Dennis Tuuri

I’ll be speaking today from 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9. But for the sermon text itself, we’ll read in chapter 9 beginning at verse one. So please stand for the reading of God’s words from 2 Corinthians chapter 9 beginning in verse one. And I’ll read through verse 11.

2 Corinthians 9:

Now concerning the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you. For I know your willingness about which I boast of you to the Macedonians. Achaia was ready a year ago, and your zeal has stirred up the majority. Yet I have sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this respect, that as I said, you may be ready. Lest if some Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we, not to mention you, should be ashamed of this confident boasting. Therefore, I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren to go to you ahead of time and prepare your generous gift beforehand, which you had previously promised, that it may be ready as a matter of generosity, and not as a grudging obligation.

But this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity. For God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you always having all sufficiency in all things may have an abundance for every good work. As it is written, he has dispersed abroad, he has given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. Now may he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness while you are enriched in everything for all liberality which causes thanksgiving through us to God.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for your tremendous gifts to us. We thank you for the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you, Father, for creating us and providing all things necessary for us, for doing, as we sang earlier, all things well toward us. Forgive us, Lord God, for unthankfulness. Help us in the context of this particular set of scriptures to be thankful to you in all things and to have that thanksgiving flow over in a liberality of mindset and of actions one to the other. Thank you, Father, for your great grace and mercy shown to us through our Savior. And we pray now that you would use this text, that you would enlighten it to us, transform us by it by the power of your spirit. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Spurgeon said that all men need two conversions, one of their souls and the other of their pocketbooks. Today I want to talk about money, which is always kind of a dangerous topic to address. I want to talk about it in the context of our head of household meeting last Friday night and explain some of the ways we’re trying to fund missions, some of the ways that benevolences are funded in this church. I want to hopefully through today’s sermon kind of explain a little more of that, particularly to you that are newer to the church, our perspective on the monies that are received by the local church and how they’re dispersed.

I want to talk about what God and his providence gave two chapters over to in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9—a particular example of what we might call free will offering or voluntary giving. And I want to talk about that in the context, as I said, of our budget, the Bethel Fund, and a couple of comments that were made Friday night about that and questions. I want to address some of those in today’s sermon. And I want to do it in such a way as to help you to see that what we’re talking about here is ultimately, I suppose, from one perspective, for your own self-interest as well.

Paul talks here in this text about God loving a cheerful giver. And while this text is specifically about the third section of your outline at the bottom where we want to spend most of our time, I wanted to make application of the text also properly, I think, to cheerfully giving God the tithes—the tithe that he commands of us—and also cheerfully giving, at least in the Old Testament, certain mandatory offerings.

We’re likely to take Malachi 3, where God says we’ve robbed him—these people have robbed him with tithes and offerings. In our modern sense of tithes and free will offerings, that’s not what the text meant, and I want to just talk about that a little bit by way of explanation. So I want to apply it in different areas, but I think the whole point here basically is that you know, freely we have received from God and freely we are to give to him and to his people, particularly and specifically in the context of 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, that involves benevolences to those in the broader body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, Paul begins chapter 9 by saying that it’s superfluous for him to write to them of ministering to the saints. And there’s a certain superfluity, if I can use that term. There’s a certain necessity of this particular sermon. This congregation has demonstrated its gracious giving through the giving of tithes and through the giving of various offerings for many years, and this past year was certainly another instance of that.

The $20,000 raised as free will offerings of the congregation to send the mission team to India at the end of the year capped off a year in which many other voluntary offerings were given for benevolences, to pay down the debt in this building. The deacons’ use of certain benevolence monies to send to India, where that money was used to help establish a medical clinic and to provide a daycare for others whose unbelieving husbands have forced them out of the home and into the workplace.

This congregation has for many years demonstrated its belief and understanding of particular texts we’re at. However, you know, Paul said it was superfluous to write to them, and he did it anyway. And this is a part of God’s instruction in the word for us. And so I want to do it by way of encouragement, to continue to exhort you to keep doing the good thing. You know, I give these premarital counseling inventories as I work with couples in marriage counseling, and there’s a front summary page. And sometimes the times that are really nice for me, the summary page tells the counselor just to tell them to keep up the good work.

And in a sense, that’s what Paul is saying to the Corinthians. And in a very real sense, that’s what I’m saying to you as well. I’m encouraging you and exhorting you to keep up the good work as well as providing a little understanding of why this good work flows the way it does and what the various lessons are in it.

This statement of Paul’s that God loves a cheerful giver is not, you know, New Testament teaching. It’s really based in much of what, of course, the whole scriptures teach. Specifically in Proverbs 22:9, we read this: “He who has a generous eye will be blessed, for he gives of his bread to the poor.” Now, the Septuagint version of this translates “a generous eye” as “he who is cheerful and a giver.” So you’re to be cheerful in this giving. In this Hebrew phrase, “generous eye,” had those connotations so strongly that the Septuagint can actually translate it “he who is cheerful and a giver.”

And it may well be, you know, that Paul has this particular verse in mind when he speaks of God loving a cheerful giver. God requires cheerfulness in us in terms of our giving. We’re to avoid, you know, a compulsory, grudging gift or tithe to God. I think there’s one sense in which we might say that when we give grudgingly, we may perhaps avoid the particular judgments of God upon us that would be true if we did not give at all. But we really do not receive the blessings.

God loves a cheerful giver. God has created a new humanity who understand his grace toward them, his liberality toward them, and the demonstration of their understanding, belief, and trust in Christ’s love and provision, and their responding love to Jesus Christ, is in their acts of faithful love, particularly to his people. And so God loves a cheerful giver. To cheerful givers he provides much blessing, as we’ll see in the context of our particular set of scriptures we’re looking at today.

So God loves cheerful giving. He loves the cheerful giving of the tithe. And I want to move through these first two sections pretty quickly because it’s not really my purpose today to talk about the tithe or the mandatory offerings of the Old Testament, but I do want to touch on some things that might address some issues that were raised very briefly at the head of household meeting.

Now, the tithe clearly in the scriptures—the actual phrase in the Hebrew means tenth. So the tithe is a tenth of the increase that God has given to us. To tithe, in other words, to give one-tenth of one’s increase, his income every year, is a response to the grace of God’s blessings. It’s an acknowledgement that it’s him who made us, it’s him who gave us strength to work, it’s him who blessed our particular labors so that increase came of them. So the tithe is this acknowledgment of the grace of God’s blessing.

And as we’ll see when we get to free will offerings, it’s the same thing there. God reminds them over and over again of the grace of God that’s to underbe the foundation for whatever grace they minister to other people. So the tithe is a response to the grace of God’s blessings.

The tithe is critical to covenant ratification of Deuteronomy 26. At the end of the three-year cycle, which was particularly geared to their economy on the land and what God was doing in a historical way—it’s not we don’t have a three-year cycle anymore. But that three-year cycle ended with a ratification that the giver had been faithful in tithes and in a particular element of those tithes that were to be given to those fatherless and the strangers and widows in the context of the land. So the tithing is an aspect of covenant ratification. And so in Deuteronomy, the whole flow of Deuteronomy reads as a covenant described between God and his people, and the ratification of that covenant is this faithfulness in what one does with one’s money. So it’s critical to us as his covenant people.

The tithe belongs to God. I mean, it’s not the tithe is not a free will offering. It’s a tax, so to speak. It is our necessary tribute to give to our king, our lord, our master. It is a tax, but it’s a tax to be given cheerfully and joyfully to God. It belongs to him. If we withhold it, then Malachi 3 says that’s theft, and that brings curses upon us.

This is why we can’t say that Malachi 3 refers to free will offerings, because they’re not obligatory. They’re not given to us by way of commandment. We’ll see that in today’s text as well. But the tithe is obligatory. And to fail to give it to God is theft. And you know, the last one you want to steal from—you know, we’re worried about theft from the IRS. They’ll come after you. But God, of course, has all the resources. He knows exactly who’s withheld from him, and he has all the power to do all things well, to bring about chastisements and judgments upon you. And he will do that.

The tithe’s prime use—the tithe’s primary use—is the support of Levitical ministers of word, prayer, and sacraments. So the way it worked was that as they went into the land and as God designed a set of priests—who are not every family man—now as he moved from the patriarchal form of worship to setting up the Levites to minister in his tabernacle, in his temple, and then scattered throughout the land in the synagogue system, God supported the priestly tribe, the Levites, through the use of tithes. And that’s their primary use. Tithes, you know, did not go, it appears, to repairing the building. We’ll look at that in a couple of minutes. It doesn’t appear that it went for real property. The whole purpose of the tithe was to support men who would minister in word, prayer, and sacraments in the context of the people.

So the purpose of the tithe was to support the teaching ministry, I suppose, and worship ministry of the church. Now, at this point in your outline, I’ve got discipleship behind this. I mentioned Friday night that in terms of our strategy map, I’ll be, you know, banging away at these basic objectives and then getting into more detailed stuff as we go into the year. But the basic objectives that we think flow out of worship is a sense of mission on the part of our people, discipleship as we come into the administration of Christ’s government and as we learn his word, baptism and teaching the nations all things that I’ve taught you to obey, and then finally community, the presence of God with us.

Well, the Levitical support—these guys were not just instructors, so it isn’t purely discipleship. They weren’t just the rulers in the context of the courts that were established in each city. They also led in worship, and worship drives everything else. But still, I think that we can legitimately say that there is this thrust in the use of the tithe that equates to a sense of discipleship—people who are supporting men who are going to disciple the nation.

Six, the portion of the tithe is—and I list you some verses there. We will not take the time to go through them. We really want to get to the last section of the outline today, but I put them there for your own study. It seems that when the tithe was not given in the Old Testament, the Levites went and found other work to do, or maybe vice versa, they found other work and then the tithes were withheld. But in any event, a lack of tithing led to a lack of Levitical resources in the church. They were tied together.

And to prevent the Levites from being distracted through other work, people were to tithe to support them so they wouldn’t have to worry about going out and getting a second job or trying to make the bills and all that sort of stuff. It was to give them a sense of security in their maintenance of their homes so they could fully focus on the word, prayer, and sacraments. In the same way, the deacons of Acts 6 are given to the apostles and elders of the church to make sure they’re not distracted by administrative functions from their attention to the word and to prayer, to the administration of sacraments in the worship service.

Prayer is a comprehensive term for worship, both in the Old and New Testaments. So we can see that there’s this requirement to support elders so that they’re not distracted from study of the word, prayer, and sacraments.

Six, a portion of the tithe is used to finance our agape and family camp and provides a joy aspect. And this, you know, in Deuteronomy 14, there are tapes available in the library about this. In that economy, a certain particular part of their tithe was used to finance the festivals in Jerusalem that they were required to go through three times a year—the men. So they would go there, and in Deuteronomy 14, it says they were supposed to use some of the tithe that they had collected to buy whatever their heart desired—strong drink, beer, in other words, good food. They were supposed to rejoice in the presence of God.

You know, what we’re going to see in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 is that, you know, the end result of giving not grudgingly but cheerfully and generously is that God then enriches us. There’s joy as a result of this whole process. In the Psalms, Psalm 126, I think we sow with tears at times. It’s not normally the way you sow, but if all you’ve got left is the seed crop for the next year, and you’re torn between eating that seed crop and having a full belly and sowing it and looking to the future, you do it. You look to the future instead of the present. So you sow with tears, but you’ll reap with joy.

God says, even if it comes to having to give in a way that it really is desperately difficult for us, God says the end result of even that kind of sowing is joy. And how much more so the normal sort of sowing that we do, when we give cheerfully to God, has tithed and then engage in free will offerings as well. So you know, this joy aspect—and behind that I’ve got community. You know, this is the phrase we’re using from our vision map again. And specifically, this tithe is used to rejoice, not in isolation.

You know, you never want to drink alone if you’re going to have, you know, a strong drink or eat good food. The best place to do that is in community. You know, God is never alone. There was one time when that wasn’t true. But you know, God is three persons. These three persons are always in fellowship, union, and communion with each other. They’re never isolated. It’s bad for us. Proverbs says, “The man who isolates himself rages against all sound counsel.” We’re made in the image of God, male and female created he them in his image. We’re made to exist in community. And our joy, the central points of our joy, are to be brought together in community, to rejoice.

And at this church, our agape is one of those rejoicing times in community together that flows out of the worship service, and our family camp every year is as well. So a portion of the tithe should be used to support your participation in the agape—what meals you bring—and then your registration at family camp. Now, you know, if you end up spending 75% of your tithe on that, then you’re not really supporting the local Levites, and so that would not be good. So you don’t want to overbalance that way. I’m not going to tell you a percentage-wise. I’m just saying that there’s an aspect to our tithe that builds community.

Primary aspect builds discipleship. And then this worship that pushes mission, discipleship, and community. Here God specifically says that an element of our tithe is to be used to rejoice in community.

Seventh, a portion of the tithe is to be given to widows, the fatherless, and the stranger, and provides a grace aspect. Again, this was the other particular use—supposed to do. Very specific categories given, not the poor guy who’s your neighbor. Usually, it’s the poor loan that you use to support that. But your tithe was given to the fatherless, to widows, and to strangers.

And I just realized that I forgot my bottle, my baby bottle, this morning. Following up last week’s sermon, segueing into this week’s sermon, the distributing of the free will offerings of this congregation by using the baby bottles for the pregnancy resource centers is an immediate way to do this. And some of the tithe can be used for that as well, because again, as the tithe got specific for us in the Old Testament economy, it said that there was an aspect of the tithe—some small part of the tithe—was to be used for the benevolences of the community, specifically to those in the context of the community, but nonetheless those who had great need.

And so I’ve called this in the past this grace aspect. And on this particular sheet, I’ve called this a mission aspect. Why? Well, because our mission into the world is a proclamation and calling all men to respond in faith to the grace and benevolence of God in providing Jesus Christ as an atonement for his people. So I think at the heart of mission is a declaration of the love and grace of God. Now there’s a command aspect to it where men are commanded to believe, to put their trust and faith in Jesus Christ. But at the heart of our mission is this sense of benevolence.

And so a portion of the tithe could be used for that in the Old Testament. And in the New Testament, we read that this can be administered by the elders of the church. In 1 Timothy 5:9, worthy widows who meet particular qualifications are put on the roll of the church. So what we’ve always said in this church is you can use some portion of your tithe to put in a box in your home or to give directly to widows, fatherless, strangers in the context of the church, the broader church, or you can give all your tithe, that portion of the tithe, to the church. And so we will administer some of those tithes in benevolence programs.

That’s why the only fund really in our budget that has a fixed amount to it that’s given over, whether we actually expend that money or not, is to the deacon benevolence fund. You know, the budget for that, I think last year was $3,000. I think it’s $3,000 this year. That money is given over to the deacon fund whether or not they have a use for it that year, because we see it that some people give all their tithes to the elders. We don’t know how many. And we think a portion of that tithe is consecrated or dedicated for this mission, benevolent aspect in the context of the Christian community.

And so we segment that money out. Other elements of the budget, whether we expend it or not, it doesn’t all roll over into the next year. That one does. And the reason for that is because it’s directly tied to this grace aspect or mission aspect of the Old Testament. And then specifically, it says the church admin can administer some of that from 1 Timothy chapter 5.

Now, note that particular use of the tithe—the mission aspect or benevolence aspect—is not given to those outside of an obedience to the faith. These are the fatherless, the widows, and the strangers. The strangers were the God-fearing Gentiles who had come to Israel to be in close association with God’s people. They weren’t just pagans hanging out. So the tithe is never given, you know, just to pagans, but it is given to those in the context of the church with particular needs. This is a focal point of the mission of benevolence of the church.

And as we see in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, and will when we get there in a little more detail, the particular free will offering that Paul is taking up is not to help, you know, the hungry, all the hungry in Jerusalem. It’s to help the hungry who are in the church in Jerusalem. You know, we’re to do good to all, we’re to do good to all men, but particularly to those of the household of faith. They must have a primary focus of the benevolence programs of the church, particularly the distribution of the money that’s been collected by the tithes of God’s people. That money must be focused upon benevolences to those who are walking in some form of conformity to the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The restoration of tithing in the Old Testament is tied to periods of biblical transformation or reconstruction. When times are going to cycle back up, tithing was reinstituted. I’ve listed some verses. So it’s very important in our day and age, as we want to see reconstruction and transformation, it’s important that God’s people are faithful to cheerfully give their tithes.

God also loves, or at least loved, the application today is not as clear-cut as tithing, I think, but loves or loved a cheerful giver of certain mandatory offerings. And as I said in Malachi 3, we can read “tithes and offerings”—the way we have tithe and offerings in the church—but it’s not quite like that. The offerings in Malachi 3 were specifically designated for the maintenance of worship facilities and food for the priests.

So this particular word “offerings”—that’s not in Malachi 3. God says, “You’ve robbed me in tithes and offerings.” He doesn’t mean there you were going to help the poor and you decided you didn’t have enough money to do it. That’s not what he’s saying. There were certain mandatory offerings in the Old Testament economy or in the Levitical economy. What were they? Well, there were some mandatory offerings, as we’ll see in a couple of minutes, for the maintenance of the structure of the tabernacle and later the temple.

There was a small mandatory offering for every household to build the worship facility of tabernacle, temple, or restored temple. This word “offering” is used in relationship to those gifts. This word “offering” is also used to describe the priest portion of the food that was given on God’s altar. So in addition to the tithe supporting the Levitical ministries primarily going out in the synagogues, a tithe of the tithe first of all was given for the support of the Aaronic priesthood, who were also Levites. So the local church would tithe. Those pastors would give a tenth of what they received to national guys who were involved in temple worship specifically. And that particular portion is referred to as an offering in the scriptures. So that’s another one of the offerings—the tithe of the tithe.

Another offering where this term is being referred to is those food offerings that were to be given in the context of the Levitical sacrificial system—the Aaronic sacrificial system. You know, you’d give the thigh of a particular offering. You’d bring grain. That stuff is referred to as offerings. And all the grain wasn’t burnt up on the altar. Much of it was given to the priests for their families. So sustenance and provision of food for the Aaronic priesthood were part of these mandatory offerings that were required. And God said the people weren’t bringing them. They weren’t tithing, and they weren’t bringing, you know, the best of their grain. They’d bring moldy grain. The priest couldn’t eat, for instance.

And so they were robbing God by robbing God’s special officers, the priests. The half-shekel atonement money in Exodus 30 is also referred to as an offering, the same term. And we’ll look at that a little bit more as we go along. So you know, that’s what those offerings were in Malachi 3. Not talking about free will offerings.

Two, the real property of the church appears to be financed through voluntary offerings, not the tithe. And I’ve got references there from both the original construction requirements for the tabernacle, 1 Chronicles 29, the temple, Haggai 1 and 2, the reconstructed temple that would be built by Nehemiah, and in each of those references it is the free will offerings of the people that are brought forward to build the tabernacle, the temple, and then the restored temple.

So it wasn’t just in the wilderness when we didn’t have a normal income flow going on and when the money had been taken out of Egypt—you know, they had plundered the Egyptians, so to speak. The Egyptians had given the money on the way out. It wasn’t just that sort of special circumstance. When they’re in the land, they’re tithing. They’re doing their mandatory offerings. But then they also, when the temple’s going to be built, there’s special offerings of the people that are collected. And it seems that there’s no use of tithe money in the construction of the temple to the best of my understanding.

Three, the maintenance of the church’s real property appears to be financed not by the tithe but by means of offerings, voluntary and involuntary. And we’ll look at one of these verses in just a minute. But the point here is that if the temple needs repair, it seems that there’s a mechanism for repairing that temple that’s not using tithe funds. And I’ll go right to point number four as an illustration of this.

There’s evidence that the head or poll tax was also used to maintain the central sanctuary. This mandatory offering was a fixed amount per adult male. So in Exodus 30, there was a mandatory so-called poll tax, head tax. Some men think this is how civil government should be financed, not on a percentage of your income but rather on a particular allotment per household. So they think that this poll tax was collected at the central sanctuary, which was not just the religious center of the nation but was the governmental center as well. And so R.J. Rushdoony and others think this is the way civil government should be financed.

This had an impact 15 years ago with Margaret Thatcher’s thought and her guy who was in charge of these kind of policies. England actually for a period of time went to a poll tax in part because of the influence of Reverend Rushdoony’s teaching. That’s what this head or poll tax was to be used for—was civil government, at least a model for how civil government should support itself. However, and that may be true, it’s kind of difficult to understand what this poll tax was, but it seems there is evidence, good evidence I think, that this was used actually to maintain the central sanctuary.

This was a mandatory offering, and it was a fixed amount per adult male. And now I’ve got a quote on your outlines from 2 Kings 12:4 and 5. And this will sort of be used to sum up this maintenance aspect of the use of these mandatory and free will offerings of the Old Testament.

Okay. So 2 Kings 12:4 and 5: “And Jehoash said to the priests, ‘All the money of the dedicated things that is brought into the house of the Lord’—now he’s got a summary category. ‘The dedicated things.’ What are they? ‘Even the money of everyone that passes the account.’ That’s a reference to the head tax or poll tax of Exodus 30. So it seems specifically that money is one of the sums of money that’s going to be used for Jehoash’s purposes here.

So he says, ‘Even that money, the head tax, the money that every man is set at.’ Now that is vow money, a little complicated of Leviticus 27, but there were certain vows that men were estimated, and this was the vow you had to perform. And if you did, you had to give x amount of money depending on your status, your age, etc. So this vow money, which also was not free will, but there was a vow established for some men if they wanted to enter into particular vows. This estimation of Leviticus 27 is the second category of dedicated things that Jehoash is referencing here.

We’ve got the poll tax. We’ve got some vow money coming in. And then third, ‘all the money that cometh into any man’s heart to bring into the house of the Lord.’ Now, these are free will offerings. That’s the third source of these dedicated monies that Jehoash is saying is going to be deposited in this chest. ‘Let the priests take it to them, every man of his acquaintance, and let them repair the breaches of the house wheresoever the breach shall be found.’

So at least at this point in covenant history, the repair of the physical sanctuary of the church, the temple, was made not through the use of tithe money but rather through this mandatory head tax, a mandatory offering, through the vow, which is also a form of mandatory offering that everyone had to pay up, and then they went into the vows as well as free will offerings, which were not mandatory. Those three sources of income were what provided for the repair of the tabernacle, the temple, rather.

The question came up in our head of household meeting. You know, once we pay off the debt in this building, Lord willing by 2006—praise God, that’s another evidence of the superfluity of the sermon, the generosity of this congregation in paying down this debt so quickly—once that’s established, should we, or done, should we then continue to have a Bethel Fund where offerings of the people are put in to repair the church? And this text would seem to argue yes, that is a good mechanism—free will offerings of the people to repair the real property of the church.

Five, to fail to employ these offerings—not the free will ones just mentioned, but in this economy in the Old Testament, the mandatory offerings of food for the priests, the mandatory offerings of the head tax—none of those are still mandatory on us. But in that system, then this is what Malachi 3 is talking about: to fail to employ those mandatory offerings according to God’s regulation as theft, incurring curses.

And you know, I kind of I probably should have said that differently, because clearly they incur curses to rob God of the tithe and mandatory offerings. But the other side of it, of course, is God, right on in Malachi 3, to promise blessings if they do engage in the cheerful giving of tithes and those mandatory offerings. God’s blessing is to be upon us. And so I hate, I really should not have ended with just a statement of God’s curse, but rather God’s blessing is a motivation to his people to give and to give with a joyful spirit.

Now let’s spend the time remaining looking at this third section of the outline: God loves a cheerful giver of voluntary designated offerings. And the reason why I wanted to focus on this again is the budgeting process of the church.

We believe, in a summary way of talking about this, that 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 gives us an example—a particular example, no doubt, but an example nonetheless—that when the officers of the church think there’s a particular need, whether it’s in the context of that church, the broader church, paying down the debt of the real property of the church, or whatever it might be, we can go to the congregation and try to solicit voluntary free will offerings.

So, you know, the last thing I want to do today is be seen as pressuring you for giving to particular missions projects, benevolence projects, or building projects. What I do want to be remembered for today is for commending the grace of God—not you, ultimately, but the grace of God that flows through this congregation in each of these aspects and has done so well for so many years.

I really first preached most of what I’m presenting here today in several sermons when we began the Bethel Fund, I believe about 1995 or so. And this was the beginning of trying to put together money to establish and buy real property sometime in the distant future. And I would, you know, I could not have predicted that as quickly as it came to pass, the offerings of the people being so generous, could have allowed us to make the kind of down payment we did to get into this structure and be able to hopefully pay it off within the seven-year time period that we’ve always looked at.

So praise God for all of that. But I wanted to explain how we set up now this budget for the coming year and, you know, how we think about these things. I mentioned Friday night that there’s a proper use of some use of the tithe to spend on missions. I mean, to finance my Levitical work over there. I think probably when the church sends off Paul and Barnabas on missions, the church is supporting them, maybe through the tithe, at that point in time.

So there’s some proper use of the tithe and supporting missions. But the mission sort of work that’s going to go on here, for instance in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, to provide for, by way of analogy, a health clinic in India, to provide for, you know, a daycare center where children would be cared for, be able to provide with their labor of the mothers who’ve been kicked out by unbelieving husbands, food and clothing for their children. You see, these are benevolent missionary activities of the church. And what we think is that to grow the missionary impact of our church, to grow it to the amount that we would like to see it have in it, will require free will offerings of people delegated or designated to particular projects that we’ll put before you.

So we think that an application of 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, the ability to enter into free will offerings for a designated period of time for a particular purpose, is the support of a seminary student at Belhaven Presbycell Seminary in St. Petersburg. You know, Blake wanted us to commit to $500, which would fully support a seminary student there. And what we did then is we asked the congregation: Are you willing, apart from your tithes, whatever else you’re doing with your money, apart from the tithe, are you willing to dedicate a free will offering on your part for this next 12 months of x amount of dollars per month to support a seminary student?

Okay, we may, the same thing, you know, happened with the India project. Are you willing to engage in and give free will offerings for a particular purpose to send this team to India? And so that’s what we’re trying to do. And so the accounting procedures of the church will reflect the tithe budget, which is just the receipt of tithe monies and dispersement to what the tithe is to go for. And then we’ll have a separate budgetary category of offerings.

We’ve already had this to a certain extent. So the missioning offerings of the congregation are not the tithe offerings. And much of the funding of missions will come through free will offerings of people. And so we’ll either fund things or not depending on if the Lord God is moving your heart to be generous in giving to, for instance, a seminary student. And we’ve got pledges of about $450 per month now for the seminary student for Blake. And so now we’re dispersing checks to them. We’ll cover that expense. So that’s kind of the idea here.

And the deacons have, at times past, come with particular benevolence projects. Are you willing to commit x amount of money to support a particular family? Maybe it’s just a couple, one-time offering. Maybe there’s a need. We know that, you know, some disabled person’s going to have a need for the next year. How much can our church help? They may come to you and say, for a period of time, are you willing to commit to a particular amount of money to do this?

Now, all this we think is legitimate based upon what we find in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 where we find point number one: careful giving of voluntary designated offerings.

The offerings in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 are specifically designated for famine relief to the saints. And so, what Paul says here in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 is that the problem was there was a starvation going on in the church in Jerusalem. And so all the different churches that Paul had built up and was ministering to were asked to give a particular amount. And so this was a specific designated offering for the church in Jerusalem. And this is what was going on here.

Now, one of the things that Paul talks about here is that there should be some equality that is a result of their giving. I’m going to read from verses 13 to 15 of 2 Corinthians 8:

“I do not mean that others should be obeyed or should be seized and you burdened, but by an equality that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack, that their abundance also may supply your lack, that there may be equality. As it is written, ‘He who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.’”

Now, what Paul is saying is he’s not saying that there should be an equality of possessions or income for everyone. Clearly, what he’s saying is the basic necessities of life. In this case, food. You know, if you got excess food or money for food and your brother over here doesn’t have enough food to get by, then he’s saying that’s what he’s seeking to do: is provide an equality in necessary things. Food and shelter would be the necessary things of human existence.

And so for one part of our congregation to be eating fat on the hog and someone else in our congregation to be not eating enough or to be out on the street homeless would mean that somehow we’ve messed up. Paul says that in things of necessity there should be equality. And now he says that they might supply our lack.

Now Calvin said that the transaction that goes on between those well-off and the poor for a season is one where we give them money and they give the richer person their prayers. And so what we all lack, Calvin would say, is enough people praying for us. Now I’m probably one of the few you guys that’s not true of. I know that many of you in your family worship pray for myself and Elder Wilson, and we greatly appreciate that. But all of us could use more prayer. So if you’re helping people, their response—they can’t give to you any money—but they can give to you their prayers. And what’s more, who gets the better out of that? Well, clearly you do.

However, other people say that what’s really going on here is that Paul is saying: remember the trials and the vicissitudes of life. You may come to a place where you need the basic necessities of life. And they may then become blessed by God and rich. And as a result, they’ll end up giving to you. If, when you get to be hungry, you have withheld the grace of God and benevolences to others, then perhaps that’s going to happen to you as well.

There’s a very important truth here that’s important to state in our particular situation. You know, there’s two ditches in economics today. And we could go totally private property, kind of an Ayn Rand individualism, or we could go totally communistic on this side. And either one is wrong. The Bible affirms private property, but always in the context that their property never really belongs to us. It always belongs to God. That’s the point of the tithe. And we’re to act as proper stewards of the property that God has entrusted to us as private individuals. And that stewardship responsibility includes a responsibility to be generous to other people.

And so, you know, if we’re going to affirm private property, which the Bible does, not in an absolutist sort of a sense where the best way for your fellow man is to do what’s in your best interest. Always look out for number one. That isn’t true. Although, as I said, the text does say it’s to your better interest. It will abound to your blessing to give of your excess to those in need.

Paul relates all of this to mana. In verse 15: “As it is written, ‘He who gathered much had nothing left over. He who gathered little had no lack.’” You see, Paul is saying that the physical resources, property, that God gives us—whether it’s money or whatever it is—it’s like mana. If you think you can hoard it and just keep it for yourself for the rainy day, you’re wrong. It’ll go away. You know, gold finds wings and flies away from you. And you have that hoarding, self-sufficiency sort of thing going on.

God says that there’s to be an equality in the basic necessities of life. And we’re to have a generosity. If God has blessed us enough to provide for our necessities and then some, we should look at what we have with this generous eye. We should be a cheerful giver to other needs—the broad body of Jesus Christ or those in the context of our own church. We must have this benevolent spirit, a desire to actively seek out ways to use excess funds that God gives us for the well-being of the kingdom.

And we do it because we’re afraid that if we hoard it, it’ll fly away, which is true. We do it because we love the grace of God given to us. And we do it because we love Christ and his people. And so that’s what is being talked about here in this particular offering.

Secondly, these offerings were voluntary. 2 Corinthians 8:8 says: “I speak not by commandment. I’m not telling you what you have to do. I’m not issuing you an order. And I’m not issuing you an order today or ever about the voluntary offerings, the free will offerings of the church, for missions, for benevolences, for reduction of the debt. I never speak by way of commandment on that.”

Paul says that he speaks not by way of commandment, but he says: “I am testing the sincerity of your love by the diligence of others. So, you know, it’s not required, it’s voluntary.”

Third, these offerings were a response to and a demonstration of the grace of God. You know, again, Matthew 10:8: “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” If we recognize the tremendous grace of God to us, then our response to that grace is to be gracious and have liberality toward others.

Verses 1-7, as this whole section starts in 2 Corinthians 8: “Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia.”

So he’s going to use another. You know, I’ve often said that in terms of child rearing, you can exasperate your children by comparisons to other kids. But Paul kind of enters into this here. He says, “The Macedonians are doing really well, and they don’t have much money. Now you better follow through with what you committed to.” That’s what he’s saying here. He says: “I want to make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the church of Macedonia, that in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and in their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality.”

He’s saying two things. He’s saying the grace of God gave them joy in afflictions. May God grant us that grace. I know we have afflictions and difficulties, brothers and sisters. I know that our marriages can be difficult. I know that our vocations can be difficult. I know that our health can have—we can have problems there. And I know, as I said last week, that frequently in the context of the visible church, the reformed church, there’s tremendous trials, difficulties, afflictions, and tribulations that can happen.

Some of our dear brethren, just yesterday—man that I don’t know personally, but, you know, men that I know do know him and think he’s a good guy—you know, in big trouble with his local session because of some of this controversy over these doctrinal matters. Peter Leithart, subject of a horrific sermon preached before a presbytery, the OPC. You know, these kind of things happen. The Macedonians had great trials and affliction, but they had joy in the midst of them.

You see, ultimately, as I said, we sang earlier—Kuyper, Singlinger is prone to say this over and over—God does all things well. All things well, including our afflictions. So the Macedonians are a picture to us of joy in trials. And they’re also a picture of this liberality, this gracious, cheerful giving even when they don’t have much. They have deep poverty, Paul says. And yet they abounded in the riches of their liberality.

“For I bear witness that according to their ability, yea, and beyond their ability. I don’t think they pledged beyond their ability to him. I don’t think they said we’re going to give more than we have. But I think that because they were able to fulfill the gifts that they were committing themselves to, Paul, God blessed them. And they were able to give beyond even their ability to give. You see, they gave beyond their ability.

“They were freely willing, not compulsion, imploring us with much urgency that we should receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. Please, I know we’re poor. It looks like a lot were given. You, even though we’re poor, please take this to Jerusalem, that we can minister to them. We can show the grace of God. We know how gracious God has been to us. We know that only things that we have come about through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. We want to share that grace with the suffering saints in Jerusalem. And in that sharing, we want to enter into fellowship with them.

We have fellowship now with people in India. You know, individually, some of the people that come back from the team, but our church and their church, we have fellowship. You know, I just loved it when Mark came back. The fellowship that’s developed through us ministering, our church has generously given my time and of your tithe dollars to send me to Poland and other offerings as well to take to them. And it’s built this fellowship between us and the saints in Poland. And we look for that same thing in St. Petersburg.

“So they implored Paul to do this. ‘Not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and then to us for the will of God. So we urged Titus that as he had begun, so he would also complete this grace in you as well. But as you abound in everything in faith and speech and knowledge and all diligence and in your love for us, see that you abound in this grace also.’”

See, grace is at the beginning and end of this section. The grace of God is bestowed upon people who act graciously. So Paul says the source is the grace of God toward us. But then he asks that we would abound in this grace as well. Grace is what drives us—this gracious giving that might that the Spirit of God causes to abound in us.

We are a congregation much like this. We abound in faith, I believe, and a trust in Jesus Christ, in speech, in knowledge in doctrinal areas. We know things that a lot of churches don’t know, hopefully we see our requirement to minister that to the church and not to be prideful because of it. And hopefully our financial resources are the same way—whether it’s corporately as a church or each of you individually, you abound in much. And to that end we also pray for each other that we would abound in this grace also—the grace of giving liberally, generously, to plant pastors all over Russia, for instance, to commit to be part of that work, to provide translation of the Westminster standards, for instance, into Bengali so that the effects of Reformational truths can their way into that revival and evangelism that Christ mission is engaged in. That we would abound in this grace to be able to provide medical care for people that have no medical care—not mutually, but in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, ministering in his name. That we could abound in the grace of this giving, you know, for the saints in Poland, that more works from Douglas Wilson and his wife and Canon Press books could be translated into Polish.

You know, to be able, maybe perhaps, to have free will offerings of our congregation support someone to do full-time translation—wouldn’t take much. As I said last year, we pray that this grace might abound in us.

He says: “I speak not by commandment, but I am testing the sincerity of your love by the diligence of others. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.”

So Paul takes the understanding of the richness of our salvation and has no trouble immediately saying the implication and application is that we should be gracious in the physical riches that we have as well and minister them in a gracious way to the church of Jesus Christ.

So these offerings were a response to and a demonstration of the grace of God. Fourth, these offerings were committed to for a period of time.

In chapter 8, verses 10 and following, in this I give advice: “It’s to your advantage not only to be doing what you began and were desiring to do a year ago, but now you also must complete the doing of it. That as there was a readiness to desire it, so there also may be a completion out of what you have. For if there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has and not according to what he does not have.”

So what he’s saying here is that he had been given assurances a year before when he was with them: We’re going to give x amount of money to help the church in Jerusalem. And now he was sending men back to collect that money and, as we’ll see in a minute, to make up whatever might be short from it and to make sure that the giving is done joyously and cheerfully, with a sense of cheerfulness.

So these were funds that were committed to for a particular period of time. The Corinthian church apparently said: Over the next year, we’re going to raise x amount of money to give to the suffering saints in Jerusalem. And so it’s legitimate, I think, to say: For this next year, would you be willing to commit to supporting the seminary student? Otherwise, we don’t know if we can support him or not. We don’t know what to tell Blake. It’s not wrong to make plans ahead of the time. Noble men make noble plans. Our entire budgeting process is the same thing in action. We want to perform certain tasks. We count the cost. Can we do these tasks? And whether or not we have the money, is it a strong indicator from God as to the priority of what we should do and how we should use our time this coming year?

And the same thing’s true of these voluntary offerings. Sometimes it’s very useful, certainly proper biblically, to look for a commitment over a period of time to get people to articulate that commitment.

He says in verse 5 of chapter 9: “I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren to go to you ahead of time, prepare your generous gift beforehand, which you had previously promised.”

So there was a previous promise and then a completion of the promise that Paul was calling them to.

Fifth, these offerings were spurred on by written and personal exhortation.

You know, the faith promise system is kind of analogous to what we’re talking about here. It’s interesting though how the whole faith promise system is normally administered. I think saying that, well, you just write it out on a card between you and God, and there’s no involvement of anybody around you to try to encourage you. Paul didn’t see things that way. Paul had no trouble either directly or indirectly, but indirectly through his epistle or directly through sending men to these people, to encourage and exhort them to complete what they said they were going to do.

Spurred on by written and personal exhortations, Paul had no trouble doing that. And neither should we. Neither should we. Why? You know, it’s like finances somehow that’s off there. It’s some kind of autonomous thing, but it’s not. It’s proper stewardship. Just the same way we’d hold people accountable for doing all kinds of things together in their families and in their work, Paul had no trouble once people had committed voluntarily to a particular free will offering. He had no trouble exhorting them. And in fact, Calvin points out that he gives over two chapters of the epistle—2 Corinthians, the 8th and 9th chapter—that’s all they are: they’re an exhortation to follow through on a committed free will offering that they had entered into a year before. Their whole purpose is to stir it up.

Sixth, these offerings were not to decapitalize the giver.

2 Corinthians 8:12: “I don’t want you to give according to what you do not have. My goal,” he says, “is not to cause you to go down and them to go up. My goal is equality and necessities. Don’t give out of the necessary things that you have for the running of your household. Don’t decapitalize yourself. That’s not the intent of free will offerings.”

Seventh, these offerings still, however, are to be generous, relying on God’s provision. And in fact, what the scriptures say is if you do these things, you have to actually capitalize yourself.

You don’t want to decapitalize yourself by pledging money that’s not yours, committing to support, you know, the student of Belhaven Presbyterian Seminary. You don’t have any money, don’t. We don’t want you doing that. But on the other hand, if you have a little money and want to commit it to that particular purpose, if God lays it on your heart freely, not grudgingly, cheerfully, then God says the end result of that is actually going to be your capitalization and your blessings.

This is throughout the scriptures. Proverbs 11:25: “The generous soul will be made rich. He who waters will also be watered himself.” So there’s, you know, the wisdom of the proverb says, as we saw earlier, if you have a generous eye, the cheerful giver is blessed by God. He prospers. Here the same thing: The generous soul will be made rich.

Proverbs 28:27: “He who gives to the poor will not lack. He who hides his eyes will have many curses.”

The proper way to achieve financial success, to from one perspective, is to engage in generosity. Now, not foolhardiness. The point is not I’m going to give and God will outgive me in kind of a you know, a mindless sort of thing. No, I don’t think Paul calls them that. He calls them to consider what they can give and what they can’t. But he exhorts them on by telling them that if they do give to the poor, God will indeed bless them. And frequently, in terms of financial matters, if you don’t give to the poor, if you hide your eyes from the benevolence needs of people, you’ll have many curses put upon you.

Proverbs 19:17: “He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, and he will pay back what he has given.”

So we have these tremendous assurances of the sufficiency of Christ in all things and that the sufficiency of material possessions comes as a result of testing our faith to see if we believe what the gospels say about God’s grace to us—that it’s he who has given us goods, not our own wealth, not our own labor. If we believe all of that stuff, the test is: will we graciously give to others?

And the examination or evaluation of that test will be: If you are not generous, then God will give you a non-passing grade. You’ll have particular curses put upon you—whatever form they may take, frequently a financial form. And whatever. But if you pass the test and you show your generosity by giving of what you do have to give—not of what you don’t have to give, but of giving what you do have to give—to particular benevolence projects that are significant, not just you know, a neat idea to do something somewhere, but significant according to the scriptures, according to the elders and the officers of the church, and if you give generously, then the evaluation you get, the grade on the test—if it’s an A—means that God will bless you. And usually, in financial matters, the scriptures are clear.

We’ve seen all kinds of abuses of faith promise and you know, the name it, claim it sort of ideas. But there’s a kernel of truth behind all of that. Heresy is a distortion of a particular truth to the exclusion of other truths. And the truth is: we must be good financial stewards—as the church corporately and as individuals. We must know what the state of our flocks are.

January is a month when people buy weight machines and budget programs because this is the month and we sort of evaluate things. We’re going through the taxes. You know, we kind of look at the end of the year and how did it all work out for us? So now is the time of year to preach perhaps the sermon on financial stewardship and exhort us to that. And in the context of your financial stewardship and your budgeting for this year, please understand the message of 2 Corinthians 8 and 9: that you don’t need to be fearful about giving of things you have for God’s work. And in point of fact, you should be fearful if you do not have a generous hand—giving of your excess, again, of your excess—to the requirements of the church, whether it’s missions, benevolence, the pay down of the debt in this building, etc.

You know, we live in a world that is more and more filled with fear because we live in a political world. Quote Bob Dylan: “We live in a political world today. Civil magistrate is the savior. Health, education, and welfare. Political action is true religion. That’s what’s going to affect salvation for all the people.”

And that political system is absolutely corrupt and is absolutely dominated by demagoguery and fear-mongering. The way political policy has worked in this country is by getting senior citizens and others afraid enough to produce a particular political agenda for a particular political party. The point of that is that any exposure to the media we have works against what I’m talking about today.

Because what the media and what these fear-mongers want you to believe is that you better hold on to every penny because when you become a senior, you might end up starving to death and eating cat food. And the scriptures say: Do not think that way. Understand that ultimately it’s not the civil state, not the free market economy of America, it’s not your own resources that will provide for you in your old age. It is God himself, and he does all things well. You have no need to be fearful—and certainly not to be fearful to the extent that you take money that you’ve collected and are not willing to give of that when a true need comes up in the context of this church, the extended body of Christ around the world.

I mean, this is what senior citizens do. They amass a pot of money in this country, and then, and I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it firsthand. And then they hold on to that money for all their worth for the next 20 years. And in a way, it’s understandable because they’re so fearful of being abandoned by people because there’s no community in our country anymore. The church of Jesus Christ has requirements to support the elderly—is the thing with the widows that I talked about earlier. God himself will provide for us. Don’t be taken in by this tremendous fear.

In our fallen nature, we distrust the love of God. God calls us every Lord’s day to accept his love, to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ came not to whip you or to judge you—as he said, he didn’t come to judge the world. He came to save you. He came to save the world. Now, the end result if you turn away from that in disbelief is judgment. But as you turn to that and trust in God for your well-being, the way Paul exhorted these Corinthians to, then we’re generous. Then we don’t hoard every penny that we’ve got. Then we don’t spend it all in a profligate fashion on things that really have no eternal significance.

God wants us to move in the context of faith—a faith that believes in the grace of God.

Calvin said this: “What makes us more close-handed than we ought to be is when we look too carefully and too far forward in contemplating the dangers that may occur. When we are excessively cautious and careful, when we calculate too narrowly what will require during our whole life, or in fine, how much we lose when the smallest portion is taken away. The man that depends upon the blessing of the Lord has his mind set free from these travails, these nothings, and has at the same time his hands opened for beneficence.”

Wonderful quote, and very apt for our time, particularly when so much of the political culture wants to teach you to do just that—to calculate too much, to look too far ahead with fear and trepidation over what you will not have to support yourself in your old age.

The Macedonians understood through their affliction that in the midst of difficulty the grace of God shines all the stronger. So they were joyous in affliction, and that’s related by Paul to their beneficence in giving even of their poverty. You see, because they’ve been learned to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and his provision for them. May God grant us that same joy in our afflictions that leads to a generosity in our giving, a continued generosity on the part of this congregation in special offerings of the church.

Eighth, these offerings were overseen by godly men to ensure financial stewardship.

Again, Paul says he’s going to send along certain guys that the churches have chosen to minister this money. He sends along, you know, guys who are honest and upright, who know finances, who are going to be good stewards of that money. It’s a lot of money he’s collecting all over the region. So, you know, again, this goes against the whole name it and claim it idea. The idea is that we’re not supposed to jettison our minds in this process. And in fact, the church is to provide financial stewardship, evidently evidenced by the financial reports of the church.

That’s why we have these head of household meetings, distribute budgets for the various funds. It is a demonstration that your money has been given to men who exercise proper financial stewardship over them. This is why we seek advice from all the accountants in our church. What are we doing wrong? What should we change as a church? We want to exhibit good accounting practices. Part of the stewardship vision of our church is to have excellent biblical stewardship over the resources, capital, equipment, real property, the money of the church, and to make that obviously so to people.

And again, particularly in our day and age when the culture has existed in a context of corporate fraud and people have no way of knowing what’s going on with companies they invest in anymore and it’s all a big sham—you’re tempted to fear your old age. You’re also tempted to not trust people that exercise financial stewardship over you. So now more than ever, the church should follow this example of Paul. And whether it’s free will offerings or the tithe or whatever it is, God’s people, God’s money, God’s people’s money are being used for. The church has an obligation to provide proper financial stewardship in a way that is open and obvious to anyone who wants to look at the books of the church.

Now, you know, in benevolence things there’s requirements of confidentiality in some things, but still you can see what the benevolence monies of this church have been used for, and accounting was given Friday night. This is why we have these accountings. This is why we produce these reports, because this text tells us that’s the proper way to do it.

Now, again, Paul said that he wanted to test the sincerity of their love for the Lord Jesus Christ. These are free will things we’re talking about, but that doesn’t mean they’re unimportant. And in fact, it means they’re vitally important as a demonstration of our trust in the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul, when he says that, you know, if we sow little, we’ll reap a little, and if we sow a lot, we’ll reap a lot, seems to be referring to Psalm 126:5 and 6: “Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”

Wonderful text. And Paul seems to be alluding to this in this discussion of the giving of the church. You know, times of sowing till our day and age, times of sowing in the history of the church, have been times of joy. They were usually preceded—the sowing of the seed and the springtime, by farmers—by religious festivals. Special services would be called, you know, like a prayer meeting or something, time to rejoice, to consecrate the crop that was being sown, to ask for God’s blessings upon the seed that was being sown.

There were normally times of joy because they were thinking of what God had done last year and what he’s going to do this year. It’s a joyous activity—sowing seed. And so with many people in our church, you’ve been blessed with prosperity. And so your time of sowing more seed will be a time of joy as we do this.

I also think this is a good example to us of why we put the sowing of this seed in the corporate worship of the church, because ultimately it resanctifies what we think of as a kind of desanctified thing—the physical money that God gives us, the produce he gives us from our earnings. It’s a way to set our giving, whether it’s the free will offerings of the church, the tithe receipts of the church. It sets it in the context of the joy of worship.

Sometimes though, there wasn’t enough to eat last year. And Psalm 126 says: “Sometimes about all we have left to eat, on the future year, is this crop. If this crop, if this seed fails, we will not eat this fall. Our bellies will shrink. We may die. What do you do at that point? Do you are you focused on the present or are you focused on the future?”

God says that a future-oriented people, that think about their possessions in terms of how it will be used for God’s productivity, his crops, his blessings in the future, even if they must sow in tears, will reap in joy. The worship service of the church, the Lord’s day, points us toward the future. That future is a time of blessing and prosperity for those who meet the test, whether it’s our tithes or our free will offerings—the test of being a cheerful, hilarious giver.

The word for cheerful, translated cheerful here, means it’s hilarious. It’s the Greek term. It’s the root for our word hilarious. God loves a joyful, hilarious giver because that giver puts his trust and confidence not in his present abilities or resources but rather in the future blessings of God. He trusts the Lord God that as he administers his money properly in proper stewardship to King Jesus—whether it’s the mandatory tithe