Dr. Scott McKee: Good morning everybody. Angie and I spent last weekend in Grand Rapids visiting our three week old grandson Aiden James. Here's a picture of baby Aiden wrapped in a quilt made by the Ward Church Quilting Circle. And curiously, most all the quilts made by the circle are rectangular. Yeah, many grandparents in our church tried to to prepare me for what we would experience as first time grandparents.
It's love at first sight, one grandmother told me. Another grandparent said, you won't believe the amount of love in your heart that's almost overflowing for this grandchild. And all those grandparent warnings were very well founded. It's an incredible thing. This love that we have for Aiden is beyond measure, and really beyond reason.
It's not the kind of love that grows slowly over time as you get to know somebody. This love is instantaneous. It's not the kind of love that's warranted by someone's personality or generosity or gifting. This child has no personality. This child has no gifts.
He can't even hold his own head up. At three weeks old, he can't even smile. In fact, he does things that would ordinarily make someone quite unlovable. He whines a lot, he cries, he makes messes and expects other people to clean up after him. What has this kid done to deserve the ridiculous amount of love coming his way?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And that is the way that God loves us. God's love for us is exhaustive, inexplicable, over the top, and unwarranted. Now God doesn't expect us to live out our days in diapers.
He wants us to mature and to grow. But God didn't wait for that before loving us. While we were yet sinners, the bible says, Christ died for us. God loves us completely. And lately I've just been basking in this glorious thought, God loves me.
Warts at all. Another thought that's been sustaining me recently is this idea repeated in the Bible that God holds us in His hands, in the palm of His hands. Phrase I've been ruminating on is I am held. I am held. I'm not just loved by God, I am held.
Let's look at this last photo again. This time this baby is me and you. And look at that baby's eyes. This is the what just happened in my life look in his eyes. This is where you and I confess, I'm a little lost right now.
I don't know which way is up. I'm not sure what's going on. But what I do know is that I am held. I am held. And for now, maybe that's enough.
There's someone being held right over there. I don't know whether you're facing health challenges like I am or whether your challenges are more relational in nature, but perhaps you would be comforted as I have been by simply repeating those phrases. I am loved and I am held. Let's pause and pray before we move on. God, our God, how majestic is your name in all the earth.
Today we rest in your unfailing, ever present, extravagant love. And when our world is spinning out of control, we remember that we are held in your capable arms. Provide strength, comfort, and courage to those who are feeling weak, vulnerable, or afraid. In Jesus name we pray, amen. There is an inextricable link between love and generosity, which is our topic of the day.
Baby Aiden can't speak yet, but he's already caused my wallet to open on more than one occasion. And the odd thing is, I'm enjoying it. What does Aiden need? What does he want? How can we help?
Let us do this for you. Maybe this is just grandparent instinct, or maybe this is what love does. Today we're talking about audacious generosity, which is one of our stated core values as a church. Each core value in our church has a noun and a descriptive adjective. Generosity is the noun and the descriptor audacious, which is a really beautiful word.
Generosity, if I'm very honest, is sometimes intention with other values that I have. I value efficiency, cost savings, planned prudence. I like the idea of audacious generosity, but my family and staff would probably say that one of my personal core values is outrageous frugality. One time, our staff went away at a conference, and I booked the flights, and one of the flights coming back was super early in the morning. We had to leave at 4AM, and the staff was getting a little grumpy, and why are we leaving at 4AM?
Someone said, McKee probably saved a few bucks on the flight. They were absolutely right. I got the cheapest flight available, and I'm no longer allowed to book the flights for the staff. I grew up in a family where cheap was a compliment. But what I'm learning is that generosity is fun and audacious generosity is incredibly fun.
It's a ball, it's a blast. I remember the time as a church for many years, we would purchase one home in the city of Detroit in our adopted Central Detroit neighborhood, and we would renovate it, and volunteers would renovate it, and we'd put a good family in there, and slowly our little Central Detroit community was kind of coming back. One home every year. We did that for many years, and it was great. And then one year somebody said, What we bought all the vacant homes in this neighborhood?
We know where they are. It's a matter of public record. There are 37 vacant homes, and we came to the congregation, and we raised a million dollars. And in one year, we went from buying one home a year to buying 37 homes in a single year. Now we bought 37 homes for a million dollars, which tells you kind of the price we were at that time.
It was a blast. It felt fun. It was energizing. The audacious generosity can be remarkable. That word audacious in terms of giving could refer to a remarkable amount or a remarkable consistency or a remarkable sacrifice.
Here's how we describe this value in our church. We say audacious generosity. We share time, talent, and treasure for the glory of God and the good of neighbor. We live with open hands, realizing that everything belongs to God. We excel in the grace of giving, this line taken from our reading of the day.
This is a value that embodies the people of our church. You do so well at this. This is a value that we want to celebrate and foster. Our text today is two Corinthians chapter eight. And remember when Paul first started his ministry, there was a lot of controversy overtaking the Gospel outside of Judaism.
The first converts to Jesus Christ were all Jews, and it was all made of Jewish converts. And when the Gospel first started going to non Jewish people, they weren't sure what to make of that. It was quite surprising, even controversial. There was this big divide, you know, in that day between Jews and Gentiles. It ended up with a big meeting happening in Jerusalem.
All the apostles got together and deliberated, and it ended not only with, is it okay for the gospel to go to non Jewish people, but we're gonna release the apostle Paul for a specific ministry to the Gentiles. And when they commissioned Paul for that ministry, they told him to remember the poor. As you travel around the world, as you travel to non Jewish people, remember the poor back here in Jerusalem, the Jewish poor. This was an incredible project of significance for Paul because it addressed a key cultural barrier in that day, Jews and Gentiles. It was a visible expression of the fact that Jesus had torn down what what Paul calls the dividing wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles.
It's a visible tangible expression. This whole business of giving of the oneness of the body of Christ. It's the redemption of economic relationships in this new community founded in Jesus. Who is Paul writing to? He's writing to the Corinthians.
The Corinthians were fairly recent converts, and they're living in a very market driven, materialistic part of the world. So they were people who were prone to give their money too much power over them. So he starts by giving them an example of the opposite of materialism. He gives them a picture of what audacious generosity can look like. Look again at what was read earlier today.
And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Macedonia was a region. It included more than one church. The Philippians were one of the Macedonian churches. This grace has been given to the Macedonian churches.
In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. Paul says two things to know about the churches in Macedonia, the people of Macedonia. One is their overflowing joy. These are very happy, joy filled people. And the number two trait, extreme poverty.
They're impoverished people. Anything striking about those two descriptors being for the same people? Filled with joy and living in extreme poverty. That was the mascotian people. Paul says, here's the formula.
Overflowing joy plus extreme poverty equals rich generosity. You can think of it like a mathematical equation. Overflowing joy added to extreme poverty yields the sum of rich generosity. Paul says, There's kind of unusual mathematics at work among the people of Macedonia. And I would suggest the opposite mathematical equation is also true.
You could also say overflowing discontent plus extreme affluence yields a trickle of generosity. Because the truth is people don't start giving when they have more money, they start giving when they have more joy. Because now they're no longer dependent upon materialistic resources for their happiness. They're free. Generosity is not related to income.
I've known wealthy people who are generous. I've known wealthy people who are stingy. I've known poor people who are wealthy. I've known poor people who are stingy. People sometimes think that when they have more money, they will become more generous.
But there's been multiple studies over the years that show that's simply not true. In fact, the research shows that as people's income grows, the percentage of income they give away decreases. People at higher levels of income actually give away a smaller percentage of their income than do lower income people. So Paul says, I want you to understand, there's this kind of grace at work among the people, among the churches of Macedonia. He says there's a strange mathematics that I want you to grasp.
These people of Macedonia as our example. He says, For I testify, they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability. How does someone give beyond their ability? Well, God has clearly increased, enlarged their capacity to give. When people become captivated by the desire to give, God enables them to give in ways they could not have never have possibly imagined.
And their lives become adventures in giving and they overflow with joy. Paul describes this again, he says, entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord's people. This is kind of backwards fundraising. Usually the fundraiser, Paul is the one doing the pleading and the fundraisee is the one getting pleaded to. But Paul says, Massinochet is backwards.
They're pleading with us for the opportunity to give. That kind of urgency that we have about acquiring stuff when you really need it, I want it, I have to have that, I want it right now, that urgency. These people had that, but not about getting, about giving. They had this urgency about giving. They pleaded with us to be a part of this project.
Let us be a part of something big. And if that could be what it looks like, here's the challenge Paul lays out. But since you excel at everything, you're doing great in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness, and the love we have kindled in you, see that you also excel in this grace of giving. And if you've noticed, this little word grace pops up repeatedly in this passage. There's an intimate connection in Paul's mind between giving and grace.
Authentic, generous, freely offered giving is an unmistakable sign of the grace of God. Often when we talk about we talk about God's grace, we restrict it as being that moment of salvation, that forgiveness of sins. But God's grace is much larger than just the forgiveness of sins and the entrance into heaven. God was gracious long before the fall. God was gracious before there was any sin to be forgiven.
And the word that lies at the heart of grace and graciousness is this word give. To say that God is a gracious God is to say that God is an irrepressible giver. And Paul says, want that same kind of grace that characterizes our God to characterize you, God's people. Paul's very careful to give this business of giving under grace and not under law. He says later to this, to the Corinthian church, later in the same letter, he says, each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
Though I heard a pastor say, yes, God loveth a cheerful giver, but God accepteth from a grouch. Sometimes we give out of sheer obedience because it's the right thing to do, but Paul here says don't don't give reluctantly early compulsion because what happens if you did that? You would destroy the grace of it. You would destroy the whole purpose of it, which is for us to become gracious, grace filled, giving people. He would destroy that if it gave under compulsion.
God loves a cheerful giver because that's the kind of giver that God is. For lack of a better way of saying it, God has this need to give. God's nature is to give. He says in verse eight, I'm not commanding you, this is not a command, I'm just giving you advice, wise counsel on this. But the challenge that Paul gives to them is the challenge that I wanna lay out before us today.
And here's the challenge. The challenge is for each of us to take the next step to excel in the grace of giving. Take the next step to excel in the grace of giving. The next step is going to look different for the church in Macedonia than it does for us here. It's going look different for every person as we do this.
For some folks in here, maybe you've never given, and your next step is just to give something. You decide the amount, but get on the page, get in the game of giving. Again, not under compulsion, it's got to be a deal of freedom. Or maybe that you are giving, but you are giving inconsistently, And the next step for you is to become a more consistent giver. And the Old Testament talks about this idea of giving a tithe or 10%, the percentage of income on a regular basis, as a benchmark, not as a legalistic thing.
But if you've never done it before, and your giving has been inconsistent, maybe the next step for you is to become a consistent percentage regular giver. And maybe that you've been giving, but your giving has not stretched you. And God wants to speak to you about this business of, you know, giving beyond what you are able. Now understand, we're not talking about here about being irresponsible. Obviously, you've got to honor your debts and your financial obligations, but maybe the next step for you is a stretch.
Maybe it's gonna involve some trust issues that you have. Take the next step to excel in the grace of giving. And again, the next step will look different for each of us, but I want us all to seek God on this in the week ahead. Maybe your next step is to confess some things before God. Maybe this week you need to talk with God about some attitudes or fears that you have about money.
Maybe you need to confess the control that money has over your life. Maybe if you're like me, you've got to confess how you have defended a lack of generosity by using more prudent sounding values. As best you can, ask for God's help by this. Say, God, everything I have belongs to you. It's all yours anyway, God.
And then follow the leading of the spirit and take the next step. Take the next step. We're coming up on our season of giving, as you've heard, and you'll have lots of opportunities to practice this through our coat and blanket drive and through the toys for the Christmas store, shoe boxes for kids, and of course, financial giving, is often the hardest for most of us. Now, not all of you might be able to do this, and Paul says this to the church then, and will say to the church now, our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time, your plenty will supply what they need so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need.
I want to look at one more verse. Paul is going to bring this passage to a theological closing. We're going to end with some thoughtful theology. This is the way the passage ends today. And I'd like you to read this final verse aloud with me if you would.
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor so that you through his poverty might become rich. See in our society, the heroes are almost always the people who go from being poor to being rich. We love the rags to riches story in our world. But there is another world. There is another kingdom called the kingdom of God, and in that grand story, the hero of the grand story starts out being rich and becomes poor.
The kingdom is defined by a downward mobility. The hero of the story goes from riches to rags. This is very important to Paul. Says, see the grace of Jesus Christ who possessed all the glories of heaven. Glory, honor, power beyond imagination, and he voluntarily leaves it all.
He was born in a blue collar family, born in a barn, ekes out a living in an obscure village, in a poor country, in an unimportant family, grows up, and has no home to call his own. He becomes poor so that we can become rich. He descends so we can ascend. And once you begin to understand that, you begin to understand the kingdom of God. And whenever we take communion, as we will in a few moments, we remember the God who left the glory of heaven to enter our world.
He took on flesh and blood and dwelt among us and we remember the enormous sacrifice of God. We remember the audacious generosity of the one who would lay down even his life. We remember. We remember. And we aim to love as he loved.
Will you pray with me? God, you are the God of amazing grace, of audacious generosity, and of unparalleled goodness. You are the God who was rich and became poor for our sake. You are the God who for love descended as sacrificed. Help us to love as you love.
Help us to see as you see. Help us to excel in the grace of giving. This we pray through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.