Sowing Generosity, Reaping Thanksgiving | 2 Corinthians 9:6-11 | Chris Willard

Some part of me wants to just close in prayer right now because I'm not sure that I'll be able to be better than that intro. But it's really such a treat to get to be with you. This morning I bring you greetings from Orlando, Florida, that's been home for my wife, the fabulous Susan Willard. And I forgot, almost 30 years we've lived there. It's really been a great journey.

So I'm not from Orlando, but my kids are. I guess that's one way of putting it. But it's really a treat to get to be with you. You can imagine. My job is to work with churches all over the country.

And what's cool about what I get to do is. You drive by churches all the time, don't you? On the street, as you're going to work, as you're going to school, as you're driving around. And do you ever wonder, I. I wonder what's going on in there? Like, what's that church like?

Well, I get to find out about hundreds of churches around the country. And who knew that in this church what God was doing was so powerful and so wonderful and so moving, and that for three years I get to be a little bit of a part of what God is doing here. It's a pretty good gig, actually. So I love that I get to do it. And one of the things I get to do is I get to talk to people about stories of generosity, because like many of us, I'm inspired by stories of generosity.

Generosity has got this kind of thing that causes you to go, yeah, I want to get in on that. Right. I have a friend who loves college football, huge college football fan, and he's trying to get his wife to love college football. And it's not really working.

But they started this tradition. They're watching college game day on Saturdays. And God bless this one wonderful wife. She's sitting there with her husband. I'm sure he makes.

He has to sit to watch some other stuff later in the week. I don't know what that is. Anyway, she sits there and she's not really that excited about it because, you know, college game day is kind of a. It's sort of a nerdy football thing. Well, they have this thing they're doing now where Pat McAfee is giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money.

If someone can kick a field goal. So just somebody from the crowd, just a regular student from one of the schools can kick a field goal. A couple of weeks ago, a young woman Named Gabby from Alabama, Tuscaloosa was invited to be the one to kick the field. They were going to give her $500,000 if she could kick a field goal. Of course, she gets up there and she looked like she's never seen a football before, and she just kind of dunk.

It doesn't go very well. Well, McAfee decides. Okay, well, here's what I'm going to do. We're going to change it up a little bit. If.

What is the name of the guy? Thank you. Kirk Herbstreet. Thank you so much. If Herbstreet can throw, He's a former quarterback.

If he can throw the ball through the uprights, we'll give you $300,000. And of course, he takes the ball and just chucks it through, no problem. And this girl Gabby gets $300,000. And my friend's wife said, okay, I'm in. I'm totally in.

I will watch this show every week because that kind of story is just amazing, right? And we all can sort of cheer for her and feel really great about it. Stories of generosity are wonderfully encouraging. And so this weekend, what I'd like to do is I'd like to share with you a passage from Second Corinthians, chapter nine that I think reminds us of God's generosity to us. It encourages us to join him in living a generous life, and it also shows us how powerful the generosity of a church like this one can be in this community and even beyond.

So that's what we're going to do this morning. Before we do that, let me pray for us and we'll. We'll kick it off. Lord, thank you so much for the privilege of gathering together as believers in Jesus to be instructed by your word. Lord, I pray that you would speak both to me and through me so that we all could be encouraged to live the generous lives that you've called us to live.

And we pray these things in the name of our savior Jesus. Amen. Second Corinthians, chapter 9, beginning in verse 6, verses 6 through 11 says this. Remember this. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly.

And whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided to give in your heart. To give, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things.

Excuse me. So that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work as it is written. They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor. Their righteousness endures forever. Now, he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.

You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion. That's the. The passage we're going to dig into. And I think there's at least five big ideas that come from this passage that I think are helpful to us and encouraging to us and that we can potentially apply in our own lives. And the first big idea is this, that generosity begins with God.

He is the supplier of all that you have. The passage says it this way. Now, he who supplies seed, seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed. He's not only, by the way, the supplier, he's also the owner of everything that we have. And we are to be his managers or stewards.

From, by the way, from the beginning of scripture, the Bible is crystal clear that God retains his ownership. Everything. Deuteronomy says it this way. To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. The psalmist says it this way.

The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. Now, I have to confess, I didn't finish seminary because Hebrew's really hard. But I understand that in Hebrew, the word everything means what? Everything. It's everything.

Every single thing on the planet belongs to God. He owns all of it. You won't find. Randy Alcorn says it this way, which I think is really brilliant. He says you won't find a single verse.

Randy Alcorn, by the way, is a wonderful writer. If you've never read any of his things, you should. He does amazing things on the topic of generosity and stewardship, also on heaven and eternity. Anyway, he says this. You won't find a single verse of scripture that suggests that God has surrendered his ownership to us.

He still is the owner of all things. So God owns everything. It's not yours. That stuff you thought you owned, you don't own. God owns it.

You manage it. You get to use it. You get to bless others with it. But it's actually his and not ours. You might even say, however, at least I have myself, right?

I sort of own myself. Well, you don't even actually do that, do you? What does the Lord say? You're not your own. You've been bought with a price.

So Everything belongs to God, including you. Howard Dayton says it this way. Howard Dayton is one of the. Is one of my heroes. He actually goes to our church in Orlando.

Every time I see him, it's like seeing a rock star. Because he has written so many wonderful things about this topic of generosity. He says it this way, what I possess, God owns. So what we're trying to establish here, I hope I'm not belaboring. The point, is that if you have it, it's because God gave it to you and it still belongs to him.

And he wants us to be a good steward. Generosity begins with God. But you might be asking, why does he want us to be then, generous with the things he's entrusted to us, the time he's given us? Is it because he needs something from us? It's like God has got to use us.

He needs to get something from us. It's not that. And we'll talk about this in a moment. Generosity is not something that God wants from you. It's something he wants for you.

He wants you to experience the benefits and the blessings and of getting to be a generous Christian. And that leads us to the second big idea, which is this, that generosity results in blessing. What you give away will multiply. Again, the passage says it this way. Remember this.

Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. And whoever sows generously will. Will also reap generously. God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need. It's amazing.

God is inviting us to live a generous life because he wants to bless us and he wants to let us see that the things that we give away actually will multiply. Notice the passage says all that you need, not all that you want. Okay, that's good. You don't get everything you want, by the way. Thank God I didn't get everything I wanted, right?

There have been some things I wanted that I did not need and would likely not have been very good for me, actually. And sometimes you ever make a.

You ever see these people that sort of talk about giving to God as if there was some sort of, like, cosmic deal that you make with God, that if you do this, then God has to do that for you. It's a mess. It's not how the God functions. God is blessing us, but it's not some sort of quid pro quo type of arrangement. The blessing that God provides, by the way, is also not always financial.

Right? It's true that there are millions of people in the world who love God and follow him faithfully, and yet they don't. And they struggle financially. So it's not entirely the case that God always blesses us financially. But it is the case, friends, that God always blesses generosity.

He just does. So the blessing may look like something else. And that's an important thing for us to keep in mind. I've actually had some friends who've given very, very generous gifts to their church and then had a massive financial setback. And you're kind of thinking, lord, how'd this.

You know, how'd this happen? This isn't what I signed up for, right? Expecting somehow that it would always return financial blessing. But that family was in fact, blessed by God as they walked with him through that journey. Susan and I, the fabulous Susan Willard and I have been married 30, 39 years in a couple of weeks.

That's pretty good, right? 39 years in a row.

And when we. When we were newly married, we joined a ministry that's now called crew. It was formerly called Campus Crusade for Christ. And so we raised support as missionaries. We go out there and talk to people and say, will you financially support our ministry so that we can share our faith with college students and lead them to Christ?

Build movements, make disciples? And we'd have to go around and ask people to give financially to help us do that. We met a man whose name was Mr. Johnson, and he was. He was a rose grower, actually in Massachusetts. I'm from Massachusetts.

I met Susan, the fabulous Susan, at the University of Massachusetts. I actually also met Jesus at the University of Massachusetts. And a lot of people didn't even know he was there.

But we met Mr. Johnson. He was in western Massachusetts. He was a rose grower. And he had the largest rose growing operation east of California, which is like the whole country, basically, right? And he and his sons had created some sort of genius way to heat their greenhouses.

And because of their proximity to New York and Boston and Philadelphia and some of the big urban centers, he just was killing it. And we knew he was very generous with his local church. We knew he was generous with other ministries. We also assumed we weren't likely the only cute little couple that came to see him every couple times a year and asked him to support their ministry. And for years, he faithfully supported us.

And one time, I remember this vividly. Do you have any memories that you can just picture? You know what I'm talking about? Like, sometimes it just gets burned into your memory because something meaningful is about to happen or did happen in that moment. And I can still picture we were sitting in his little sitting area drinking lemonade.

And I said, Mr. Johnson, why do you do it? Why are you so generous? And he sat back and he said, well, you know, it seems to me the Lord has been really good to me and my family and, you know, the more I give, the more the Lord blesses me. And it was like he wasn't again articulating some sort of quid pro quo. If I do this, then God must do that.

He was just describing his experience. This is what I know he was essentially saying is, you can't out give God. And I remember thinking, I was probably, I don't know, late 20s, couple kids, you know, hair on fire, and thinking, I want to know what that's like one day, Lord, I want to live that way. I want to be the kind of person that knows the blessing of God because I've experienced and lived a life of generosity. Generosity begins with God.

And God generously blesses us in the process. And here's one of the reasons why he blesses us. And this is the third big idea. You're blessed to be a blessing to others. Again, back to Second Corinthians, chapter nine.

It says this. God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things. By the way, notice how emphatic Paul is being in this passage. It's amazing. Let me start again.

God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work, you will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion. Got it, Paul. I get it. He's trying to communicate to us that God will bless us so that we can be a blessing to others. The idea of sharing the blessings that God has given to us with those in need is an essential part of what it means to be a Christ follower.

Recognizing that what God is doing on the inside of me is not just for me, it's so that I can be a blessing to others. And we know too, right, friends, that that's also the work of the church. I mean, think of this church. This church has been blessed, has it not? I mean, this is amazing what the Lord's doing here.

Here. This is incredible. This isn't normal, right? This is wonderful. Why is God doing that?

Well, for a number of reasons. But one of the reasons is he loves all of you. That's why. And he's blessing you because he just so much cares about you. But don't you, don't you think that it's also because he wants you to be a blessing to others?

Aren't there people that drive by this church every single day that need to know what you know about Jesus and need to experience that? That's why he's blessing us. And it's a fundamental part of what the work of the church. There's a great passage in Acts chapter four that unpacks this for us. It said beginning in verse 32 of Acts chapter 4.

And Acts basically is just describing sort of the work of the church, right? Like what are they learning, how are they functioning, what are they doing? And early in the life of the church it's only chapter 4 after all it says this verse 32 all the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own. They shared everything they had.

That's amazing. Later, verse 34, there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles feet and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

That friends, is amazing. Imagine being so concerned about the needs of others that you say to yourself, well if I have it, it's because God gave it to me. And I wonder Lord, how would you have me use these things to bless others? And by the way, they're not being compelled to do that.

This is Christian generosity. This is not some sort of forced economic sharing. Right. They are freely sharing with others who have need because they recognize that everything they had has come from God.

That should land a little bit on you because that's a hard truth that God wants us to view the things that he's given to us because they don't belong to us, they belong to him. Lord, how would you have me use these things to be a blessing to others again? Randy Alcorn captures this wonderfully. He says this God comes right out and tells us why he gives us more money than we need. It's not so that we can find more ways to spend it.

It's not so that we can indulge ourselves and spoil our children. It's not so we can insulate ourselves from needing God's presence provision. It's so we can give and give generously. Too often we assume that God has increased our income to increase our standard of living when his stated purpose is to increase our standard of giving.

Yeah, I mean that is just a, that is just, it's a true truth. And Lord, help me to live that way I want to be that kind of believer who recognizes that the things that I have come from God and he wants me to use them to be a blessing to others. Now, how do you learn to do that? How do you become that kind of generous Christian? Well, how do you learn anything?

You try and you evaluate and then you try again. And how did it go? And you watch people who are good at it and you copy the way they do it. I mean, this is not just something that happens. We have to take steps to.

To accomplish it. We have to put a plan in place. Okay. Lord, I would like to grow in generosity. I need to put a plan in place.

How many of you are planning people by nature? You like to make a plan, Work the plan, stick with the plan. Right. How many of you are a little bit more. Make it up as you go along, you know, keep your options open.

Right on, you know. You know, MacGyver.

Yeah. The planners know that when you. When you. Generally when you have a plan, you tend to accomplish what you're trying to do. Right.

Any of you planning people, do you, like, post it notes? Do you write post it notes and stick them all over the place? Yeah, you do that. Any list people, List makers? Yes.

You make lists, Write stuff down. Do any of you make lists for other people? I'm just curious. Right on. The fabulous Susan will make a list for me every now and then.

And you know what I do? I do. What's on that list? 39 years of marriage. Right.

By the way, most of that stuff needs to get done. That's why it's on the list right now. How about this? Any of you list people, if you do something that wasn't on the list, do you write it down and then check it off. Do you do that?

Okay, that's pathological, actually. That's. That's messed up. You need to write this down, get some help, check that off. Right.

But what you know is, friends, you know that when you don't have a plan, when you don't make a plan, you tend to not accomplish what God has you to accomplish. And so I just think this is so helpful for us to keep in mind, because look what the passage says. Each of you should give what you have decided in your hearts to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver. What's he saying?

Have a plan, make a decision. Take a step in the journey of becoming the generous Christian that God has called us to be. Now, I know that when you. I believe Chad was. When you Kicked off the Defining Moments series, you introduced an idea called the Generosity Journey.

Right. And the Generosity Journey was a way of helping people understand, where am I in this process of becoming the generous Christian that God would have me be, and what's my next step? By the way, that's pretty good, right? I mean, that's the kind of thing that I should do in virtually everything in my life if I'm wanting to get better at it. Ask myself, well, where am I now?

And what's my next step? How can I take a step and head in the right direction? And so the Generosity Journey helps us to understand that. So for a person who is a part of a church like this and who's never given, and by the way, if that's you, no one's mad at you. We're so glad you're here.

Right? But in a typical church, In a typical church, about a third of the people who attend give zero. Now, for some of you, you think, wow, that seems high. But, you know, that's just how it is. About a third give zero.

And so you know what their step is to give for the first time, just to make a decision. You know what? I'm in that category. I'm going to be an initial giver, and I'll give a gift. I'll write a check, I'll go online, I'll put something in an offering box, and I'll give.

That's the step that they could take. Wonderful. Now, after somebody has made an initial gift, they're usually an occasional giver. They give sort of every now and then. They give kind of when they can.

They give when they feel happy, when they have a little extra. Right. That's okay. But the step that they likely should take is to become an intentional giver. That's a person who gives consistently, who says, you know, I'm going to set aside an amount and I'm going to give it on a regular basis.

By the way, most of us think about our money in terms of monthly numbers, don't we? Right. All the. All the things you do financially generally are monthly. Your car payment, your insurance, your mortgage, your rent, your school loan, whatever the case might be, we think about it monthly.

So many people who take this consistent step decide, you know, or this intentional step. Excuse me, decide I'm going to give monthly, a set amount. The next step is to be consistent, to really follow through faithfully, regularly give that intentional number. And many people are doing that, but they may be doing a little bit less than what the Bible calls a Tithe or a tenth. And that's the faithful giver.

The faithful giver has looked to this promise that is in scripture that God invites us to give the first 10% of what he's entrusted to us and give it to the kingdom of God. And by the way, it's really more about the first than it is about the 10th. It's what you do first that shows that it's a priority, but that's faithfulness. And then finally, lastly, there's a final step. And before I tell you about the final step, let's just stop for a second and let's say that for many of us, we've kind of considered tithing as the finish line.

I understand what the Bible says. He wants me to give a tenth of what I've got. He wants me to give the first tenth. I do that check, right? Write that down.

Check that off. Right. I have a friend in Florida. He likes to call the people who are sort of satisfied with their tithing and are a little bit proud of the fact that they tithe. He likes to call them tickled tithers.

I love that. Sort of like a pie tithe. Do you tithe? Everybody should right now. That's wonderful.

It's a great step to take, but it's not really the finish line, is it?

Here's, here's, here's a way of thinking about that. There are people who give radically, recklessly, fearlessly, even beyond that tithe. And that, that's like a wonderful thing to see. Those are the kind of people that sell property and lay the proceeds at the feet of the apostles. Right.

It's just, it's fearless. It's trusting God. I would argue that at the beginning of this journey, if you're becoming an initial giver, essentially what you're saying is, how much of my money will I give to the church? That's a pretty good question, right? Especially if you're not yet giving by the time you reach the end of this journey, friends, you're no longer asking how much of my money I going to give, but rather how much of God's money does he want me to keep?

Pause for effect.

How's it working? Yeah, that's kind of radical, isn't it? Imagine living your life by saying, okay, Lord, I have these responsibilities that I know I need to take care of. I need to provide for my family, for my children, if I have them. Some of us have elderly parents that we're helping to care for.

That's a wonderful thing to do. Setting aside Resources to be able to help your children go to college, for example. All of those things are wonderfully appropriate. And I think God honors those kinds of things. But for most of us, there is a number beyond which we don't really need that.

We want it, but we don't have to have it. The fearless giver has said, I'm going to keep just that much, and I'll just assume God wants me to give away the rest. Where are you, friends? The question for you is simply, where are you on the journey of becoming the generous Christian that God wants you to be? And after evaluating where you are, simply asking, what's my next step?

What is my next step? Generosity requires a plan. Where am I? What's my next step? Fifth and finally final big idea that I think comes from this passage is that your generosity inspires other people to look to God.

It says this in our passage in second Corinthians. Your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. There is something powerful, magnetic, contagious about generosity. When we hear stories of radical generosity, we're inspired to retell them. We're inspired to live that way.

And the generosity of God's people is an unbelievably powerful testimony to a watching, skeptical, critical, in some cases, world outside the four walls of this church. But when a church really displays radical, fearless generosity, like amazing things happen, all those in favor of amazing things happen, say aye. Right? How do we get there? We get there because we live lives of radical generosity.

And again, I'll take you back for just a moment to the book of Acts. There's a wonderful passage in Acts chapter six that describes a problem in the church. Again, this is only Acts chapter six.

And they have a problem. The problem is they're not living up to what they said in Acts chapter four that we're going to share with everybody who has need and keep everybody taken care of. Right? So there's a group of people, and I'll just paraphrase it for you. There's a group of people, people who are being overlooked.

They're being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. They happen, by the way, to be Greek widows, which is a little bit problematic. For who, by the way? Not a trick question. The Greek widows.

Right. But it's also a problem for the church, isn't it? Because here, this church that is supposed to love everybody and care for everybody is overlooking a group of people. Maybe it's because they're Greek, they're different from us. Maybe there's an ethnic bias, which is ugly, right?

Maybe it's because they're women, they're being overlooked. Whatever it is, it's a problem. And so the leaders of the church decide we have to solve this problem. And to cut to the chase, they choose a group of people who are wonderfully godly people, and they ask them to figure out how to solve this problem. And they do.

And then Acts, chapter 6, verse, verse 7 should say, so they fed the Greek widows because that was the problem they were trying to solve, right? And instead it says, so the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith. That is transformational. A church that is living into the generosity that God wants us to demonstrate is going to have a powerful impact.

The word of God will spread, friends. The number of disciples will increase. And I love that last one. Imagine this. A large number of priests became obedient to the faith.

Who were the priests? The priests hated the church. They hated it. And what did they do? They said, you know what?

You're right, Jesus is the Messiah. And they followed. All because the church stepped out in radical generosity. All those in favor of that say, aye. Right?

It's amazing what God will do if we will step out. So as we wrap up, and we are wrapping up, ask yourself, lord, what do you want me to do with this? How would you have me respond? I'll offer you a few suggestions. It might be time for you to thank God for the provisions he's already given you.

You never can say thank you to the Lord. Enough. Another idea is maybe you need to sort of own that. You know what, Lord, I've sort of forgotten that you're the supplier of everything and that you're the owner of everything. And I've maybe gotten a little bit caught up in the rat race in materialism.

Maybe you can say, I'm going to take a look at that generosity journey and ask, where am I? And what's my next step? Maybe there's someone in your life that you can give a generous gift to just because you want to demonstrate to them the generosity of God. Or you make a special gift to this church because of all the wonderful things that God is doing here, and you want to be a part of that, whatever it is. I would just ask you to ask the Lord, Lord, what would you have me do with this?

Because all of us are on a journey. I'm not what I used to be, right? I'm not what I'm going to be. God wants us to grow in this discipline, this sort of journey of generosity. That's all I have to share with you today.