Pastor Koay Kheng Hin
16 July 2023
On this Harvest Mission Sunday, we will spend some time looking into the grace of giving once again.
Two chapters, chapters 8 & 9, of the second epistle written to the church in Corinth address this grace of giving. Paul wrote these two chapters to encourage the Corinthian Christians to fulfil their pledge to help the Christians in Jerusalem.
2 Corinthians 8:6 tells us that the Corinthians had stopped the collection for the saints in Jerusalem for a while, and he was exhorting them to continue again in completing the collection. I wish to point out four important insights that can be gleaned from these two chapters.
The sermon text for today is 2 Corinthians 8:1–7, which I read.
And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. I testify that they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then, by the will of God, also to us. So we urged Titus, just as he had earlier made a beginning, to also bring to completion this act of grace on your part. 7 But since you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness, and in the love we have kindled in you[a]—see that you also excel in this grace of giving.
In verse 1, Paul refers to the giving done by the Macedonian churches as resulting from the grace of God.
In fact, the word grace appears ten times in these two chapters with varying meanings. The most common meaning attached to the way the word grace is used is in the sense of empowerment.
In verse 7, the description of the grace of giving is mentioned. In linking giving to the word grace, Paul is affirming that such giving as practised by the Macedonian Christians is only possible through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
This act of giving is a supernatural act, a supernatural giving. This is the first insight. As we all participate in the Harvest Mission pledge, it is needful for all of us to pray and seek this word from the Lord, this supernatural empowerment for us to give beyond our means (verse 3). In verse 2, Paul mentions that the Macedonian Christians had given not out of their abundance but from their extreme poverty.
It goes against our natural behaviour and therefore affirms that the giving of the Macedonian Christians was of supernatural origin.
Secondly, verse 5 gives us the fundamental insight that the Macedonian Christians had “given themselves first to the Lord’.
What this phrase essentially means is that they had first totally devoted themselves to the Lord in a devotion of love. This is the second insight.
They had understood that all the blessings in their lives—their families, finances, health, and so on and so forth—were good gifts from God.
They perceived, rightly, that they were mere stewards of all these blessings. It is this devotion to love that served as their motivation to excel in this grace of giving.
From verse 4, we can see that initially Paul and his companions must have felt that these Macedonian Christians were in no position to participate in this collection because of their own dire financial situation, and they had to urgently plead with Paul in order to participate in it.
I can only surmise that it was the love of God that motivated them, reminding us of 2 Corinthians 5:14 where Paul states that it is the love of Christ that compels him and his companions to serve in the ministry.
In giving out of their extreme poverty, the Macedonian Christians remind us of Mark 12:41–44, which records the poor widow putting into the temple treasury two very small copper coins.
Jesus commended her by saying that she had put in everything she had, all that she had to live on (verse 44). In verse 44, Jesus mentioned that she had given out of her poverty.
Her act of sacrificial giving was motivated by a devotion to love—the love of God.
Barely 11 verses before this passage, Mark had recorded the fundamental relational verse, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”(Mark 12:30). The sacrificial giving of the widow was an expression of this devotion to love.
Then Paul moves to the spiritual principle of sowing and reaping expressed in 2 Corinthians 9:6. This is the third insight.
In encouraging the Corinthian Christians to grow in this grace of giving, Paul emphasises this spiritual principle so that the Corinthians can rest in faith that God will bless them abundantly in their lives through their generosity (2 Corinthians 9:11).
Finally, Paul ends these two chapters with the insight that all giving is meant to glorify God. In the short doxology of 2 Corinthians 9:15, Paul makes mention of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, as the gift of God described in John 3:16.
All giving is thus out of a heart of devotional love and thanksgiving resulting from the love and gift of God demonstrated through the Cross of Calvary. This is the fourth and final insight.
To God be the glory, Amen!
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