, right? So you had to leave the corners untouched. And you couldn't go through your field a second time to get anything you might have missed. You had to leave the middle of the field with the things that you didn't get. And you had to leave all the corners completely unharvested.

And so that was another thing that had to be given as well. You add it all up. There was the temple tax. That was not proportional at all. That was a flat tax. Flat tax for each head. There was a temple tax. When you add it all up, they gave much more than 10%. 10% is not even close to half of what they gave. In some cases, not even a third. So they actually gave much more.

Now, something else, that tithe was given in the context, in Deuteronomy 14, of the food laws, right before that, and right after that, you don't harvest from your land every seven years. So, to start with, all the instructions about tithing are right in the context of you can eat this, you cannot eat that. Don't you dare have crab, lobster, or shrimp. So if somebody's going to say, you've got to tithe, don't you dare let that pastor go out to Red Lobster. It doesn't qualify. No shrimp for lunch.

Now, the other thing is right after that came the requirements to let the land lie fallow. One, two, three, four, five. I've got a couple more. Oh, there we go. Seven. Every seventh year, you had to let the land lie fallow. And how many people do that? How many people even know to do that, right? How many people would like to do that? Probably none.

Okay. So we have to ask this question. Ought we to just set aside laws both before and after the tithe, but bang people over the head to make sure they give a tenth? I don't think so. You'd look at the context. It does not make sense. Okay. But as before, and we've seen this before, we're going to see it in today's passage, and Paul's not done. We may not be under the law, we are not, but we still should learn from the law. There are principles to learn from it.

So, one reason that Christ died on the cross, many people, if you ask why did Christ die on the cross, they will answer appropriately, Christ died for our sins. But that's not all. He died so that you, we, in the church would be dead to the sin nature, the world, and the law. That's why he died on the cross. And so we have died to the law, but aside from that, the law of Moses is a part of God's Word.

It is, in fact, inspired, God-breathed, 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, for our benefit. Matter of fact, the word that Paul produced talks about there is to be productive. God's Word, all of it, is inspired to be productive. Not so that we're under the law, but that we can learn from it, and we ought to. We'll find that Paul will draw spiritual principles from the law that apply to the church, we who live under grace.

We'll see that in just a minute here. One of the things he does is he starts off the passage, rather than giving those believers in Corinth a command, he gives them an example. This recent pattern that he gives them as an example is the church saints at Macedonia. Here's Corinth that was out there at the narrowest part of this little isthmus of the southern part of Greece. And that area that you see in yellow is Macedonia. That's not Macarena or anything else. It's Macedonia. So Macedonia is the area just north of where the Corinthians are, and he gives them an example of what that's like.

Now, like all the uses of imitation and example in all the letters of the New Testament, it's not so that we can just imitate externally, as if it were an acting job. When we talk about examples, when we talk about imitating, it's not just an external example.

There are people who get awards for acting. We have some great actors in this country. It has nothing to do with Christianity, right? This isn't an acting job. This is a heart imitation, a heart example. We need to look deeply. Believers ought to be able to look at others in the body who maybe are older in the Lord than they are and see an example. Not just outside. Not, oh, Vern drives a Honda. Therefore, everybody who is holy drives a 10-year-old Honda. Right? No. That's not the example. The example needs to come deep. It needs to be deep. What's happening spiritually in those who are examples?

That's Paul's point here. Here's the poetic pattern in 2 Corinthians 8. In a great ordeal of affliction, the abundance of the joy of them, and I've made the language here a little bit closer to the literal Greek, and the deep poverty of them overflowed in the wealth of the liberality of them. Paul has a powerful paradox in this passage.

Words like great, abundance, overflowed wealth, all these words that indicate something massive, large, huge amount, even way too much, are said in profound contrast. A great ordeal of affliction. A great ordeal of tribulation. In going through a lot of difficulty, The deep poverty of them overflowed.

And by the way, there's two words for poverty or poor. Paul chose the one that's the lowest of the low, the leastest of the least. Those who are so poor, they have barely enough to survive. And then he adds the word deep to it. Deep, extreme poverty of them overflowed.

Isn't that an amazing contrast? To that he sets It against abundance of joy, wealth of the liberality. Isn't that amazing? Now, if you were in deep, deep, most poor poverty, would you have an abundance of joy? Wow, this is amazing. That only comes from recognizing one's spiritual wealth. It's not from the physical wealth, most certainly. The wealth of the liberality, this has nothing to do with politics too, right? Giving abundantly, being generous is what he's talking about.

Now, we need to talk about the value of voluntary. I've never been in the Marines, but I am told the Marines, the few, the proud, have all learned this lesson. Never volunteer for anything, right? Okay. Now, in spite of that, what does Paul say? He talks about the value of what is voluntary. In fact, he's not done talking about the value of what is voluntary. In fact, he wants the things that come about in our lives to be the result not of compulsion, but of actions that are voluntary. They come from us voluntarily, not from either an external or an internal compulsion. In fact, we're even at times, and we're going to see it before we're done with our study of these chapters, we're even warned against doing something under compulsion.

How about that? You know, if you ever think about something that's dangerous, you know, there were various things that over time I thought, oh, I should have told my kids this was dangerous or that was dangerous. You know, when our son, Ed, was a little tiny guy and he ran in front of a truck, he kind of wanted to say, Gah! Right? It's dangerous. But guess what Paul warns us is dangerous? Doing something under compulsion. How about that? That's what's dangerous. That's what he wants to warn them about. Why?

Because the church is not under the law of Moses. Nor are we under even a principle of law. Grace, ten times in this passage, and on to the end of the next chapter, grace, grace, grace, ten times. As grace comes from God's heart, see, grace is not an add-on. Grace is not one of those optional extras. You know, if you go to order a car, which like I say, we haven't done for ten years, they'll ask you, well, do you want this package? Would you like this added on? Grace is not an add-on.

Grace is basic to who God is. Grace is a critical and permanent and eternal aspect of God's character. As grace is from God's heart and is characteristic of His heart, He desires that we are gracious at heart, that our giving be given graciously. That's what God wants. Remember earlier I said He's going to tell us exactly what God wants? That's what God wants. He wants our giving to be given graciously. He gives the example, they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God. You want to know what the will of God is? There it is, right there. To the Lord first, and then to one another. Giving isn't to be from some external checklist.

Can you imagine if I got up in the morning? Sometimes I do get up in the morning. Can you imagine that? Anyway, can you imagine if I got up in the morning and I went over to Nancy and I said, that's the wife. Okay. There we go. Checklist. All right. Seven kisses. Give her seven kisses. Check it off. Okay. On to the next thing. Okay. And I go out and go about my day and there's the checklist. Now, Nancy's probably not going to be too happy with that. Okay. Especially when it comes around 1030 and the next item on the checklist is two hugs, right? That's not going to be satisfactory because it's not part of a relationship. That's just a checklist. Superficial checklist is not what God's interested in.

Unlike the usual caution, do take giving personally. Take it personally. Yes, please do. It's to spring from giving of ourselves to the Lord and to the saints. It starts from the heart. It starts from the heart. Financial giving grows out of spiritual giving. Financial giving grows out of spiritual giving.

It is the will of God. It's what God has in mind, in heart, and God didn't just think about it in the last minute. Oh, heaven's sake, they're at Holly Hills meeting? What do I want them to do? That's not the way God deals with things. He has from eternity past and on into eternity future this will of giving of our hearts to Him. By the way, why do you give your hearts to Him? Do you owe it to Him?

Wrong answer, right? We don't owe the Lord anything, otherwise grace isn't grace. You see the difference there? Grace isn't grace. Why do we give ourselves to the Lord? Not because we owe Him anything. As a matter of fact, we couldn't even begin to pay Him back, so give it up, right? We give ourselves to the Lord out of thankfulness. out of a response to His grace, we graciously give ourselves, but not to pay Him back. There's not a chance we can do that. No way. It's what God has had in mind from eternity past on into eternity future. That's what He wants here for us, for you, for me, for Holly Hills.

Here's the poetic pattern in verse 7. But just as you abound in everything, and he goes and lists all the different things, and one of the things you'll notice, this faith and understanding and knowledge, that's a part of the spiritual gifts that he wrote to them about in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14. And what this tells me is they got the message about love in 1 Corinthians 13.

Why? He says, and in the love we inspired in you. They listened. Isn't that great? They responded. He told them they needed the love and they got the message. That's cool. They listened. They understood. Their church body was changing because they listened to what Paul had written. It's almost as if the letter that he wrote to them was inspired or something, right? Just as you abound in everything, and he gives the list, then finally see that you abound in this, and I've translated grace-gifting.

I think some of the translations may say gracious work, but actually work is not in there. That you abound in this grace-gifting also. Not that you abound, and boy, everybody at Holly Hills feels really compelled to just stuff that box back there as much as they can. No. Grace-gifting. That you abound in the grace-gifting. That you get it. That out of God's gracious heart, He wants us to give also out of grace. You don't owe anything to Holly Hills. You've not signed any promissory note. It's grace-gifting. It's grace gifting.

All these things that they already have learned and abounded in. I think the reason why he briefly instructed them about giving and now writes two chapters is they had learned some things. They'd actually grown. Isn't that great? But what was happening here, he wanted them to grow in this next thing, in this grace gifting. He says, I need to see you grow in that area.

They were big on expressing the spiritual gifts, but needed to learn the expression of spiritual giving, grace gifting. In verse 9, Paul gives the example of Christ. Christ, who is wealthy in spiritual riches and standing, gave it all up voluntarily. It wasn't the Father and the Holy Spirit saying, Jesus, you've got to go! You've got to go! And He comes back, no, no, no! You've got to go! You've got to go! And there wasn't this heavenly back and forth. Christ says, I'll go. Voluntarily. He loved and He gave. It's amazing. I look at the passage.

Galatians 2.20 says He loved and He gave. Ephesians 5, first in the beginning and then towards the end of the chapter, He loved and He gave and He loved and He gave. You get the impression he loved and he gave, right?

It's the example of Christ. There's not only this example of sacrificial giving like we saw with the people in Macedonia, but also the giving to his body out of a motivation of selfless love. See, it's the motivation he's getting at here. Christ had it all. He didn't need to come down to earth to get something more. He had plenty. But what did he do, as Paul describes to the Philippians, he emptied himself for us. He set aside voluntarily because he loved and because he gave. So Paul gives that as an example, the example of Christ.

Beyond being an outsider, an external example, you see, there's a tendency people can ask the question, what would Jesus do? And it's possible for that to be real external. But it isn't a question of asking, what would Jesus do? It's a question of who's doing the living in me. I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who, and I'm going to expand this, it's no longer I who does the living, I who do the living, okay? But Christ does the living in me. It's not just that He dwells in me, that's true, but He does the living in me. Christ is our very life. Christ who is your life, right?

The other point that he makes in verses 10 and 11 is he says, you can only give what you have. And one of the other ways of putting that, especially in our culture, is that we might have a slot back there, but it isn't a slot to drop your credit card. No debt giving. He tells us you can't give what you don't have. Don't go deep and hawk for Jesus, right? Don't go piling up the credit cards for Jesus. I just was reading a few hours ago that there was a pastor down in the church in Los Angeles that got in front of his congregation and admitted that he put $122,000 worth of charges on the church credit card. I don't know how it got there, but anyway, don't do that. By the way, I don't think I'll do that either. No debt-giving. We don't need to do that. Don't go and hawk for Jesus. There isn't any such thing. That's not what God intends.

God's Word doesn't condone debt-giving. As a matter of fact, one way to summarize it, neither giving nor living beyond our means. Paul gave as an example the Macedonians who gave out of the very little that they had. But that's not the same as giving what you don't have. There is no encouragement from Scripture for debt giving.

Ah now, manna. Here's from the Law. Here's the lesson from the Law. In the books of the Law of Moses, we read of the Lord providing to the Israelites. They would go out, and the word actually means a whatness. And I'm sure the little kids are saying, Dad, what is this?

Don't ask. Just pick it up and eat it. So here's this man, and it shows up on the ground. Strangely enough, it shows up for six days, and the seventh day, you can't find it. If you try to keep up some extra for the next day, you can't. This stuff goes bad. Except on the sixth day, when you can pick up enough for the sixth day and the seventh day, and it doesn't go bad.

That's weird stuff, isn't it? Now, here's the other thing. I think we're in the same position spiritually. And I think there's more than one way that this works. You need to have, I need to have, a relationship with the Lord each and every day. I can't save it up. I can't save it up. I can't save up a relationship with the Lord today for tomorrow. Because you know why? I need a relationship with the Lord tomorrow too. I can't save it up.

His purpose in bringing it out here is God provides sufficiently for us all as we share according to the Lord's leading. There's enough for everyone. No one had too much, no one had too little. There's enough and the Lord will provide sufficient for the body of Christ. The Lord will provide what we need among us as one shares with another.

One of the things we've seen so far, grace has been expressed as the honor and opportunity of giving, as God graces us. The Macedonians begged for the opportunity to give. Paul was astounded. He says, you have nothing to give. And they said, yes, but we would just so much love to have the opportunity. So they gave of what very tiny little that they had.

The other thing we've seen, grace has been expressed in the character of God, verse 1, and of Christ, verse 9, in lavish giving. Is God wimpy, skimpy, stingy in his giving? No. Lavish giving. Grace has also been shown to be the offering of the gift itself. That's grace. The other point, and it comes in this passage, we're going to see it again in chapter 12.

The grace of God is always sufficient for us in the body of Christ. The grace of God is always sufficient for us in the body of Christ. And that grace comes in several forms. Sometimes the grace comes in provision. Sometimes the grace comes in lack. God's grace, however, is always sufficient. no matter what form is needed. Grace is because God is. And grace is always amazing. Or it isn't grace yet. We don't understand it yet. God's grace is truly, truly amazing.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that as we look at this passage, we see who you are. all the way through it and on into the verses to come here. Your grace, ten times in two chapters, grace woven as a scarlet, golden, heavenly blue, all those colors thread through the passage. And we just thank you for your indeed most amazing grace. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.