Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you, Father, that your word is a letter directed to us,
that you want to speak to us and tell us your heart.
Tell us who we really are.
Tell us the hope that we have in you.
Father, we thank you that you speak, that you speak in a powerful way.
And we ask that your Holy Spirit would move mightily within us
so that your word might enter into us
and that in our day-to-day lives, in our dealings with people,
we will bear fruit that brings you glory.
And this we ask in Jesus' name, your Son and our Savior. Amen.
Please be seated.
So, money and God and you and me.
Now that I've got your attention.
You know, one of the great fears in our culture is that churches just go on and on and on and on and on about money.
And the fact of the matter is that there are some churches that go on and on and on and on about money.
I can just tell you from experience that most pastors are terrified about talking about money.
And in fact, I would say that in general, Anglicans are amongst the most terrified to talk about money.
And I have to confess, I have...
I'm not afraid of talking about money.
I'm getting old and grumpy and cranky and all that type of stuff.
So, I don't know.
You just talk about money and people unhappy.
There you go.
That's life.
You know.
Anyway, why am I a bit shy about talking about money?
Because I'm a Canadian, eh?
And originally, how we pick sermon topics here, if you're a guest this morning, what we do is we preach through books of the Bible.
That's what we do.
I'll often ask the congregation to pray as I try to pick the next book that we're going to study together.
And so I pick that we're going to do 2 Corinthians.
And I divide it up into 19 bits.
And I look at the different weeks.
And I know that chapter 8 and 9 of 2 Corinthians is going to talk about money.
But the way it was originally divided up, because next Sunday and the Sunday after and then Christmas, I do sort of Christmassy Advent sermons.
So originally, I was actually going to be talking about money in the first three Sundays of January.
I mean, the 8th and on.
And I was actually pretty happy about that, because I thought, you know, this is a nice, shy, self-effacing way of talking about money.
You're not obviously just trying to talk about money to get the money in at the end of the year.
But then, the bishop didn't want to preach.
So I preached.
And this is the first fall in about five years we haven't had a guest speaker in the fall.
So last week, I talked about money.
It got moved forward.
And this week, I talked about money as well.
Because 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and 9 is the longest sustained treatment of money in the Bible.
And so, we're going to talk about money.
And so here, if you're a guest here this morning, and especially if you, mainly, especially if you haven't given your life to Jesus,
this is my opportunity to tell you that if you read 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, what God wants to say to you,
as you're trying to figure out, I mean, maybe you got dragged here with a friend, maybe you're a seeker,
maybe you've been here for quite a few weeks just trying to figure out what you believe.
But the Bible is pretty clear that if you haven't given your life to Jesus, God is actually pretty happy if you don't put any money in the plate
or make any donation to this or any other church.
So, what we're going to do today then, if you're here in that state, this is a perfect chance to pretend the year is 1886.
And unlike 1886, where it would have just been a men's club, you've gone back to some adventurers club and you're an anthropologist.
And, you know, the sherry is out, the cigars are out, and an anthropologist is going to report on this strange tribe,
smoke the cigar, and how they think about money.
And you're that anthropologist, you're getting to sit back there with your sherry and your cigar,
listening to how this strange tribe called Christians talk about money.
That's the attitude you can have this morning, because we're just going to listen to not what churches do, but what the Bible says.
So, if you have your Bibles, turn in them to 2 Corinthians chapter 8, beginning at verse 9.
If you don't have a Bible with you, you can go get one here, or you can use the YouVersion app on your phone.
And if you go to events, you actually have the sermon notes there now with events this Sunday as well.
So, let's read the Bible together.
2 Corinthians chapter 8, verses 9.
We'll start reading at verse 9.
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, by his poverty, might become rich.
And in this matter, I give my judgment.
This benefits you, who a year ago started not only to do this work, but also to desire to do it.
So now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have.
And so just want to pause here for a second.
And it's very, very interesting that this long section, as I said, it's the longest section in the Bible that talks about money.
And it's really interesting.
Most of the other places in the Bible, not all of them, but most of the other places that talk about money in the Bible,
it's often done, it's not maybe always obvious immediately if you just read it superficially,
but it's often done within the context of discussing idolatry.
And the great problem that money can have in many of our lives of becoming a type of idol that justifies us,
that gives our lives meaning, that just guides, directs, grounds, gives the narrative by which we understand our lives.
And money has this great power to do that.
And usually in the Bible, when it talks about money, it's dealing with that power of money as an idol.
But chapter 8 and 9, it doesn't mention idolatry at all.
It's all a discussion around money, all connected to the grace of God.
It's very, very interesting.
In fact, from a literary level, verse 9, the first verse that I read,
that actually casts its light of understanding to the eight verses prior,
and to the, I don't know what it is, like 25 verses or something like that,
or 35 verses that come afterwards.
It's all sort of understood from this perspective of verse 9.
So if you could put verse 9 up, could you just all say this with me together?
Because if nothing else, this is such a beautiful verse.
I'm going to explain it a little bit more in a moment.
Such a beautiful verse.
It's a really good verse to memorize.
Can you say it with me?
So just before I explain that, here's the first point.
If you could put it up.
God's grace is real and shapes me to accomplish things in the real world.
One of the things which is very powerful in our culture is that spirituality and religion should just be private.
It's about, you know, that's why in our culture, if somebody was to tell me they have this particular belief in native spirituality,
like at a party or something like that,
or some type of spells or something that they do or some little type of ritual,
if I was to start to actually go after them on that and say,
well, how on earth can you believe that stuff?
Like what, you actually believe the earth is like on a turtle or something like that?
Or that, I don't know, like a fish spit you out and that's how the entire universe came to be?
Or like, how on earth can you believe in spells?
Like if I was to go after somebody at a party like that in Canada, everybody would hate me.
Right?
Because in Canada, spirituality and religion is supposed to be private.
And, you know, and it's just something, if it gives you a sense of hope and gives you a sense of meaning,
and if it doesn't bother anybody, then it's fine.
That is a good thing, you know?
And people don't actually want to ask the question about things like spirituality and religion.
They don't want to ask the truth question.
They don't want to say, is this possibly true?
In the same way that mathematics is true?
Or in the same way that you would say Sir John A. MacDonald was the first prime minister of Canada being true?
In the way that lawyers try to explain and try to understand what really happened in the case.
And that whole question of truth is a very, Canadians don't like to ask that question whatsoever.
And so religion and spirituality is to be very, very private.
It's just to be very, very personal.
And we get frightened.
Canadians get very frightened with the idea that religion might have some type of public impact.
Sharia law.
It's very frightening to a lot of Canadians that there might be a way of understanding religion and spirituality
that has such a bad impact on how we live.
And it's in that context, it's very hard for us to grasp that the Christian faith is at the very, very center making a truth claim.
Like when we hear,
It's not just that the Bible is giving us an interesting story or an interesting idea.
It's not telling us that we should try to feel something.
It's actually making it a very big truth claim.
And if that big truth claim is true, if it's false, then you shouldn't have anything to do with Christianity.
Paul actually says that in his first letter to Corinth in 1 Corinthians 15,
where he connects the Christian faith as being all rising and falling on the death and resurrection of Jesus.
And he says,
If Jesus didn't really die on the cross and really taste all there is to taste of death,
and didn't really, on the third day, defeat death and that which causes death,
and rise so that death no longer has a hold of him.
If that didn't really happen, then you guys are really wasting your time.
And in fact, you know what?
We should just go and have some good food and some good wine and have a good time
and just don't bother with all this stuff.
So at the heart of this wonderful sounding verse is this very, very big truth claim
that if it's not true, you should ignore it.
We should all leave.
And Tim Hortons fans and McDonald's fans and Starbucks fans,
we all divide into our different tribes and just go have a good time and move on.
But if it's true, it affects how we understand economics.
It affects how we understand politics.
It affects how we understand literature and communication and social work
and even physics and biology and geology.
It's something that if this is true, it has to affect the real world
and how we think about the real world and how we live in the real world.
Because when it says,
For the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though he was rich, what it's saying is that God, the Son of God,
the second purse of Trinity, that before there was Jesus, that God, the Son of God,
not reincarnation, but that God, the Son of God,
lived in heaven with heaven's glory and heaven's splendor
and his unbroken relationship and fellowship with the Father.
And that he looked down at the earth and human beings were in rebellion against God.
Human beings weren't all organizing petitions saying,
God, please come and save us.
No, human beings, we loved our idols.
We loved having God at a distance.
We loved doing what we wanted to do.
We loved that our king was a God or our queen was a God.
We loved these things.
But God, the Son of God, looking down at human need
and seeing that even though we seem to be both happy and sad,
we were in effect deeply poor and that we were going to die
and we were separate from God and we would be eternally separate from God
and we could not save or help ourselves.
And God, the Son of God, in his honor, in his glory,
in the riches and splendor and protection and safety of heaven,
out of love for us, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.
And the text is saying that God, the Son of God,
takes upon, without stopping being God,
he sets aside his appearance as God,
his powers as God, his prerogatives as God,
his environment as God.
He sets all of these things aside, but he doesn't stop being God.
He, in a sense, empties himself of all of that,
strips himself of all of that,
and takes into himself our human nature.
And he's born in the womb of a poor Jewish,
low-income Jewish girl in an unimportant part of a large empire,
not ruled by Jews but by Romans.
And Mary was neither Roman, the powerful group,
nor did she even part of the linguistic group,
which was Greek, which was how most people spoke.
And Jesus goes through, I mean, his conception is miraculous,
an act of creation by God.
But he lives a lower working class life in obscurity.
He lives a normal life.
And then he has a three-year teaching ministry
where many start to think very highly of him,
and many hate him.
And eventually, the political and educational and legal
and cultural and religious and spiritual establishments
combine to have him put to death for their good.
And many people agreed with it.
And you can't be poorer than dead.
And so this Bible text is saying this,
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, by his poverty, might become rich.
That God does this spectacular, powerful act.
And that's why miracles are so important to the Christian faith.
It's the miracles.
You know, Jesus says,
Is it easy?
You know, only God can forgive sins.
I've just forgiven that person's sins.
Well, to show you that I have the authority to give you people sins,
I'm going to heal this guy.
And he heals them.
And he tells people time and time and time again,
I came to die upon the cross.
I'm going to go to Jerusalem.
There's going to be a time I go to Jerusalem.
They're going to capture me.
I'm going to let that all happen.
I came for this very purpose.
I'm going to be denied by people.
I came for this very purpose.
I'm going to become even poorer.
I came for this very purpose.
I am going to die upon the cross.
I came for this purpose.
I'm going to die upon the cross,
bearing all human rebellion and sin
and all the punishment that that deserves.
And I came to die upon the cross for that very purpose.
And I will die as the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world.
And then on the third day,
I will rise triumphant over sin and death.
And the resurrection of Jesus,
all of that's in history.
His teaching in history.
His words recorded in history.
His miracles in history.
His death in history.
The empty tomb in history.
The resurrection appearances in history.
It's real in the real world.
And now, for those of you who know the first law of thermodynamics,
when it says that there's basically,
there's no energy created or whatever,
there's always,
the amount of energy in a closed system is always the same.
You have to remember that it says a closed system.
Creation is not a closed system.
God acts.
When you're looking at human origins,
when you're looking at about gender,
about sexuality,
all of a sudden now,
God who has acted in real time,
in real history,
it's real.
And it's going to affect how we think about men and women.
And how we think about science.
And that's what God's intended.
And so what the text is saying here
is that God's grace is real
and it shapes me to accomplish things in the real world.
That's why there's going to be,
it's going to have an impact
on my financial generosity,
on money.
Because money is real.
For some of us,
it's way too real.
It's way too big.
But the text isn't talking about that.
It's saying,
I just want,
Paul is saying,
be gripped by this truth.
Think about this.
God himself does something in the real world.
And as grace comes into your life,
it's going to mean you do things in the real world
that are shaped and pulled and molded and grounded by grace.
And that's why in the text,
if you go back to the text
and look at what it says in verse 10.
And in this matter,
this is the matter of giving money
to help Jewish Christians in Jerusalem.
And he's writing to a group of non-Jews,
primarily in Greece.
And he's saying in verse 10,
and in this matter,
I give my judgment.
This benefits you.
That's a hard thing for us to understand.
It's not part of this sermon.
But Jesus says it's better,
it's more blessed to give than to receive.
And if that's true,
then giving is actually,
if this is true,
if Jesus,
if it's true
that generosity benefits us,
then bumper stickers that say,
he who dies with the most toys wins
is the dumbest possible bumper sticker.
It's even dumber,
it's not dumber,
the bumper sticker that says,
I stop for elves and fairies
and, you know,
a whole pile of other imaginary creatures
that nobody sees except myself,
that's cute.
And it's sort of humorous.
But it's not humorous when it says,
the person who dies with the most toys wins.
It's about the generosity,
giving is the highest form of living.
Anyway,
but here it is,
verse 10,
in this matter,
I give my judgment,
this benefits you
who a year ago started
not only to do this work,
but also to desire to do it.
So now finish doing it as well
so that your readiness
in desiring it
may be matched
by your completing it
out of what you have.
So that's the first big thing here,
that God's grace is real
and shapes me
to accomplish things
in the real world.
And that's going to affect our money.
Now, for some people,
what I've just described
is deeply frightening.
And if we're honest,
there have been times in our lives,
maybe for us right now,
that it's a deeply frightening thing.
It's a very, very different thing
to think that basically
at the end of the day,
fundamentally,
that religion and spirituality
is about having a sense of peace,
having a sense of order,
having a sense of wholeness,
having a bit of a sense of purpose,
and maybe helping you
do a little bit of good things
for other people,
and it helps you to be more calm.
And all of these things
are very, very good.
But it's really still
all primarily about me, right?
And now all of a sudden
to talk about a real God
who really, in a sense,
invades, without human permission,
invades our world,
and acts on his own terms
in our world,
a real God
who really comes
and really acts
is very frightening.
It's very, very frightening.
He's really big.
He demands,
He can demand
all things.
And there can be
a loss of my freedom
and a loss of my identity.
And there's a deep fear
that many Canadians have
that such a real God
will threaten their freedom
and their identity.
Could you put
the verse 9 up?
Could you all say this
with me again, please?
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,
by His poverty,
might become rich.
And then just continuing on,
listen again
to verses 10
and following
just after this.
And in this matter,
that's a financial generosity,
not benefiting themselves,
but in fact,
Jewish Christians
living in a different continent.
And in this matter,
I give my judgment.
This benefits you.
And notice it says,
I give you my judgment.
It's not a command.
It's encouragement.
Right?
This benefits you
who a year ago
started not only
to do this work,
but also
to desire
to do it.
So now finish
doing it as well
so that your readiness
in desiring it
may be matched
by your completing it
out of what you have.
Here's the big verse
for if the readiness
is there,
it is acceptable
according to what
a person has,
not according
to what he does not have.
The readiness,
the desire,
has to be there first.
That's what God's saying.
That's what the gospel does.
That's what this text does.
Like,
in a sense,
the text is saying,
you know,
listen,
how does salvation work here?
God is trying to say,
listen,
human beings,
just try to understand
here first.
How do you fundamentally
know me?
I want you to fundamentally
know me.
I want you to fundamentally
understand my word
by understanding verses
like chapter,
2 Corinthians 8,
verse 9.
First of all,
that it is grace,
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,
by his poverty,
might become rich.
I,
the Father,
the Son,
and the Holy Spirit,
we do this for you
willingly.
We do this
voluntarily.
We do this
freely,
out of our freedom.
You know,
a couple of months ago
I had a long,
long half an hour talk
in my favorite Starbucks
with two Jehovah Witnesses,
one who had just come back
from the mission field.
And I began
as we got into
the differences,
you know,
between me and me.
And I said,
one of the things,
one of the things
I'm not a reason,
you can't be a Jehovah,
I don't think you can,
I would never be
a Jehovah Witnesses,
it doesn't understand love.
It can't account for love.
I said,
only the Christian faith
really accounts for love.
They denied it,
of course.
They said,
because we believe
the Bible.
But I said,
no,
no.
You see,
the thing is
that you just believe
there's a single God.
And so,
why on earth
does God create?
Is it because
he needs to have
human beings
so he will love?
How can,
if there's just
a single God,
how can God be love
if there's just
a single God?
But the Bible reveals
that there's the Father
and the Son
and the Holy Spirit
and from all eternity
the Father has poured out
his love to the Son.
And from all eternity
the Son has poured out
his love to the Father.
And there's even
Bible passages
that sometimes describe
the nature of the Holy Spirit
is that very
interchange,
this constant
back and forward
and flow of love
that that's what
the Holy Spirit is.
And so,
God does not have
to create human beings
because he needs us.
He doesn't relate to us
out of need love.
He relates to us
out of this
because he is love.
And it is of the nature
of love to create.
And it's of the nature
of love to be generous
and to pour yourself out
and to go out.
And that's who God is.
And so,
on one hand,
it can be very,
very frightening
to think that God
relates to us
not out of need love
but out of just
pure love.
Pure,
unadulterated,
bottomless,
unstoppable love.
That's how he relates
to us.
And it's free.
It desires.
It just,
that's how God is.
And so,
when God's grace
comes into our lives,
it starts to break down
those things,
those fortresses
and the selfishness
in our lives,
in our real lives,
in how we really live.
That's how God's grace
is going to work
because God wants us
to be free,
to be voluntary,
to be willing.
If you could put it up,
that's the next point.
God's grace is real
and shapes me
to freely
and willingly
desire to give.
God's grace is real
and shapes me
to freely
and willingly
desire to give.
God does not need
our money.
He doesn't need
you and me.
He loves you and me.
That's why
he became poor
so that you and I
through his poverty
might become rich.
It's an act of freedom.
And especially,
here's the thing
about true freedom.
Okay,
I'm not putting
anybody down.
It doesn't take
much freedom
freedom
to just say,
you know what,
I don't care about
my responsibilities
as a husband
or as a dad
or a child.
You know what,
I'm just going to
sit on my butt
this afternoon
and I'm going to
down a 12-pack
and eat a whole pile
of potato chips
and watch football.
Well,
that's,
I mean,
you're free to do that,
but that's not
exactly the high-water
mark of human freedom.
Like,
going out on a
Friday night
and getting plastered
is not the high-water
mark of human freedom.
The high-water mark
of human freedom
is to do hard things.
The more free you are,
you are free
to do hard things.
You are free
to start to try
to forgive.
You are free
to start to be
more generous.
You are free
to keep your promises
even to your hurt.
You are free
to give of your time
or to go
where you don't
by your very nature
and flesh want to go.
That's the mark
of human freedom.
And that's what grace
brings into our lives.
And that's why,
in a sense,
this text is saying,
you know what,
when it comes time
to pass the plate
or when you're thinking
about the financial needs
of this church,
you know,
in a sense,
God is saying to you,
you know what,
if you don't want to give,
don't give.
I don't want your money.
That's what God's saying.
I don't want your money.
You know,
quite a few years ago,
I got invited
into another province
to go speak
at a variety of things
over the weekend.
And these two couples,
because they wanted
to honor me,
they wanted to take me
out for supper.
And I said,
okay,
you don't have to take me
out for supper.
You know,
I'm a simple guy.
I'm quite happy.
No, no,
we want to take you out.
I said,
well,
okay,
listen,
you know,
there's these sports bars
in town.
Like,
I'm quite happy
just going to a sports bar
or just like a,
you know,
a local place
where local,
but no,
they had this,
this community
had to drive
about 20 minutes,
half an hour,
but there was something
the equivalent
of the Chateau Laurier
for that area.
And they had to take me there.
And I said,
you know,
really,
I'm,
I'm actually,
you know,
I have nine kids,
you know,
we don't eat in places
like the Chateau Laurier
when you have nine kids,
you know,
we,
if you even eat it out at all,
it's McDonald's,
okay,
I'm quite happy at McDonald's
or Subway
or something like that.
I'm quite happy
with the pizza deal
from the local pizza place.
And,
you know,
just pick up the beer
yourselves
and save a lot of money.
No,
no,
it had to be the Chateau Laurier,
the equivalent of the Chateau Laurier.
So they go there
and it's just like,
I maybe had,
you know,
I don't go to these places
very often,
but I've been
and you look at it
and in today's dollars,
I don't know,
like the entrees were,
the cheapest entree
was like 14 bucks.
I mean,
not appetizer,
okay,
and it goes up from there,
like,
you know,
lots of money
and they literally,
they look at the menu
and I can hear them gasp.
And I say to them again,
you know what,
we haven't ordered anything,
let's just sleep out.
You know,
there was some real,
all these sports bars along here.
I'm actually quite,
no,
they had to do it.
Both couples
only ordered one main dish,
no entrees
and shared it
and you could just tell,
you could just,
I mean,
God love them,
but you could just tell
that when it came time
to get the money
out of their fingers,
it was just like this
and in a sense,
the owner of the restaurant
had to sort of pull
every single penny.
You know what,
that was a miserable meal
for me.
It was really miserable.
I didn't enjoy a bite,
I didn't enjoy my time
because,
and God knows your heart
and you know,
frankly,
God is saying here
in this text,
if you're not interested,
you know,
it's a grace issue
and it's not being judgmental,
it's a grace issue,
it's being gripped
with the gospel,
that's what it is
and you know,
frankly,
if you're giving
out of some sense
of obligation,
some sense
that you have to do this,
if it's some type
of manipulation,
God's saying in a sense,
you know,
I'm just,
you don't have to give,
I don't want it.
That's why this willingness
is so important
in the text.
Now,
here's another thing
that's,
here's another big,
you know,
some people say,
George,
here's the problem
with this
and here's the problem
with grace,
here's the problem,
you know,
I think religious people
are very impractical,
doesn't Jesus say somewhere
whenever anybody asks,
you have to give
and George,
do you realize
just there's this
black hole,
there's this sucking
black hole
of human need
and George,
if you start me
down this path
of the sucking
black hole,
bottomless pit
of human need,
it's going to consume me,
grace doesn't make
any sense.
Well,
the Bible here
is addressing this
particular fear.
Let's,
could we all say
verse 9 again?
Could you put it up?
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
by his poverty
might become rich.
And then continue
reading on
from verse 11.
So now finish
doing it as well
so that your readiness
in desiring it,
that's in being
financially generous,
may be matched
by your completing it
out of what
you have.
Notice that?
Out of what you have.
for if the readiness
is there,
it is acceptable
according to
what a person
has,
not according to
what he does not have.
And then it's very interesting,
I do not mean that
others should be eased
and you burdened,
but that is a matter
of fairness.
And some of your Bibles
say equality.
Both words are good.
I'll explain it in a moment.
Your abundance
at the present time
should supply their need
so that their abundance
may supply your need,
that there may be fairness
or equality
or interdependence.
As it is written,
and here he quotes
a text about the manna
in the wilderness,
whoever gathered much
had nothing left over
and whoever gathered little
had no lack.
If you could put up
the point,
God's grace is real
and shapes me
to understand
that nothing I have
is mine,
it is manna.
Whatever my IQ is,
whatever my health is,
whatever my time is,
whatever my bank balance is,
whatever my educational
achievement is,
whatever my EQ is,
emotional quotient,
whatever my AQ is,
my attitude quotient,
whatever I'm blessed with
because I was born in Canada
and not in another country,
all of these things
at the end of the day
it's manna.
It's not mine.
It doesn't mean when I say
it's not mine
that it's the government's.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Kathleen Wynne
and Justin Trudeau
and Donald Trump,
just to cover the whole
political spectrum.
When it says
it's not mine,
it doesn't mean
therefore, ha ha,
it's Ontario's,
Canada's or Trump's.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
It's manna
under my care,
not the government's
under my care.
It's manna.
And this is a very,
very powerful thing.
You see, once again,
how does grace work, right?
For the grace of our,
if we know the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though he was rich,
yet for your sake
he became poor
so that you by his poverty
might become rich.
Our deepest human need
is our alienation
from our creator
and because we are alienated
from our creator
from the entire created order.
And how is that solved?
It's solved by God.
How much of it,
is it like solved
99% by God
and 1% by me?
No, it's actually solved
110% by God,
200% by God,
0% by me.
All by God.
And it's this sense
of the God's grace
coming into our lives
and that we're rooted in grace,
that that's become
the story of our life,
that it becomes
what shapes us
and what grounds us.
We start to realize
that everything we have
is ultimately something
that God has given us.
And I don't know
why God gave some people
a lot of resources
and others very little resources,
but whatever it is,
the story of the manna
is very, very interesting.
And by the way,
the story of the manna
doesn't show that it's all equal,
that it all comes by provision
because in the nation of Israel,
as in the wilderness
and there's no food,
every day God,
as his provision,
for six days of the week
he provides this substance
on the ground
that people could gather.
And people who gathered a lot
they could gather a lot,
they could gather a little.
The implication is
that at the end of the day,
that at the end,
the next day it was all,
it would rot overnight.
You had to pick it up every day.
And as a miracle,
on the sixth day,
it wouldn't rot on the seventh day.
It would last for two days
to show that it came from God.
And so it would create
within this community,
not only do you
take a lot or a little,
but if at the end of the day,
you know,
you picked up not enough,
that the community
would have enough as a whole
so that you could go
to your neighbor and say,
I forgot to pick up
enough manna for supper.
And, you know,
my cousin Abe
has come to visit
with his, you know,
his 18 kids.
And, you know,
he can go around
and there'd always be
enough manna.
And so this text
isn't teaching,
it's teaching us,
it's helping the people
in Corinth to say,
no, no,
you're thinking
as if, okay,
you're Greeks,
you're in Corinth,
and it's all yours.
No, no,
God's community,
it now involves people
in Philippi and Berea
and involves Romans
and it involves Samaritans
and it involves Jewish people
and it involves people
who are culturally
different than you
and God only has one people.
And God is ultimately
giving you manna.
And the image here,
it's another time
that I went out for supper
and this was when I was building
and helping to build
an organization
and a donor was there
and he wanted me
and this other minister
to go with a couple
of other people
who had pretty good
financial means
and we were going to be doing
a whole series of things.
In fact,
we'd been doing some things
the other day
and he said,
let's all go out for supper
and so we all go out
for supper
and we go to this place
and to my horror,
it's even more expensive
than places like
the Chateau Laurier.
Like,
I look at it
and I think,
I'm going to maybe have
a half salad
in this meal
because that's probably
all I can afford.
But I happen to be
sitting beside the guy
who'd invited me
and the other minister
and then there's about,
I think there's about
four or five other people
and just as the menu comes,
he just whispers to me,
he said,
listen,
this is on me.
And then I noticed him
go to the other minister
on the other side,
another young,
I was young at the time,
a long,
long time ago
and he whispers
to the other guy,
this is on me.
He doesn't make it
for everybody.
This is on me.
Order what you want.
It's on me.
That's the image
here in the text.
Okay?
That's the image.
He didn't pick up
the bill for everybody.
He didn't pick up
the bill,
all of my bills
for the rest of my life.
He picked up the bill
for that particular thing.
And that's the significance
you see of this
particular text as well.
Is that the text is saying
as grace comes
into our lives,
it means that we start
to look across
cultural lines
and ethnic lines
and race lines
to other believers
who are all part
of this one family.
God only has
this one family
of people.
He only has
this one body.
And that's how grace
is supposed to work.
The grace is supposed
to be the great destroyer
of racism
and the great destroyer
of hating women
or hating men
or hating anybody.
It's to be this great destroyer
and to change the way
we look
and to change our understanding
of the resources
that it's manna
that comes to our hand.
And you know what?
You know,
Shirley can tell you
we get a constant stream
of requests for money
from the church
and you can't,
you only can deal
with what you have
but the fact of the matter
is that a church
has to always be thinking
of what it can do
beyond its borders.
A church that only thinks
about using the money
for itself
isn't a church
rooted in grace.
But just because
you're looking
beyond your borders
it's, you know,
it's why I'm so glad
that we have a missionary
from our family,
you know,
people from our church family
in Nigeria
and we have somebody
in Egypt
and we have somebody
in Zambia
and we have,
you know,
we have somebody
in a country
that I can't say in public
because it's closed
to religion
and another country
that's sort of closed
and it's so good
and we give to that
and we give to other
types of things
and that's,
but we only can give
what we have
but we can all,
we would have
a very,
very generous heart
and always ask God
can we give more?
Can we give more?
Not,
not,
it's not,
Lord,
everything is just
falling apart
and we have to be
really tight.
No,
can we give more?
Can we give more?
That's the grace question.
Can we give more?
Now here,
just one final thing
we have to sort of
wrap it up.
You know,
so normally I have
these but George moments
I shared it with last week.
I start to walk like this,
but George,
I start,
but here's now
a but Canada question,
not a but George question,
but a Canada question,
human being question.
Here's the problem.
Not only do human beings
are we grudging
and giving,
but a lot of times
when human beings give,
they have a whole pile
of agendas.
People give
to assert
their self
in giving.
People give
to justify themselves.
People give
to show off.
People give
in some way
so they get a pass
and having to deal
with other things.
People give
to put God
in their debt.
I know there were people,
those of you
who haven't been going
here very long,
when we walked away
from our building
because we wanted
to honor God
and we felt
we had to honor God
by walking away
from our building.
I know there were
many people
who thought that God
would give us a building
within two years.
Why?
Because they believed
that we had put God
in our debt.
And we human beings,
let's read that
verse 9 again.
Can we read it again?
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
by his poverty
might become rich.
I can never put God
in my debt.
The gospel
is all about
the fact that
God does
everything for me.
He is the one
who complete,
Jesus is the one
who by his work
upon the cross
has redeemed me.
He is the one
who gives me grace today.
He is the one
who will give me
grace tomorrow.
That I'm to be
responsive to grace
but I can never
put God in my debt.
And it's not about
me asserting myself
in giving.
You know,
in the early days
in this church
there was a couple
of people
when I came to this church
you know,
there was a couple
of people
who they'd had
a,
prior to me coming
the rector would go
to them at the end
of the year
to help make up
the financial need
and I didn't do that.
I've never done that.
And I know that it
sort of bothered
this one person.
You know,
because at the end
of the day
he liked to assert
himself in giving.
But here's the text.
If you read
not only verse 9
but just listen
to how it goes on
from verse 16.
But thanks be to God
who put into
the heart of Titus
the same earnest care
I have for you
for he not only
accepted our appeal
but being himself
very earnest
he is going to you
of his own accord.
With him we are
sending the brother
who is famous
among all the churches
for his preaching
of the gospel.
And not only that
but he has been
appointed by the churches
to travel with us
as we carry out
this act of grace
that is being
ministered by us.
Grace means
it's ultimately
from God.
It's just being
ministered by us.
Why is it being done?
For the glory
of the Lord himself.
For the glory
of the Lord himself.
And to show
our goodwill.
That's why
if you could put up
the final point
God's grace
is real
and shapes me
to give
so people are blessed
and the Lord
gets all the glory.
It's a profound
challenge
for us to think
that
we put God
in our debt.
It's a profound
challenge
to think
that we assert
ourselves
with our giving.
It's a profound
challenge
to thinking
that giving
somehow justifies
ourselves.
It's a profound
challenge
to think
that giving
is somehow
a matter of us
showing off.
That the grace
comes into our life.
It comes into
our life
to shape us
so that we start
to die
to these things
and have a desire
to give
in such a way
that we don't care
if we get a plaque
on it at the end
or get our paper
in the National Post
or the Citizen
or the Globe and Mail
because we went
to a fundraiser.
Some of us have been
in those pictures
but that's not the goal.
If they take your picture
they take your picture
right?
But it's not the goal.
So just in closing here
just to wrap it up
I just want to share
a couple of little things
about being generous.
The first one
is once again
about tithing.
I don't think
the Bible teaches
the New Testament
teaches that Christians
have to tithe.
I think tithing
is a rule of thumb.
I'll give you
an illustration.
The last summer job
I had before
I got ordained
a friend of mine
hired me to do
he had a small
construction company
hired me to work for him
and if some of you
have heard before
when it comes
to being competent
with a hammer
I have two left feet.
I don't have
two left hands
I have two left feet
I'm so incompetent
with hammers.
But he had to do
a lot of work
in some rural areas
or just outside of Ottawa
where he had to have
digging done
around septic systems
and he knew
George can dig
and George can take
shingles up on roofs
and George can lug wood
and George can do
all this simple meat
and that was fine
I was very happy.
But there came a time
he said
I want you to nail
in these boards
I think it was part
of a deck
and I want them
to be close together.
Okay?
So I said
I don't know
what that means.
He said
well I want them
to be close together.
And I said
I don't know
what that means.
He said
close together
just like you normally
do on a deck.
I said
okay time out
Rex
like I really
literally don't know
what you mean.
like a 32nd
of an inch apart
16th of an inch
an 8th of an inch
a quarter of an inch
half an inch
I don't know
what you mean.
I have no rule
of I don't know
what you mean.
Then he realized
oh yeah yeah yeah
George is completely
clueless.
Like when it comes
to carpentry
George is dumber
than a bag of rocks.
Okay so he took
pity on me
and he laid them out
so I had a rule of thumb.
And I think
that's the same
with tithing
in the Bible
for the New Testament.
You can see here
this grace thing
some people grace
is going to so affect
their lives
become like
Mother Teresa.
God doesn't call
all of us
to be like
Mother Teresa
where you literally
have nothing
everything that comes
in just goes out
for the poor.
Most of us
aren't called to that
but the Bible
gives us a bit
of rule of thumb
as terms of
what to look towards
what to move towards.
The 10% of our income
we give to the church
that's doing God's will
and then beyond that
we give to other things
that are continuing
to do to God's will
and that's what
we move towards.
And that's
so when it's
talking about
generosity in the real world
that's the rule of thumb.
I think that's what
the New Testament teaches
and the Bible
as a whole teaches.
And some grace
the grace of giving
will be well beyond that
and by that
I don't mean rich people
and many of you know
that it's often
in poor countries
that people are
vastly more generous
even though they have
very little money.
And the other thing
I guess I would just say
to you is that
for Louise and me
when we got challenged
about tithing
because we were not
even remotely
close to tithing
the time I was
getting paid
once a month
we just thought
we'd take a step
of faith
to start adding
twenty dollars.
And you know what
the world didn't collapse
we didn't all of a sudden
have no money to eat
and then we trusted
God with another twenty
in a month.
Oh okay
we still ate this month.
The kids still have clothes
and the house
still has heat
and that we just
but you have to begin
like begin today
or begin tomorrow
and begin where you are.
And the main thing
is to be gripped
by the gospel.
Just one other thing
I want to share with you
as a practical matter
for Louise and me
it's far easier
if we pay God first.
I'm just sharing with you
some practical thing
we've learned.
When the pay comes in
I mean
it would either be
setting an EFT
or just
I literally take the money
out of the bank
when my pay comes in.
I do that first.
The second thing I do
is move my money
from the account
the bank
to the account
where I pay my bills.
I do those two things first
and then I try to live on
we try to live on the rest.
And that's just
a practical thing
that I've learned.
In the Bible
it's called
The First Fruits
but I just want to
share that with you.
But the main thing
is to be gripped by grace.
As God grips us
with what he's done
for us in his son
it changes us
for real
and for good.
And it's not
legalism
it's not rules
it's not earning
God's favor
it's being gripped
by what God
has done for you
in the person
of his son.
Please stand.
Let's bow our heads
in prayer.
Father thank you
for Jesus.
Thank you Father
for God
the Son of God
the second person
of the Trinity.
Thank you Father
that even though
we human beings
didn't want a Savior
didn't think we needed
a Savior
weren't looking
for a Savior
hadn't asked you
for a Savior
Father
you knew we needed
a Savior.
You knew our true
and deepest need.
You knew that we
needed to be reconciled
to you
that you loved us
but we had a big problem
and you knew
that we had a big problem
and we couldn't help
ourselves
and still you loved us.
Still you sent your Son
to die upon the cross
for us.
Still you sent your Son
to become poorer
than poor could be
so that we
when we put our faith
and trust in your Son
Jesus
become rich in him.
Father
we ask that you
make us disciples
of Jesus
who are gripped
by the gospel
and learning to live
free
and whole
for your glory.
Free and whole
and generous
for your great glory
and the good
of this created order
and the whole world.
Father
make us such
disciples of Jesus
this we pray
in Jesus' name.
Amen.