Sermon Text: 2 Corinthians 9:8-11
Date: July 28, 2024
Event: Proper 12, Year B
2 Corinthians 9:8–11 (EHV)
God is able to make all grace overflow to you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will overflow in every good work. 9As it is written:
He scattered; he gave to the poor.
His righteousness remains forever.
10And he who provides seed to the sower and bread for food will provide and multiply your seed for sowing, and will increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11You will be made rich in every way so that you may be generous in every way, which produces thanksgiving to God through us.
God’s Generosity Encourages Our Generosity
So there you sit at the presentation. It just wrapped up, and you thought it was really good, but others around you seemed even more into it or seemed to get more out of it than you did. The host for the day asks the crowd gathered to express their gratitude. Applause is almost immediate, but slowly, some people begin standing up to offer the presenter a standing ovation. This ovation slowly works through the crowd so that you find yourself standing up, even though perhaps you wouldn’t have done so on your own.
Some in the crowd can impact the rest of the crowd. Peer pressure is real—both for good and bad. From childhood, we follow models and seek to step in the footsteps of those we respect or who we think have their lives in order. You might read books or articles from successful people and start thinking that if you follow their advice and implement their habits, you might have the same kind of success they’ve had.
Modeling is powerful. Parents can sometimes instill habits in their children without even talking about them but just by being seen doing them. And, again, those can be both good and bad. The attitude of a boss is very often reflected in the attitudes of the department's employees. I will apologize for this in advance, but it is said that this effect can even take place in a congregation, where a group of Christians may be influenced in their drive and attitude by the pastor who tends to them, so much so that the very personality of the congregation can be a reflection of its shepherds.
It's evident that humans can influence others, especially through modeling behavior and attitude. But what about God? Is God’s relationship with people intimate enough to have a similar effect, or are we so distant from God that his influence is negligible?
Our Second Reading for this morning is taken from the latter part of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians preserved in the New Testament. In this section of the letter, Paul addresses a few housekeeping items with the Christians in Corinth. And one of those housekeeping items is about an offering that had been set up to support the very poor and persecuted Christians in Jerusalem at that time. A collection was being gathered from the churches across modern-day Turkey and Greece. Each congregation was setting up the goal of sending support to their brothers and sisters in the faith through Paul as he would soon make his way to Jerusalem.
However, Paul is just as concerned about the motivation for these gifts as he is about the gifts themselves. In the verses just before our reading, Paul gave this encouragement and direction on giving motivation: The one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. The one who sows generously will also reap generously. Each one should give as he has determined in his heart, not reluctantly or under pressure, for God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:6-7). When gifts are given, be it to support the gospel ministry in a church, or to support an individual person or family in need, or to aid some other charitable group, God’s desire is that it be done in joy, with cheer, rather than as a burdensome obligation. In other words, unlike the standing ovation that perhaps you go along with because everyone else is doing it, God wants our generosity to be decided in our hearts, not just mimicking what others do or doing it out of a sense of compulsion.
For God, the motivation for generosity is just as important as the act itself. Paul lays out where we should look for our motivation: God’s grace. God is able to make all grace overflow to you, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will overflow in every good work. His grace guides, supports, and inspires us to be generous.
Our Gospel for this morning clearly shows God’s ability and desire to care for us. Jesus’ compassion on the crowds led him to work a miracle that saw a relatively small amount of food multiply into enough to feed thousands of people and even produce many baskets of leftovers. Jesus taught in the Lord’s Prayer that we should pray for daily bread, asking God for the things we need in this life, and then trusting that God will provide them because that is what he’s promised.
Paul specifically links God’s undeserved love for us, his grace, to our good works. Just as God’s grace overflows to us, good works will overflow from us. These good works don’t seek good things from God, but they are done in thanksgiving to God, who has already given them. God’s overflowing grace causes the overflowing good works, not the other way around.
Paul shows an Old Testament model of that when he quotes from Psalm 112 in the middle of our short reading. He scattered; he gave to the poor. His righteousness remains forever. Within our brief reading, it’s incredibly easy to think that Paul is talking about God with this quotation. But when you read Psalm 112, you see that the psalm writer isn’t talking about God’s actions but rather the believer’s response to God’s blessings. So the one scattering, giving to the poor, whose righteousness remains forever, describes the actions of a cheerfully generous believer seeking to thank God for all he has done for him.
It is impossible to count or quantify God’s generosity. That you could get to or connect online for worship this morning is part of God’s generosity. That your ears can physically hear his Word (although, maybe not always as well as we’d like…) is part of God’s generosity. That you have breath in your lungs, that your heart beats in your chest, that your brain is functioning are all parts of God’s generosity to you. In fact, everything we have that is good in our life comes from God: And he who provides seed to the sower and bread for food will provide and multiply your seed for sowing, and will increase the harvest of your righteousness.
We might define righteousness as a “right relationship with God.” The writer of Psalm 112 said that the person who expresses their thankfulness to God has an enduring, proper relationship with God. Of course, we know that our natural state is not righteous because our sins have ruined our relationship with God. Adam and Eve’s original sin in the Garden of Eden was motivated by the dissatisfaction that Satan sowed in their hearts. Satan had convinced them that by denying them the fruit of that one tree in the garden, God was withholding good, even amazing, things from them! And so their discontent with God’s blessings led them to the disastrous actions of wanting, taking, and eating the forbidden fruit.
Their malcontent has trickled down to each of us. You and I all have a sinful nature in us that spurns God, that figures anything forbidden is just God being mean, and assumes that God clearly doesn’t care about us. We can easily lay anything we feel is lacking in our lives at God's feet and say that he is to blame. If we don’t think we have the right amount or kind of money, cars, relationships, fulfillment, peace, and happiness, we quickly assume lacking these things is God’s fault, that he is holding out on us, just like Satan convinced our first parents. Nothing is new under the sun. And this is hardly an increased harvest of your righteousness!
But spiritual maturity means looking at what you have with gratitude and joy. Is it the same that someone else has? Probably not. Is it everything you ever hoped for or dreamed of? Unlikely. But is it what you need, what God knows is good for you? Absolutely.
Of course, the chief of these blessings is the forgiveness of sins. Jesus’ life and death for us wipe out every sin, including those sins of discontent or even thinking that God is holding out on us and being mean to us. In Jesus’ blood, we are washed clean; in Jesus’ forgiveness, we can reevaluate our lives and see the glorious riches that God provides as they are.
What is the Christian, forgiven of every sin and with a fresh appreciation of her blessings, to do? You will be made rich in every way so that you may be generous in every way, which produces thanksgiving to God through us. Whether now or later today, take some inventory of the blessings of your life. We hear the word “rich” today and immediately jump to our net worth or the amount of money in our bank account. But that may or may not be a richness that God has given. So, how has God made you rich?
Has he given you a great capacity for empathy, for caring about others and their hardships and heartaches? Then be generous with that empathy, sharing it with those in great need of the unique blessing God has given you!
Has God given you a great deal of knowledge and understanding about spiritual things or even the things of this life? Then, be generous with that knowledge and share it with those who need it. Whether your insight is primarily in the realm of God’s promises and how to live in response to those riches, or how to repair the leaky faucet, your generosity with this knowledge and insight will be a blessing to others!
Has God given you a great capacity to encourage people, to lift them out of an emotional pit, or to maintain them so they continue to feel loved and appreciated? Share that encouragement generously! Let people know what you appreciate about them and what you’re thankful for, and help them to see the way out of their sorrows is not as impossible as it often feels.
Has God given you earthly wealth? Share it! Give generous offerings to your church to support the work of the gospel that we are carrying out, support those in more compromised positions than you are to help them through a rough spot, and seek out charities and other organizations who can help your generosity go farther than you could carry it on your own.
Remember your true wealth, no matter what skills or earthly blessings you may be able to list: you have your Savior, Jesus, and you can and should be generous in sharing him and his Word with others. Whether it's encouraging the guilt-stricken Christian with the reminder of God’s love and forgiveness for them or sharing the message of Jesus with someone who has never heard it or has long since forgotten about it. Your true wealth is the access to not just earthly, material support but eternal blessings, a treasure in heaven that will never perish, spoil, or fade, won for you and kept in heaven by your loving God.
My dear brothers and sisters, fight the temptation toward malcontent and see the blessings God bestows on you. Be generous to others as God has been generous to you. Look forward to that day when God’s generosity will not need to be carefully considered, but it will be before our eyes every moment, for we will see our God face to face forever, for Jesus’ sake. Thanks be to God! Amen.
