“MOVING FROM
A FEARFUL TO A CHEERFUL GIVER”
II CORINTHIANS 9:6-15
6 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap
sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not
reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that
having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
9 As it is written,
“He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.”
10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food
will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.
11 You will be enriched in every way to be generous in
every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.
12 For the ministry of this service is not only supplying
the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God.
13 By their approval of this service, they will glorify
God because of your submission flowing from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution
for them and for all others,
14 while they long for you and pray for you, because of
the surpassing grace of God upon you.
15 Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!
God
loves a cheerful giver. That’s what the Apostle Paul said. Not everyone though is a cheerful giver. A Sunday School teacher found that out one day when she gave the children in her class an special assignment. She asked the children to go home and memorize
a Bible verse that has to do with giving. The next week the children were invited
to step forward and recite their Bible verses before putting their money in the offering plate. One little boy started things off. He stepped forward and said, “God loves a cheerful giver.” The teacher nodded her head and smiled. A
little girl then stepped forward and said, “It is more blessed to give
than to receive.” Once again the teacher nodded her head and smiled. After
that another little boy stepped forward and said, “A fool and his money are soon parted.” The teach didn’t know what to say.
With
everything that’s going on these days the challenge isn’t about being a cheerful giver. The challenge has to do
with giving at all. More and more people are finding it hard to give. A lot of
charitable organizations will tell you that their contributions this year are
down; in some cases way down. It’s true for everyone from Harvard University
to emergency food pantries around the country. So far, Union Congregational Church,
for the most part has dodged that bullet, but who knows what will happen in the months to come.
Times
are tough. The Apostle Paul though will tell you that it’s still possible to be a cheerful giver when times are tough. The Apostle Paul will tell you that it’s still possible to be a cheerful giver
even when you’re feeling a little less blessed. That was his message to the Corinthians.
That’s because the Apostle Paul wasn’t a big fan of the Law of Scarcity.
The
Law of Scarcity is how things work in the so called real world. The Law of Scarcity
uses every day arithmetic. For example, the Law of Scarcity says if I have $10
and I spend $4 that mean I’m only going to have $6 left to spend. Here’s
another example. There are 24 hours in a day.
The Law of Scarcity says that if I spend 8 of those hours and work and 8 of those hours sleeping I’m only going
to have 8 hours left to do whatever else I need to do that day.
The
Law of Scarcity is the reason why some people aren’t giving as much this year to churches, synagogues and other charitable
organizations. That’s because when the Law of Scarcity is at work you say
to yourself, “After I pay the mortgage and all my other bills I don’t have a whole lot left over to give. Not
only that but who knows if I’m still going to have my job next month and we all know that the price of oil is eventually
going to go up again.”
These
days a lot of people feel the same way a man felt when he lamented to a friend that he was having a hard time making ends
meet. The man shrugged his shoulders and said, “You know, they say that
money talks. The only thing my money says to me though is ‘bye-bye.’”
The
Law of Scarcity is the way things work in the so called real world. Now I will
admit that there are times when you’re going to get yourself into a lot of trouble if you ignore the Law of Scarcity. That’s what happened many years ago during the Rose Bowl Parade. Everything was going just fine when all of a sudden one of the floats started to sputter. It eventually came to a complete stop. The entire parade was
put on hold while frantic mechanics rushed to see what was wrong. After several
minutes they discovered that the reason the float came to a stop was because it had run out of gas. What made the foul up even more embarrassing was the fact that the float was in the parade representing
the Standard Oil Company.
Yes,
there are times when the Law of Scarcity does apply. The Apostle Paul will tell
you though that God’s world isn’t centered around the Law of Abundance.
God’s world is centered around the Law of Abundance. The Law of
Abundance says that the more you give the more you discover you have left to give. The
Law of Abundance also says that when you use your blessings to be a blessing to others God will continue to bless you in ways
you can only begin to imagine.
Paul
reminded the Corinthians that if you sow abundantly you will harvest abundantly. Listen
to some of the other things Paul told the Corinthians.
·
Verse 8: “God is able to make all grace
abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”
·
Verse 10: God will “multiply your seed
for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.”
·
Verse 11: “You will be enriched in every
way to be generous in every way.”
·
Verse 14: People will glorify God when they
see “the surpassing grace of God upon you. (Verse 14)
It
all sounds good but does it really work that way?
If
you don’t believe Paul how about Jesus? You can see the Law of Scarcity
and the Law of Abundance at work when he performed the miracle of the loaves. When Jesus told the disciples to go and buy
bread for the 5,000 people who had come to hear him teach and preach the disciples panicked.
“We can’t do that,” they said, “We’ll use up all our money.” That’s the Law of Scarcity. Fortunately, there was a
little boy there who stepped forward and gave Jesus the loaves of bread that he had with him.
As I said in the Children’s Message there are those who believe that others in the crowd were so inspired by
the little boy’s generosity that they shared what they had with them as well.
They shared as well and after every thing was said and done they discovered that God had blessed them with more than
enough for everyone. That’s the Law of Abundance!
Jesus
took a little boy’s love and the Law of Abundance took over. It doesn’t just work for Jesus. It can also work for us.
The
more you give the more you discover that you have to give. How is that possible? It isn’t hard to explain. The more you give the more you values and priorities
begin to change. You begin to realize that you don’t need all those expensive
gadgets and gizmos to be happy. You discover that you can be just as happy driving
a Chevy as you can be driving a Lexus. So you find yourself buying less of those
expensive gadgets and gizmos and suddenly you have all this money that you never knew you had before. You also have all this time that you didn’t think you had before.
That’s because you’re not running yourself ragged 24/7 trying to climb the ladder of success. So, you have
more time for your children and more time to walk on the beach.
You can see the Law of Abundance at work in the story about a wise old man who was called upon one day to settle
a dispute between three brothers. It started when their father died and left them 17 camels.
The father’s will stipulated that the oldest son was to receive half of the camels. The middle son was to receive 1/3rd of the camels
and the youngest son was to receive 1/9th of the camels. It didn’t
take the sons very long to realize, however, that you can’t divide 17 evenly by 9 or 6 or 2 for that matter. So, they went to the wise old man and asked him to help them. The
first thing the wise old man did was tell the brothers to wait while he went and prayed to God. A little while later the wise old man came back and surprised the three sons by giving them his camel. That brought the number of camels to 18. The
wise old man then gave 9 of the camels or half to the oldest son, 6 camels or a third to the middle son and two camels or
a ninth to the youngest son. That added up to 17. Then he took his own camel
back and went home.
Okay, I can hear you thinking. You’re saying to yourself
that’s a cute story but it’s not a real life story. If that’s
what you’re thinking here’s a real life story for you that illustrates the Law of Abundance. Danny Thomas was a real live person right? Long before he
became a famous actor Danny Thomas and his wife Rosie were living in a rooming house.
They were expecting their first child and all he had in his pocket was $7.85. Looking
back on those desperate days Danny Thomas later wrote, “My despair led me to my first exposure to the powers of faith.” While sitting in church one day he found himself putting his usual dollar in the collection
plate. On this particular Sunday, however, there was a second collection for a special mission. After the priest explained where the mission offering was going to go Danny felt he had to give something. Well, he got carried away and ended up giving the $6 he had left. Realizing what he had done, Danny then went up to the altar rail and prayed, “Look, I’ve given
my last seven bucks. I need it back tenfold because I’ve got a kid on the
way, and I have to pay the hospital bill.” After he finished his prayer
he went home with 85 cents in his pocket. “You won’t believe
this,” Danny later wrote, “but the next morning the phone rang in the rooming house hall.” The call turned out to be a job offer for a small part in a commercial and guess what it paid? $75. After Danny stopped celebrating an eerie feeling came over him. “The seventy-five dollar fee,” he wrote, “unheard of for me at that time was almost exactly
ten times the amount of money I had donated to the church.”
It
doesn’t always work out to be that nice and neat but I’m telling you that the Law of Abundance really does work. More importantly Danny Thomas is telling you and the Apostle Paul is telling you and
Jesus is telling you that the Law of Abundance really does work. Amen.
Rev.
Dr. Richard A. Hughes
November
23, 2008
