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Grace Giving
The Grace Way of Giving, No. 2
BD33-02© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1971)
We pick up the story concerning personal Christian stewardship with the subject of the grace way of giving.
This is number two. It is crucial that we as believers in the
church age thoroughly understand the grace principle of stewardship.
Human viewpoint giving will degrade us. Divine viewpoint giving will ennoble us. Giving under grace is a very specialized kind
of activity and it does not come to us naturally. It
is something that we have to learn on the
basis again of the revelation of the Word of God. Out
of the Bible we find the principles by
which we are to function in this, just as we find the principle by
which we are to function in all the other areas of our Christian life. But giving is essential to our understanding
because it is part of the exercise of our Christian priesthood. We never fully enter into the fact that we
ourselves are independently the priests of God until we learn how to
give by the grace technique.
We looked last week at tithing, and we pointed out that that
is not Christian giving. The use of tithing may be something that you come to by personal choice, and
that’s alright. The problem, however, is that
you may fall into the trap of thinking that after you have given God
10% of your income, you have nine-tenths to do with as you please. Tithing from an expanding income is generally
an indication that you are withholding God’s money from Him. In other words, if you have been tithing over
the years, and God has expanded your income, and you’re still
tithing, then you’re probably out of line with what God expects you to do. If you think of your income as an expanding
cornucopia with the wide end just overflowing with God’s
increasing blessings, what you’re trying to do is to justify increasingly enjoying and
using what comes out of that wide end of cornucopia and blessing while giving God
a simple 10% which becomes less and less in comparison to what you yourself keep.
So, tithing is something you may choose to do but it is a hazardous
position to maintain over the years because as our incomes increase,
our giving, in all likelihood, God would expect us and lead us to give as
well. We are not forever to justify using the abundance of the wide end of the cornucopia of financial
blessing. We are not forever called upon to justify
that by buying more things, by making more investments, by securing the
things we think we’d like to have or should have, and therefore justify
that we have these expenses to pay for.
1 Timothy 6:10
Please turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy 6:10. I want to look at a verse that is a very
important revelation from God about money. In this verse, God the Holy Spirit says that an
emotional attachment to one’s money is expressed in the words “love of money is the
root of all kinds of evil.” The word “love of money comes
from a compound Greek word that connotes an emotional attachment. So, an emotional zealous attachment for money,
God says, is the root of all kinds of evil.
When it speaks here of the love of money, this refers to a
weakness in the spiritual maturity structure of our souls. We spoke about the spiritual maturity
structure in terms of a pentagon because it has five basic sides. God says that we are to grow in grace. We are to grow in the knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Spiritual maturity is the goal of the Christian life. We studied
Bible doctrine as the basic building materials by which to build this
spiritual maturity. A who lacks a mastery of the details of life is going to be a person who has an emotional strong
deep attachment to his money and everything that his money has purchased for
him and is able to purchase him. Remember from our study of spiritual maturity that the details of life are important,
and money is important, because is the means by which we do things. But the point is that we are not slaves to
our money; that we are not slaves to these necessary details of our lives. Instead, it is the Lord, and it is
doctrine that bears our supreme allegiance, and toward which we direct our supreme
affection. We are slaves to the Lord Jesus Christ. We are slaves to His Word,
not to these details that He will supply in His grace.
Now the “love of money” is the cause of all kinds of
evil. In the Greek, the word “root,”
which comes later in the English sentence, “for the love of money
is the root of evil,” in the Greek sentence stands right at the very first of
the sentence. In Greek, whenever you want
emphasize something you put it first in the sentence. This is the word that the sentence begins
with: “root of all kinds of evil is this emotional attachment to money.
What this is saying is that we can trace back our
wrongdoings to an emotional attachment to money. Our
human viewpoint thinking which has led us to oppose the will of God can be traced back to our emotional
attachment to money. Our money obsession will destroy
this facet of our maturity—the grace orientation in our souls, so
that we become dependent upon ourselves. We are
preoccupied with self rather than Christ. It neutralizes our love for God. Matthew 6:24 says, “No man can serve two
masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and
despise the other. Ye cannot serve and money.”
Now that’s a basic principle of life. When we have this emotional
attachment toward money, it is the beginning of every kind of imaginable evil in our
thinking, in our feelings, in our expressions, and in our conduct. This attitude toward money, 1 Timothy 6:10
says, leads us to the sin of covetousness. “For the love (the emotional attachment to) of
money is the root cause of all kinds of evil, which while some coveted after…” And that’s what happens. We begin coveting. We
develop a frenzy for a growing bank account and for security for some anticipated economic disaster. When we get that kind of love for money, our
thinking becomes extremely distorted.
In Matthew 6:33, we read the principle that the Lord Jesus
lays down instead of this kind of a frenzy for a growing bank account
and security: “But seek ye first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto
you. Be therefore not anxious about tomorrow for tomorrow will be anxious for the things of itself,
sufficient unto the day as its own evil.” How often do
we fail to live for the day that is before us, for the opportunity of
service before us, and for the investment of our funds that is today? Instead the pattern proves to be the
purchasing of things without rhyme or reason relative to you our needs
or to the use of the things. We see it, so we buy it. Somebody else has it, so we have to have it.
Luke 12:15 says, “And He said unto them, take heed and
beware of covetousness, for a man’s life consisteth not in the
abundance of the things which he possesses. Yet we
constantly act as if our lives consist of what we own, what we possess,
and what our money will secure for us. Covetousness is the result when you have an
emotional attachment for money. This is turn, 1 Timothy 6:10
says, causes us to err from the faith. “They have erred from the faith.” That is, we begin to deviate from God’s
thinking—from what Bible doctrine has to teach us. It is amazing
how people get attached to something. This becomes the crux. This
becomes the testing point between them and God of the mastery of the
details of life. It is fantastic how hell bent and
determined they will become to hanging onto this thing is so
self-evident. It should be to them. It obviously is to others around them that
this is leading them on a destructive course. This is serving to neutralize their spiritual
effectiveness. If somebody sounds off about it, they go
negative to him, even though he may be just as right and true in what
he’s saying as can be, but they strike out him because they will defend this
thing that they covet so fondly. The emotional
zeal for money, the things that we can buy with it, has a built-in
hazard because it leads, I have seen, to Christian retirement.
Somebody mentioned to me the other day the bulletin from the
American Board of Mission to the Jews. One of their executives getting up in years wrote an
article condemning the practice of Christian retirement from active participation in the
Lord’s service. He made it clear in his article
that his years being as they may were not to him a signal to start
retiring from what he had been doing all the years that he’d been in the
Lord’s service. I think that’s right. But when we get this emotional zeal for
money, what do we do? We go to
covetousness, and covetousness causes us to err from the faith. The
first thing we’re doing is that we have
something that in order to hang onto that thing, we’re going to
have to start retiring from the Lord’s service. It
causes some kind of conflict or problem, and pretty soon we’re
neutralizing ourselves in effectiveness in the way the Lord can use us, and
that’s pathetic. Now we may continue doing all
these junk things in the Lords work that Christians do under the guise
of Christian service, but many a faithful Christian warrior has slipped
away from God’s plan because of some temporary thing that he possessed,
that he coveted, that he became deeply attached to, such that he became resentful of any
suggestions that maybe this is not the best thing in the world to have
and to pursue. Then he gritted his teeth and bit in hard and hung on, and the result was neutralizing himself in the
Lord’s service. For what? For a temporary thing that he’s going to die
pretty soon and leave behind to somebody else to take anyhow.
Matthew 6:19 says, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon
earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through
and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither most
or dust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through or steal, for
where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” My dear friend, whether you like it or not, whether
or I like it or not, if something that money can buy, or money itself, is our treasure,
that’s where our heart is going to be. Your treasure
will be with that thing that is precious to you and it will not be the
Lord’s service or the sacrifices or the demands or the inconveniences or
anything else that’s involved in serving the Lord.
The ultimate consequences of this emotional attachment to
money at the end of 1 Timothy 6:10 is personal grief: “and have pierced themselves through with
many sorrows.” Here’s the chain: We begin with an emotional
attachment toward money and the things it buys. The result
is that we begin coveting after things that our money can make
available to us. We hang onto those things and consequently our covetousness for things leads us to err from true
doctrinal practice, and then we pierce ourselves through with many sorrows. This is
the Greek word “odune.” It means “pain” or “a
consuming grief.” The sorrows and pain of our souls can be
traced back to our love for money.
What sorrows and pain have you born in your life? What griefs do you look back
upon? What regrets? If you think carefully enough, you can trace those
back to your love, your emotional attachment to money.
Matthew 6:22 says, “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore thine
eye be healthy, the whole body shall be full of light. But if
thine eye be evil (that is, defective), thy whole body shall be full of
darkness. If therefore the light that is
in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.” Now it is sad that a Christian should find
himself in the position where he is filled with darkness. When you start violating what the Word of God
has to say about material things and our relationship to them and our
use of things and our use of money, you are inviting darkness into your soul,
and it will result in grief. The sorrow and the griefs that we suffer can be traced back to this love.
We have three great illusions about money that we need to get over. Number one is that we have the
delusion that money is essential to happiness. But a Christian’s happiness is built on a
spiritual maturity structure in the soul and his relationship through that to the Lord Jesus Christ.
That’s what makes us happy. There is no lasting happiness from these
details of life that often so dominate us.
Luke 12:23 says, “The life is more than food, and the body
is more than raiment.” Ecclesiastes 5:10
says, “He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied silver, nor
he that loveth abundance with increase. This is also vanity. When goods increase, they are
increased who eat them. What good is there to the owners thereof saving the beholding of them with their
eyes? The sleep of a laboring man is sweet whether
he eat little or much, but the abundance of the rich will not suffer
him to sleep. There are griefs which come to us
as we become wealthy, but it does not mean happiness. The rich man has sorrows and concerns and
problems that the man with less never faces. Your money will not give you happiness.
Another delusion we have is that money provides security,
but it is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that provides security. When that woman walked up to that temple
treasury and she put in all that she had, all of her possession
financially in those two mites, do you think that she was destitute when she walked
away? Do you think she went home and went
without supper that night? I doubt it. What she still had left was her orientation
to the grace of God. Because she had grace, she had the provision and the care of God. She was not destitute.
Money does not provide security, but the grace of God does. This was the rich fool’s
mistake. In Luke 12:16, we read, “And He
spoke a parable unto them saying, ‘The ground of a certain rich
man brought forth plentifully. He thought within
himself saying, ‘What shall I do because I have no place to
bestow my crops?’ And he said, ‘This
will I do: I will pull down my barns and I will
build greater, and there will I bestow all my crops and all my
goods.’’” This is the old barn-building technique—the
old adding another segment to the structure device that we love to
follow in order to justify keeping what we have rather than giving out of the wide end
of the cornucopia which has long since passed what we need to keep the blood
flowing in our veins and the breath in our bodies and our bodies clothed and sheltered.
Verse 19 says, “And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, thou has
much goods laid up for many years. Take thine ease. Eat, drink, and be
merry.’ But God said unto him, ‘Thou
fool, this night shall be required of thee. Then whose shall those things be which thou hast
provided?’ So, is he that layeth up treasure for himself
and is not rich toward God.” Now this is
what I’m trying to say—that the Bible takes a very dim view
of anybody who is not rich toward God. I’m not trying
to condemn wealth that God may have brought to you. I
am trying to alert you and caution you to
the use of the wealth that I hope God has brought or will bring to you. But if you are rich in things and in money
and not rich toward God (and that money can make you rich toward God if
used in the right way), then you’re in a bad way. It is an illusion to think that money is essential
to happiness. It is an illusion to think that money provides security.
A third delusion is that money buys whatever we want. It will not buy you
salvation. It will not buy you someone’s love. It will not secure
peace for you nor make stability in your life. That’s not
divine viewpoint. That’s human viewpoint. It will not secure rewards for
you in heaven just because you have money with which to buy it.
That’s a very important revelation in 1 Timothy 6:10. I would
suggest that we read that through several times and see where that emotional attachment for money will
lead you to the end of the verse which is piercing yourself through with many
sorrows—sorrows perhaps that you’ve experienced that you
can never undo again, that you would have been happy now to have ignored and to have laid
aside that love for the money in return for the love for doctrine or for what
should have held your affections that would have brought happiness instead of the
grief.
2 Corinthians 8:1-2
Now turn to 2 Corinthians 8. We’re going to begin looking at these two
chapters this morning which are the core of the doctrinal instruction in the New Testament
concerning Christian giving. We’re looking at a
group of Christians who lived in Macedonia. We have described for us, first of all, the
circumstances of their giving. In 2 Corinthians 8:1 Paul says,
“Moreover brethren, we make known to you the grace of God
bestowed on the churches of Macedonia.” He uses the
word “brethren” because he is instructing Christians. Giving under grace applies only to
Christians. Giving in the church age is part of our Christian priesthood.
Hebrews 13:16 says, “But to do good and to share forget not,
for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” It is pleasing to God that you walk up to that
offering box under the condition of being filled with the spirit, and guided by Him with the
distribution of your funds. It is pleasing to God that you should do this, and it is viewed as a
sacrifice of your Christian priesthood. A priest who
does not bring his sacrifices is a priest who is under the judgment of God.
So, only a Christian can give to the Lord’s work. It’s an
expression of worship and unbelievers cannot worship God. A local church
should never seek funds from unbelievers. A local church should never try to secure offerings
out of those who are unbelievers. As a matter of fact, you
should make it very clear to unbelievers that you are not inviting them
to give. For this reason it is important that a local church has some system of giving which removes the
temptation to be making appeals to unbelievers for financial aid—that is, to
put anybody on the spot within the service. That’s
why here a Berean we don’t pass an offering plate. That’s why we put boxes at the door so that
you can exercise your Christian priesthood in perfect privacy and in perfect freedom.
I was reading through one of the volumes of Dr. Chafer’s Systematic
Theology that I used when a student at Dallas Seminary when Dr.
Chafer was still alive, and I noticed a note that I had written in on one of the
pages under the subject of tithing. Dr. Chafer
had said in class, “Passing a plate is a pious holdup.” That’s exactly what it is.
Some of you have gone to churches and have come out of
denominations where everybody had to give. I did this as a child. It
was unthinkable that the plate should come by and you should not put
something into it. One day I was sitting in church away
from my parents and it was time for the offering and I discovered to my
horror that I had no money whatsoever. I was in
a panic as I watched those ushers come down those aisles with those
plates in their hand. Well, I did something. As the plate passed by I just jabbed my hand
toward the plate pretending like I was putting something in. The usher looked at a little
fishy-eyed—I think he thought I took something out. That was a traumatic experience—sitting in
church with the plate coming down. I could see it getting closer. Its big mouth got bigger and bigger as it
approached me and I had nothing to put into it.
Dr. Chafer was very sensitive about giving under grace, with
no pressures, and that only believers should give and they should give
in perfect privacy and freedom. He told us
on one occasion when he was an evangelist he would make this clear to
the pastors in whose churches he would run evangelistic meetings. He said that he came to the last night of one
service of one evangelistic campaign. As he sat on the platform the pastor got up and, in spite of what he had
told him, began making a strong appeal for a love offering for the gifts with
which to pay Dr. Chafer for his week of services as an evangelist. Dr. said he was so infuriated at this public
promotion and appeal that he got up out of his chair on the platform
and stormed down the steps, and there was a little door right at the bottom
of the steps and he opened the door and walked through it and slammed the door
behind him to leave. He said, “In a few
seconds I came back out because I discovered it was the janitor’s closet
and I had no place to go.” So, your indignations
and your championing of grace can be embarrassing sometimes. But it is better than embarrassing people
with a plate under their nose and carrying on a pious holdup.
Now Paul is writing to the Corinthian Christians here in
this book, and the Corinthian Christians were pretty well off
financially. Corinth was a great commercial center, and
the Corinthians by and large were well off, whereas the Macedonians of
whom Paul speaks here were comparatively poverty-struck at this time. There were three churches particularly that
we know about in the Macedonian area, this area above Greece. Macedonia included the church at Philippi,
the church at Thessalonica, and that splendid church at Berea.
Now Paul says to these people, “You who are Christians, you
who are my brethren, to you I make known.” The Greek word is “gnorizo,” and it
means simply to give information. It is in the present tense
and Paul is saying, “I continually am stressing the fact of what
God has done with the Macedonian poverty-struck Christians relative to the matter of
Christian stewardship. He said, “Wherever I go, I fondly remind people of the fact of what the
grace of God has done among you people. It is an inspiration throughout the Roman world of my travels.
In Romans 15:25, for example, he refers to them. He says, “But now I
go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the saints, for it hath pleased them of Macedonia and
Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints who are at Jerusalem. It hath pleased them verily and their debtors
they are, for if the Gentiles had been made partakers of their
spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things.” Paul says, “This is a good thing that
the Macedonian Christians were doing in their giving to relieve the
persecution and the famine and the results that the Judean Christians, the Jerusalem
Christians, were living under.” He says, “That’s right. These are the
people from whom all of their spiritual heritage came from in the first place, and
those who are the source of our spiritual heritage under the hand of God
deserve our material care, not our browbeating.”
So, Paul says, “Everywhere I go, while it is right that they should
do this, yet I do commend the fact of what the Macedonians are
doing.” This verb is in the active voice which means
that Paul freely himself is delighted to choose to commend them. It’s in the indicative mood which means
it’s a statement of fact of what God has done with these churches relative to their giving.
Paul says, “I make this information known to you,” which in
the Greek is the dative of advantage. It’s advantageous for these Corinthians to
know about what this church is doing. “I make known to you the
grace of God.” Now this is the dynamics of Christian giving. It is this facet of
our maturity spiritual structure we call grace orientation. If you do not have this developed in your
life to any degree, I can tell you right now you don’t know the
first thing about giving under grace. You can hardly
approach that offering box and even begin to give under grace. Grace orientation is the directive
power. It is part of this spiritual maturity structure, and it is recognizing that everything we have
is from God. Everything we own is his. We don’t deserve anything of His
kindness. He is everything and we are nothing. It is recognizing that what
we accomplish is the result of the power of God in us. That’s grace. It enables us to give to the Lord without strings
attached. Unless you have grace orientation in your
soul, you will give with strings attached, and your strings will be
revealed in certain phrases you may use. The concept
of grace, if there’s anything that grace means, it means no
strings. When God treats you and me in grace, we don’t
deserve it, we can’t pay for it, and we don’t owe Him
anything after He has given it to us. Please don’t go up
to the offering box and say, “I’m going to give this this
morning because I owe it to God,” because that’s blasphemy and it insults the God of
grace. Grace means we don’t deserve it, we can’t
pay for it, and we don’t owe Him anything for it, because God
says, “It’s entirely of what I’m going to do for you.”
Until you get hold of that, you’ll be running around giving
with your little strings, and you’ll say to somebody, “After all I’ve done for
you… After all I’ve done for this
church, is that how you’re going to act? After all I’ve done, aren’t you going to
pay attention to me and my opinions?” But grace doesn’t
add up what it gives in order to prove a point of merit. You won’t be adding up and proving yourself by
your past performance because you’ll have long since forgotten everything that you did
for the Lord. That’s grace giving, and unless it
is giving without strings, there’s no reward for you for what
you’ve given. You have squandered your money.
I’m amazed how I can see Christians who are very frugal and
very careful with their money on this earth who squander it when it
comes to eternal rewards that could be theirs for the use of that money, and
they blow it here. It’s terrible to blow a big
sum of money on this earth when you need it for something else, but
it’s even worse to blow it when it comes to eternal reward because of the condition
under which you gave it here. God’s grace gives us the most with no strings attached.
The big contributors among us as believers in Christendom
today, I’m afraid, tend to think in terms of strings that they
have a right to pull because they are the big givers. If
you cut the strings, the giving stops. A certain type of pastor is very tempted to soothingly stroke the big
givers and the money men in his congregation, and he does this with a certain
Cocker Spaniel-like expectation of what they’re going to give him in
return for his soothing petting. But nobody has any
money except what God has provided by grace. He hasn’t given you this because you have some
persona merit, because you’re a sharp businessman or a sharp investor, because you have
applied yourself, or because of your diligence. None of that is true. Now
all of that is worthy and all of that has merit, but you could have done all
that and God, unless He chose to open the doors of blessing, could have kept you
just as poverty-struck as the day that you began applying your diligence, your
application, all of your talents, and all of your gifts.
Now you can see that only a spiritually mature Christian is
going to be able to give in a grace way. It’s easier for pastors to ride on tithing. The money is there that way, and everybody is
happy. The same people who are happy to
have the bills paid should also be the people who say, “Wait a
minute. I want to know how this money came
in here to pay the bills. I’m as equally
concerned that this money came here by God’s grace provision and technique
to pay these bills as I am that the bills get paid. In fact, I’m a little more interested in how
it got here than I am that it is here. When you get oriented to
grace, that’s the first thing that will come into your mind. That will be the supremely guiding and controlling factor.
So, Paul says, “Moreover brethren, we give you this
information concerning the grace of God which was bestowed…” The word
“bestowed” in the Greek is perfect which means that it’s the grace of God that the Macedonians
experienced and it continued on. Perfect is something that begins in the past and its effects
continue on. To this very day we are delighted to read about these Macedonian
Christians and all that God has been doing through them. What these believers did in Paul’s day
resulted in great blessing. It resulted
in blessing for those impoverished Jerusalem saints. It’s a great inspiration. It has lasting effects upon us today.
It’s passive which means that the Macedonians
didn’t just decide to do it, but God the Holy Spirit moved them. It’s in the participle which means
it’s a law of God. It says that how He bestowed on
the churches. This is by means of the churches. It refers to the churches of
Philippi, Berea, and Thessalonica of Macedonia, this Roman province up in northern Greece.
Verse 2 says, “How that in a great trial of affliction.” What God did with the
Macedonian Christians was a seeming contradiction. In a great trial of affliction, the abundance
of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their
liberality. It seems that these people were poor and yet giving liberally. “In
great trial” means in the midst of great trial. The word “trial” is
“dokime,” and it means “a testing that they were
approved.” It was a testing to show the
merit and the value of these grace oriented Christians. They were tested when they were under poverty
to show what kind of grace orientation they really had.
These people were tested by a trial of great affliction. The Greek word is
“thlipsis.” This word is an interesting
word because it means “pressure.” Here
the thought is pressure by their circumstances. The idea is something which burdens a person from
without. At this time, the historians tell us that the
Roman army had devastated all of Macedonia. These churches found within this Roman province had
gone through a considerable economic disaster, and that’s why they were so poor. Now these were the circumstances that
surrounded them. These people were struggling for a livelihood. This was
the pressure that was upon them, and now they hear about what’s
happening to people way over in Jerusalem, their fellow believers, who are starving. And they say, “We have to do something
about this.”
Happiness
So, we have this translation, in effect, in the midst of
much testing of pressure—testing in the form of pressures that
came from without. “The abundance of the joy.” In the midst of their severe
pressures, of all things, they’re happy. Now
how can that be? Abundance. And this word “abundance” means super
abundance. In the Greek it is “perisseia.” This word means
super abundance. These Macedonian Christians were overloaded with happiness. That is
an inner happiness. Now what is that? As part of the spiritual maturity
structure of their souls they had developed inner happiness. What is their inner
happiness built on? It’s built on the Lord. It’s not built on people.
It’s not built on possessions. It’s not built on circumstances. What they had was joy. The
Greek word is “chara,” which means “happiness.”
Now this is a happiness that is based on Bible doctrine in
our human spirits, which God the Holy Spirit has taught our human
spirits, so that from within us swells up this happiness. This is happiness based on doctrine. If you’re ignorant of doctrine, you’ll
never be happy. 1 John 1:3-4 says, “That which we have seen
and heard declare we unto you (Bible doctrine), that ye also may have
fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son
Jesus Christ, and these things write we unto you that your joy may be full
(that your happiness may be complete).”
In John 13, the Lord is preparing His disciples for His departure. John 13:17
says, “If ye know these things (the doctrine He has taught them), happy are ye if ye do them (positive
volition toward doctrine). John 15:11 again the Lord says, “These things have I spoken unto you (Bible
doctrine) that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full.” Jeremiah 15:16 says, “Thou words were
found and I did eat them, and thy Word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of
mine heart, for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of Hosts.” Now if you want happiness, it starts with
knowing the truth of the Word of God, and you will never be happy
without it. This happiness is not affected by external circumstances. You’re happy
if you have money, and you’re happy if you don’t have money. You cannot build your happiness, and I cannot
warn you enough about this: You cannot
build your happiness on a person, on a thing, or an event. It’s not on something we do, something we
seek, something we have, or something we create. Yet for the person out in the world, all of
the advertising you hear on TV, it’s happiness built on just that
very thing—a person, an event, a circumstance, or something you possess. The person, the thing, or the event that
makes you happy today can also make you very unhappy tomorrow. You’ll be bored by that person, by that
thing, or by that event tomorrow. Or you may be downright miserable by the absence of that person you love, by
that thing, or by that event.
Hebrews 13:5-6 says, “Let your manner of life be without
covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have, for He hath
said, ‘I will never leave thee or forsake thee,’ so that we may boldly
say, ‘The Lord is my helper’ and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” Now man can take away all of these things
that make for happiness, and then you will be unhappy. Inner happiness is not delirious one day and
then depressed the next day. If you try to build your happiness on money, you
are really asking for trouble. That’s what the Bible is trying to say.
Well, what makes us happy on the inside? How do you develop this spiritual
maturity? Well, this is a subject in itself. You can listen to it on one of
the tapes, but in brief, it has three factors: Inner happiness comes from meeting certain
conditions: 1) You must have the habitual filling of the Holy Spirit. There is no inner happiness
outside of the inner circle of confessed sins. 2) You must have the daily functioning under this
grace system of perceiving spiritual things that God has provided. Day by day taking in doctrine. 3)
You must breathe out full knowledge toward God and toward man from all the
facets of your soul—from your mind, from your emotions, and from
your will—breathing out what doctrine has taught. And finally, developing all these facets of your
spiritual maturity structure. If you have a weakness in one
of them you will not be as happy. Maximum happiness is the result of having this
structure firm and complete.
Now the Macedonian Christians were under severe pressure,
but they had a great inner happiness because they had not built it upon
those circumstances that were bringing pressure upon them from the outside.
That’s how they gave. They gave as people who were under poverty
but just as happy as they could be in their giving.
So, what Paul says is that in the midst of much testing of
pressure, the super abundance of their happiness, “and their deep
poverty.” Actually the Greek says “their
deep down poverty that they experienced.” Things were really bad for them because of what they
had experienced. “That in the midst of much testing of
pressure, the super abundance of their happiness, and their deep down
poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality.” The word “abounded is the Greek word
“perisseuo,” which means super abounded. It means an exceeding measure,
above the ordinary. It’s to be abundantly furnished. It’s aorist: on the specific occasion of their giving to
the Jerusalem saints they were delighted. It’s active which means they generously chose
to do it, and they were happy to choose to do it. It resulted to
the riches of their liberality. The result of their grace orientation was wealth. The word we have is a wealth that is described as
their liberality. The Greek word for “liberality” is “haplotes.” This is a word that means “simplicity,”
in the sense of a purity of mind, or as we’ve been saying, “a
no-strings attached mentality.” This is the kind of giving that they
had. It was a liberality that is grace generosity. If we were going to try to
find a word to describe this, we would perhaps use the word “lavish.” They were lavish in
their giving relative to the condition of poverty in which they found themselves. There were no strings attached to it. It was a purity of mind. It
was mental attitude grace expressed in generous unselfish giving.
So, Paul says that in the midst of much testing of pressure,
because of the circumstances outwardly surrounding them, the super
abundance of their happiness, which was an inner happiness based upon doctrine and
spiritual maturity in their souls and not a person or a thing or a situation, and
their deep down poverty super abounded to a wealth of generous giving.
So, we sum up what these two verses, introducing us to
Christian giving, tell us. That is that the basic factor in grace giving is your mental attitude. The mind of the soul has to be oriented to
grace. The mind of the legalist is oriented to tithing. It is more
important to be oriented to grace, to have the right attitude of mind,
than the amount that you give. The first concern of you and me as believers is not having money to give, or the
obligation to give, but being oriented to the grace of God so that we can give in the
right way. What good does it do to have money to give and you can’t give in a way that God can honor, prosper, and bless.
I realize that pastors find it a lot easier to impose
tithing on Christians than to teach doctrine so that these Christians
can become grace-oriented. If they get
enough members coming through with 10%, the bills are paid and
everybody is happy, but nobody is pleasing God. The
place that we begin in our giving is concern with our own hearts. Am I oriented to grace? Perhaps
you never give. Until you are oriented to grace, better so. God’s work will be
taken care of without your misgiving. Until it begins to concern
you, worry about the structure maturity structure status of your soul. Perhaps it’s because you yourself have
never realized how dependent you are entirely upon God, and that giving, even
when you are poor, is God’s way.
You might say, “Well, I don’t have too much, so that’s why I
don’t give. When things get better I’m going
to do more.” No. That’s what I’ve noticed over the years: When things get better they don’t do
more for the Lord’s work. The people who are doing more for the Lord’s work are the people who did a lot when
they were poor. And that’s the Macedonians, and Paul said they were a delight: “Everywhere
I go I tell people, ‘Now here is giving under grace.’ When I want to teach you how God wants you to
give, I can point to the Macedonians and say, ‘There it is. Just follow their example.’”
Dr. John E. Danish, 1971
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