Sermon Cloud

Intro.
    Today I’m going to be unapologetically, from God’s Word, talking about one of the MOST uncomfortable subjects for Christians.  I will be talking about money.  Not your resources, not your time, not your gifts, talents, abilities.  Usually we group those things together, but not today.  Today, it’s all about money.  More specifically it’s about what you do or do not do with money.
    Christians have a strange knack for making some biblical topics very personal and some very public.  If you go out on the town, get rip roaring drunk, by Sunday morning your name is TOAST in church.  You’ll have 2 dozen people talking about it.  If you go out and break into a gas station and get arrested, the whole county will know about it, and your church will talk it into the ground.  There are literally dozens of things that if you do or do not do, it is fair game for Christians to talk about non-stop.
    Not money.  Money is PRIVATE.  “That preacher talked about money on Sunday.  Can you believe that?  The nerve of him to talk about something like that to US!”  He’s supposed to be talking about spiritual things.  He’s supposed to tell us stuff like, “You must read your Bible more.  Pray more.  Come to church more.”  But he must never tell us that we don’t give like the Bible tells us to.
    And there’s this mentality that money is not a spiritual thing.  That it should be completely separated from the affairs of a regular church.  Preachers who talk about money just want bigger houses, better suits, cars, and to go eat steaks at the best restaurants.  Even more than that, people think everything that a church does or takes part in should be free.  And church goers, I’m not making this up, I really believe it, think that businesses don’t charge churches for the same things they charge other people or businesses.
    Churches get their utilities for FREE.  They don’t pay for that Sunday School literature that I threw away when I got home.  Isn’t there some good man or woman who does all our maintenance here out of the goodness of their hearts?  The lights don’t cost anything, the heat and air don’t cost anything.  We make our own paper!  Those bulletins you hold.  That’s from a forest our church owns that we don’t pay any taxes on.  And there’s a wonderful old paper maker that converts the trees into the bulletin paper.  And the foam cups and paper plates in the fellowship buildings, we make those too, for free.  
    Where does this idea come from?  Where does the idea that money is a taboo subject, and that churches shouldn’t have to pay for anything come from?  Because it’s a deadly idea.  It makes people’s consciences feel very good.  “Well, money is private, and besides everything there is free anyway, so I can rest easy about how little I give.”  It’s not just the regular maintenance things either.  I talked about this a little Wednesday night.  We have a budget.  Some of you read it in the same way you read scholarly scientific journals, which is not at all.  They’re no fun to read.  But they tell us about our budget.  If we make our budget this year, we are just getting by in ministry.  We’re not increasing and expanding our resources, technology, and capabilities to reach the community and world for Jesus.  We’re just pretty much keeping the lights, heat, insurance, salaries, and have just a little bit left over to give out like table scraps to ministries and missions.
    This year, if you want to waste your life, keep on pretending that church and what you call your money have nothing to do with each other.  You will be blissfully ignorant and feel good about yourself.  As for me, I’m gonna tell you what the Bible says.  It’s not anything like these crazy ideas we have about church and money.  So look with me at 2 Corinthians 9:6-11, as we attempt to say today, “I Will Give Cheerfully.”

Brief Context
    The church at Corinth is not your average church.  They had a lot of problems which we won’t go into today.  But now Paul is calling them on a promise they made to send a gift of money to help impoverished Christians in the Jerusalem church.  And so this passage we just read is Paul’s reminder of the gift they promised.  

Monetary Gifts Reap Spiritual Harvests
    Verse 6 (READ).  Paul uses an agricultural metaphor here.  Many of you come from farming backgrounds so this makes a lot of sense.  When you sow seed during the planting season, you sow much more than you actually reap.  You cast out the seed widely, b/c you know that some of it will never produce the harvest.  If you are stingy in your sowing, as a general rule you will not reap a big harvest.  That’s just the way it is.  If you sow a lot of seed, your chances of reaping a larger harvest go up in proportion.  In nature, it’s no guarantee though, it’s just a general rule.  Sometimes no matter how much you sow, you won’t reap much.  But in God’s economy that’s not the case.
    In verse 6 sowing means giving money.  And what’s harvested isn’t wheat, or cotton, or vegetables, it’s an eternal kind of harvest.  An eternal harvest means reaping more people for Jesus.  Winning more people for Jesus.  Having more people hear the message and believe.  
    This really demolishes the notion that money and spiritual things don’t go together.  Paul’s talking about monetary gifts reaping spiritual harvests.  Isn’t that reality?  The more resources that are given, the more opportunity to reach more people we have.  And churches whose members give generously will be the churches that have the bigger impact on the kingdom.  That’s a principle directly from this passage.  You sow bountifully, meaning you give lots of money to the right cause, and Paul says you will reap bountifully the eternal harvest of advancing the Kingdom.  And the opposite is also true.  You sow sparingly, or you are stingy, and you will not see a great harvest.  
    Your giving has a direct impact in eternity.  You should know this.  If we struggle just to keep the lights on, the heat on, and with just the basic stuff, we will NEVER be the church that reaps bountiful harvests, and when we stand before God I can assure you we will answer for it.  I for one will not shy away from what the Word of God teaches on this.  We can’t afford to just get by.  How many of you have ever had to live your life paycheck to paycheck?  You’re not sure if you’ll have enough to meet the necessities in your household.  It’s a horrible place to be in, and you lose most any ability to really live b/c you’re just surviving.  It’s no different for us as a church.  If we live paycheck to paycheck here, we will NEVER reach our community for Jesus.  We will only just survive.  If I don’t preach that, then God help me.  If you’ve already turned your ears off, then God help YOU.
    You want to see something happen here?  You want God to use us in ways He never has before, then let your giving be bountiful, wide, generous.  Our money reaps an eternal, spiritual harvest.  Proverbs 11:24 says, “One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.”

 Generous Giving is a Spiritual, Heart, Issue
    Look at verse 7 (READ).  This couldn’t be more clear.  We think our giving is a personal preference issue.  We think it’s a financial issue.  We think it’s a bank account issue.  Truthfully, it’s none of those things at its core.  Your giving is a heart issue.  What do you think it means that God loves a cheerful giver?  There’s a huge difference between giving grudgingly and giving cheerfully.
    I’ve shared before that when I was in college, giving for me was like having teeth pulled.  I thought it was my money, I didn’t understand what God wanted it for, and if I gave I clenched my teeth, held on till the last second, and with a good bit of hesitation dropped the money in the plate.  Why did I do that?  Why did I give that way?  Because my heart was in the wrong place.  Because I didn’t understand the Gospel truly.  Because I thought that money and church didn’t necessarily belong in the same sentence.  I would’ve been the guy who says “They talk about money too much.”  Guess who the people are that usually say that?  It’s the people who don’t give jack, and so they feel guilty for it whether they know it or not, and they’re the people who always complain anytime a church talks about money.  “They ask for money too much.  They talk about money too much.  They have too much money already.  Why do they need mine?”  
    Guilty.  Today, let’s do something very refreshing and call a sin a sin.  If you have that attitude.  That grudging, “ah, here, take it,” attitude.  If you complain anytime a church or preacher talks about money, then your heart is in the WRONG place, you are in sin, you have a rebellious heart, and you need to repent.  That’s not me talking, that’s God.  Why?  Because God “loves a cheerful giver.”  Not a sinful, questioning, grudging spirit of selfishness, who will always be content to do just the minimum for God’s kingdom and the Gospel.  
    I told myself I wouldn’t do this, but it’s too good not to.  The Greek word for “cheerful” is “hilarion.”  That’s the same Greek word we get our English word “hilarious” from.  God loves a “hilarion” giver.  Does that mean he loves when very funny people give?  NO, but it’s a very cool word.  It means that the attitude of our hearts when we give matters.  When we give in a “hilarion” way.  When we give with a heart of cheerfulness, then that is the attitude that God loves.  
    God is not going to compel us to give.  That’s what he says in verse 7, “not grudgingly or of necessity or compulsion.”  He will not make us give.  But a giver gives generously out of the joy and cheerfulness of a heart that desires to see God work mightily.  It’s a heart issue.  If you do not give, or you give a tiny percentage of what you have then your heart is in the wrong place.  You care more about yourself than you do God’s work.  The only solution is to repent.  Nobody will hate you for repenting.  They won’t go, “Wow I thought he was really generous, and now he’s repenting for being stingy.  What an idiot!”  If you’re stingy chances are everyone already knows it, and you certainly know it.  So repent.  Today.  Ask God to make your heart full of joy so that you overflow with generosity.  That’s the kind of giving God approves of.

 We Give With Confidence b/c God Supplies The Raw Materials for Your Giving
    Look at verses 8-10 (READ).  After telling us what kind of giver God loves, Paul tells us that we’ll always have something to give and so we can give confidently.  This is where so many of us fall.  We have bills.  We’re in debt.  We’ve made dumb decisions (everyone has).  And we leave ourselves in a hole we can’t get out of.  You need to understand something here.  If you have bought and borrowed yourself into a very deep hole, you may not have anything to give.  And that is sin.  But what you take away from this, is that your own selfishness and poor decisions got you where you are, but it’s never too late to change.  Until you die, it’s not too late to change.
    These verses tell us that God promises to meet our needs, and what’s more, as He meets our needs He’ll make sure that we have enough to give away to help meet other peoples needs.  If you’ve spent yourself so thin that you literally will go under if you give (which is probably less common that we think), you need to work hard, get out of the debt you’re in that’s preventing you from giving, b/c the borrower is slave to the lender, and then live within your means so that you will have enough to give away to God’s work.
    Just like God will not make you give, He will not see to it that you have enough to give if you seem to continually get yourself into a place where you’re always up to your eyeballs in debt.  You have to change the way you spend, why?  Verse 8 says “God is able to make all...READ.”  What is your abundance there for?  “For every good work.”  If God gives to you, it is so you can give to others.  It’s not for you to “eat, drink, and be merry.”  It’s not so you can retire and live the good life.  It’s not that saving is wrong.  It’s not that enjoying God’s blessings are wrong.  Where it is wrong is when you enjoy it at the expense of giving to the cause of Jesus through the church.  You change the way you see money, and spend money, and give money, b/c the abundance God’s given you is there for you to do good with.

Conclusion
    Whatever your abundance is, God’s given it to you for a reason.  This gives purpose to your money.  It gives joy to it.  Money can buy happiness.  It can.  I’m sorry if you don’t believe that.  BUT, money can never buy joy.  Joy comes from a heart that’s in right relation to God almighty through Jesus Christ.  Happiness is fleeting.  Money is fleeting.  But the seed you sow through generous giving is eternal.  Look one last time at verse 10 (READ).  Paul prays that the money they gave would be multiplied so that the fruit they harvest would increase.  That’s not personal wealth as the lying prosperity preachers preach.  The fruit is the fruit of righteousness that comes from helping, serving, seeing people come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
    (CHALLENGE AND INVITATION)