Giving Because He Gave | Sermon 05/26/2024

All right, if you would please turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter nine, 2 Corinthians nine. We'll read through five to 15 in 2 Corinthians. Okay, starting in verse five of the letter to the Corinthians, hear now the inerrant and infallible words of a living and true God.

So I thought it necessary to urge the brethren that they would go on ahead of you and arrange beforehand your previously promised bountiful gift so that the same would be ready as a bountiful gift and not affected by covetousness.

Now this I say, who who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do just as he is purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed. As it is written, he scattered abroad, he gave to the poor, his righteousness endures forever.

Now 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. You will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God.

For the ministry of this service is not only fully supplying the needs of the saints, but it is also over many thanksgivings to God. Because of the proof given by this ministry, they will glorify God for your obedience to your confession of the gospel of Christ and for the liberality of your contribution to them and to all.

While they also by prayer on your behalf, yearn for you because of the surpassing grace of God in you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. Thus ends the reading of God's holy and magnificent word.

Let's pray once more as a church body, if you would join me. Lord, we come before you today as your people seeking to know more of you, to know more of Christ and to know more of your word. We pray Holy Spirit that you would do that for us.

We need not just knowledge, Lord. We need not just information, although those are good. We also need transformation. Lord, we need this word to come in through our ears and affect our brains and affect our hearts and affect our hands and affect our feet.

Lord, that this very word would affect our whole lives, God, as it already has through the gospel. And so Lord, please help us today to be focused on you, to hear your word and to be challenged with the presuppositions and traditions that we come to with it sometimes.

So Lord, please be with us and teach your people and edify and encourage us all today in Christ's name. Amen. Well, church, as I told you last week, your leaders here have decided early on that in between our expository series, James, John, we're gonna be going into Ruth and 1 Corinthians.

During these expository verse by verse sermon series that we would take the liberty to go through various topics that many don't cover in the Christian church in America. I told you we've covered everything from formal church membership to biblical fasting.

And now we are talking about giving. We talked about it last week. We're gonna talk about it one more time today. And then pastor Andrew will be preaching next week on family integration, family related worship towards God.

And then we'll be starting Ruth and that'll be great. So we will not, I promise you, we will not shrink back from covering anything that's in the Bible. It's profitable for us if it's in the word of God.

And a good group of you even stayed with me late after service last week. And we were talking about this topic and the various aspects of tradition that we've seen even in our own churches we grew up in or maybe in our context here with Mormonism.

And it was great, great conversations. I'm glad that it has spurred you on to consider more of this topic. So just as a recap, during that sermon, we covered multiple principles. First, that everything and everyone belongs to God.

Deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 14, behold to the Lord your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it. All the beasts, all the trees, all the fruit on the trees, all the silver, all the gold, and every single individual made by God, everything.

And everyone belongs to God. We talked about that. And then Deuteronomy 8, 18 said, but you shall remember the Lord your God for it is he who is giving you the power to make wealth. We talked about the fact that, therefore, since God owns everything and he's the one who gives us the ability to make wealth, all the money and all the things that we even produce by our own labor or things that we sell, everything is God's.

And because it's his money, we're stewards. Paul said that in Corinthians, all of us were stewards as we use his money. And so then we found out if it's all God's, then he has a say as the owner of it all on how we ought to spend it, what he commands, how we ought to use his money.

He has a say in that. He has all the say in that. And so we saw what do we use money for? We saw that we are to spend money to care for one's own household. We are to save for times of emergency, the Proverbs said.

Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, to wisely invest. God even commands we pay taxes. Romans 13 and other places. He lets us even spend money on proper forms of entertainment for merriment and enjoyment of what he's given us.

We saw that. He told the Israelites, go use the extra money to buy more animals and slaughter them and eat them and get the figs, get the dates, get the strong drink, the wine, you enjoy this feast unto the Lord.

And so there's proper ways to even use our money to celebrate and use it for entertainment. But then we also saw that God expects us to be a giving people, to give back what he's given us through charity and generosity for the needy, for the church.

We saw that even for the full-time evangelists and shepherds who have left their jobs, they need support. And then we talked about how the fact that Father Abraham provided us an example. The first one, one of the first ones, the children of promise, he gave us as the children of promise, that faithful example of giving to Melchizedek.

And then in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presupposed his disciples would be a giving people saying, when you give, do it this way. And so many at that time were giving to get the praise of man. Instead of, and instead of abrogating charity and getting rid of it, Jesus corrects the issue.

He corrects the hard issue and outlines how we are to rightly give. And then our Lord addressed that idolatry of money that so many have. He said, where your treasure is, there your heart is also. Where your pocket book goes, where your money goes, says a lot about what you care about.

Then we saw the apostle Paul, his defense against the super apostles, the ones who attacked his character, you're doing this for money. And he wasn't, he wasn't. He outlined for us that those who give up everything, vocation, home, inheritance, whatever, he said the words have the right to receive support for the work they do in the kingdom.

And that's to come from the church body. And really the overarching theme of all of it is that we are in an infinitely better covenant than those who are in the old. We're in the new covenant and that changes everything.

We now have a better inheritance than just land. We have more family in Christ, more brothers and sisters than we did in the old. Christ lets us enjoy heaven and earth forever with him. And that ought to result into an overflow of gratitude in us and gratitude doesn't just sit in someone like a warm feeling, you know.

Gratitude acts, it manifests externally. And so as Christ sacrificed for us, we also ought to do anything for him and his people. And so in the end, anything I leave my child is worth little if I have not sought to build the gospel of the kingdom.

I could give my daughter all the riches of the world and leave it to her when I die. But if I don't leave this world with building the church of Christ in this world and spreading the gospel, if I don't consider that and seek to put my talents and time and energy and even money into that, then it doesn't matter how much I give her.

It will all fall short. Excuse me. So keeping with this theme today, we'll talk about generosity some more, sacrificial giving in the Bible, errors related to this subject and even obstacles to faithfulness.

So let's get into it. If you want, get to Exodus 36 real quick or pull out your print out. I've been reading through Exodus lately in my morning devotion time. And one great example of generosity stands out in Exodus.

Exodus 36. You see, by this time the people have heard the law recited, they've received the 10 commandments in chapter 20, and they've heard all that the Lord intends to do for them. And what does he ask?

The Lord asks for a tabernacle, a house in which he may dwell with them wherever they go. And after Moses gave the instructions on how to build it and what they needed, all of a sudden, when the people considered how God rescued them from slavery in Egypt, and even then how he brought them safely through the wilderness and rained down manna and cracked open rocks and gave them water.

And God provided all that time when they consider all these things in the promised land that he intends to give them. It says in chapter 36 and 35 as well, that their hearts were stirred and everyone whose spirit was moved brought a contribution for the Lord.

And think about it. They hadn't labored for months. In fact, they were in slavery. So it's not like they had businesses. They were not laboring during this time. They had been wandering in the wilderness.

They had just only the possessions that they had in Goshen in Egypt. And then the plunders of Egypt. They had what they had in their homes and they had the plunders of Egypt, but they didn't have anything else.

And so here they decide to give back quite a bit of what God had given them. Look at verse three through seven in Exodus 36. They received from Moses all the contributions with the sons of Israel had brought to perform the work in the construction of the sanctuary.

And they still continued bringing to him freewill offerings every morning. And all the skillful men who were performing all the work of the sanctuary came each from the work which he was performing and said to Moses, the people are bringing much more than enough for the construction which the Lord commanded us to perform.

So Moses issued a command and a proclamation was circulated throughout the camp saying, let no man or woman any longer perform work for the contributions of the sanctuary. Thus the people were restrained from bringing any more for the material they had was sufficient in more than enough for all the work to perform it.

And honestly, if you read through Exodus, what do you see a lot? You see them complaining, you see them grumbling, you see them upset. They're like, we should just go back to Egypt because at least they fed us meat sometimes.

You're letting us die out here in the desert Lord. And they come whining to Moses and Aaron all the time. And I really think that these verses demonstrate repentance, turning around. They tested the Lord their God often and yet here we see an act of contrition.

Their hearts were stirred to give back to God as they considered all that he had given them. Moses literally had to announce a command. Hey, everyone, we've got enough. Stop bringing contributions, we're good.

And that's an amazing thing. I don't know if a lot of pastors would be like, hey, we have enough. Go ahead, use it for other ministries. And that's kind of sad to think about, honestly. But that's amazing.

You don't really hear something like this where it's like, boy, we've got everything and an abundance over what we need. And so he makes this command that they would stop doing that. But what this shows is that giving is a congregational act.

You see, the weight of your giving is inflated by the giving of your brothers and sisters. You know, the fact is a lot of us can think that we have too little to bring. What can I present before God? I don't have much to give.

And so then when we have that mindset, we don't give it all. If the Israelites thought that they had too little to bring, then God would not be glorified in this spectacular way. Then the house of the Lord wouldn't be built.

And I think that translates to the global church as well. Our giving, even if small sometimes, it's a congregational thing. It gets built up together. Here's another example of generosity for you in Acts chapter nine.

Go there if you want, Acts chapter nine, and go to your printout. We have the story of Tabitha, woman also by the name of Dorcas. And she was being raised from the dead by Peter, okay? And being raised from the dead here is absolutely the heart of the story.

But one thing that people often pass by is the testimony of her life. Listen to this. Acts 9, 36 through 39, it reads, now in Joppa, there was a disciple named Tabitha, which translated in Greek is called Dorcas.

This woman was abounding with deeds of kindness and charity, which she continually did. And it happened at that time that she fell sick and died. And when they had washed her body, they laid it in an upper room.

Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples having heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him, imploring him, do not delay in coming to us. So Peter arose and went with them. When they arrived, they brought him into the upper room.

This is where her body was. And all the windows stood beside him, and they were weeping and showing all the tunics and garments that Dorcas used to make while she was with them. Now, this is an amazing woman.

To be known in the Bible, it says here for charity and kindness. That's her, that's Tabitha. And as a testimony of her generosity, all those women in the upper room where Tabitha's body lay presented all these tunics and scarves and garments that she had made and given freely to everyone.

Christians who had nothing, Christians who are now clothed by a woman who would spend her money on thread and put it together and make clothes for people, make these tunics, and it's amazing. Her giving even touched people after her death.

And so how can we follow this kind of example? Generosity is not just in giving money, it's also giving in ourselves, it's giving in our talents. It's using time and talents to help those in need, whether it's sewing clothes, cooking, bringing a meal to someone in need, fixing vehicles, or any skill you have.

We use it to help others with what God has given us. Here's another example. Go to Luke 19. Luke 19, we're gonna go over the story real quick of Zacchaeus. Another example of generosity. Verse one in Luke 19, Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through and there was a man called by the name of Zacchaeus.

He was a chief tax collector and he was rich. Zacchaeus was trying to see who Jesus was and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see him, for he was about to pass through that way.

When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house. And he hurried and came down and received him gladly. And when the people saw it, they all began to grumble saying, he has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.

Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, behold Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much. And Jesus said to him, today's salvation has come to this house.

He too is a son of Abraham, for the son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. Do you see what happened to Zacchaeus? Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, no one can serve or worship God and mammon or God and money.

And in this account, Zacchaeus removed his faith and trust from riches and placed them into Christ. Place it into Christ. The Lord said, you shall know them by their fruits. The Lord's brother James said that a living faith has works, a dead one doesn't.

And so the faith of Zacchaeus manifested in not only righting his wrongs. He was a tax collector, the chief tax collector, and he would come to people and he would steal from them. He would ask for too much.

He would take from people. And he said, I'll give four times back as much as I stole. And then beyond that, beyond that he freely gave 50 of what he owned. In Luke 12 and Matthew 18, Jesus commanded the rich young ruler what?

Sell all your possessions, all your possessions. Not just 50%, sell all your possessions. Give the money to the poor and come and follow me. And we know that the rich young ruler walked away sad, having been one who loved money.

He loved his money instead of Jesus. And you see, it's not about the figure. It's not about, whoa, Zacchaeus did 50%, but then he asked the rich young ruler 100 it's not about the figure. It's about the fact that Jesus won't have split faithfulness.

He won't have split attention. He wants all devotion on himself. He wants full fidelity and full worship. And so true faith in Christ wrought a heart change in Zacchaeus that led to real generosity and repentance in the area of money hoarding and stealing.

So my admonishment to you with that example is to clothe yourself with the humility necessary to acknowledge and rectify past wrongs. Even if it means making significant sacrifices, who have you wronged before?

Who has given to you without ever asking for it back? And maybe, you know, they're in need now. Could you help them? Let that kind of loving kindness of Christ lead you to repentance as well, to grant you to have the same gratitude that would extend not just in word, but in deed.

So those are some examples of generosity in the Bible. Now I'd like to talk a little bit about the biblical idea of sacrificial giving, okay? One image that we have of sacrificial giving in the Bible is what's called the firstfruits.

You ever heard of the firstfruits idea? That term firstfruits and the idea and its commands are outlined in Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 26. You see a glimpse of it in Proverbs chapter three. It says, honor the Lord from your wealth and from the first of all your produce.

So your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine. You see, the Israelites were not allowed to start the grain harvest in the spring until the firstfruits were given unto the Lord.

And the firstfruits weren't like this pagan idea that in pagan cultures, where they would take grain offerings and they would sacrifice them or take them and burn them or do whatever with them to an idol and to appease the idol so that the idol would give them a great harvest.

That's not what this is. This was a test of faith. This was a test of faithfulness, an act of faith. And so when the harvest first started before anyone plucked a single grain, they would go to the wheat field and they would gather an offering and they would take these firstfruits and they would give them to God.

They would give them to God. And the idea, it's kind of like saying, Lord, I don't know how the rest of the harvest will go. I don't know if pestilence will come and remove the rest of the wheat. I don't know if invaders will come and burn my field.

I don't know if maybe a late frost could come and ruin all the grain. I don't know. I don't know what could happen to the rest of the field. You see, in our modern day, you take all of it. You take all the fruits, you take all the wheat, you take all the grapes in our society.

And then you go, maybe I'll give some to God. But here in this firstfruits mentality was like, I don't know how it's gonna go. I don't know what's gonna happen, but I'm gonna take what we first have. And this may be, this bushel may be the only thing we get from this because it could get ruined, but it's for God.

It's for God. And so that's the firstfruits mentality. They would even do this with the sheep. When the sheep were giving birth to their lambs, they would take the very first one. They didn't know if miscarriages or stillbirths or disease would follow, killing the rest of the lambs.

But the first lamb before any other lamb would come, they would sacrifice to God. This is an act of faith. Lord, you are the provider. We're relying upon you for the harvest. That's sacrificial. That's sacrificial.

We'll speak on it more in a bit, but lack of trust in God is one of the biggest obstacles to faithful generosity. Here's one example of another form of sacrificial, it's very, very much well known. Mark chapter 12, verses 41 through 44.

It reads, and Jesus sat down opposite the treasury and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury and many rich people were putting in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amounted to a cent.

Calling his disciples to him, he said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury, for they all put in out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty put in all that she owned and all that she had to live on.

So once again, Jesus's point here isn't about amount. It's not necessarily about the greatness of amount that one can give. It's a lesson on sacrifice. It's a lesson on faithfulness. It's a lesson on trust in God.

In other words, the way that the others were giving, giving out of their surplus and pouring into the treasury had no significant impact on them.

This was easy.

They came and brought their offering to the treasury. No problem. It didn't affect them. It didn't affect the bottom line. They still had all their ventures and all that they were able to do with the rest of their money.

It didn't impact them. But this widow, this woman who had no provider, this impacted her. This affected her. She gave out of her need, not out of her surplus. And one thing we know about Jesus's lessons in the gospel is that although action is important, right motivations, right heart attitude, proper inner man condition precedes action.

What do I mean by that? The Pharisees did all the right actions externally, but they had the wrong heart attitude. In fact, what does Jesus say in Matthew chapter 23? When he delivers his woes, he says, "'Woe to you!'.

And he condemns them. He says, "'You tithe mint, dill, and cumin. "'You even find ways to tithe from your herb garden, "'but you neglect justice and mercy and faith. "'These things you ought to have done "'without not doing the others.'".

Here in Mark 12, we see Jesus celebrate what he sees in the widow to be a complete trust in God for provision. And God honors sacrifice. God is pleased with sacrifice. God is the God of sacrifice, is he not?

And our bodies are to be living sacrifices to Christ, the scripture says, that our lives would point to the ultimate sacrifice that was given, the Lord Jesus Christ. So all this to say, does following Jesus ever cost you?

Does following Jesus ever cost you in different ways? And I would argue that it should. The Bible says that it should, it should cost you. He says that there's a price. Comes with a cost, discipleship comes with a cost.

He warns people who come to him, comes with a cost. Whether you're mocked while doing evangelism, whether you're beaten for your beliefs, betrayed by others you love due to the gospel, or even left in a more difficult state after giving to someone in need.

Do you ever feel it? Do you ever feel the sacrifice of this Christian life? Does it ever cost you? Now this passage can be abused by the way, this widow, the widow's might, and we'll address that in just a little bit.

But I wanted to give you one last example of sacrificial giving. Go to 2 Corinthians chapter eight. 2 Corinthians chapter eight, print out our Bible. Verse one, it reads, now brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality.

For I testify that according to their ability and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints. So what's going on at this time that he wrote this letter?

The church and the brethren in Jerusalem were experiencing great hardship at this time. In Jerusalem, the epicenter of Christianity, and then it spread outward, there's been persecution, there's been seizing of homes, seizing of property, people have been losing family, inheritances, houses, animals.

We're talking, it's really hard. The first century was hard for the Christians in Jerusalem. Very difficult, very difficult persecution by Jewish zealots and such. Romans, of course, as well. And so the brethren in Jerusalem are having a hard time, and Paul approached the Gentile churches, all of them, and told them that they will be taking an offering for the brethren in Jerusalem.

And here, he boasts to the Corinthians about the churches in Macedonia. Why would he boast to give glory to God, and also to spur the Corinthians on to give likewise, and he does that in the next chapter, okay?

And he said God's grace was evident in Macedonia because God's grace caused these believers to give with great joy. And an abundance of joy came over them that out of their deep poverty, they gave to help the Jerusalem church.

You see, the Macedonian churches were poor themselves. The Macedonians were poor. They didn't have much, but Paul reports here, they gave according to their ability and beyond. They begged to give, it says.

Paul supplies us with an image kind of like Moses with the Israelites, like, look, you've probably given enough, you don't wanna put yourself in a terrible position, and they go, okay, but actually, we're fine.

We want to give, we're begging to give more, we're begging to help. They believed God would care for them. If they did this, if they helped the Jerusalem brethren, they believed God would give to them and help them, and the apostles said that it was beyond their expectations.

One commentator puts it this way, three lessons he says, number one, true giving requires giving of oneself, not just giving money. The gospel is not about what we can get from God, but what God has given to us so that we may give ourselves to others.

Number two, we can give out of extreme poverty, and one can give out of measureless riches. Those who are disinclined to be generous when they are poor are not likely to become suddenly generous when they are rich.

And lastly, number three, giving is related to the grace of God experienced in Christ. The recipients are not required to have done anything to merit the gift except to be in need. That's all that's required, to be in need like we were in need when we were dead in our trespasses and sin, and so grace abounds for us.

Grace is the heart, grace is the motivation of giving, and the givers are made generous because of God's grace working in them, through them, and on them. Grace is the motivation of our giving. And so we just talked about examples of generosity, we've talked about examples of sacrificial giving.

Another principle I wanted to impart to you is that giving is not about what you don't have, but what you do have. What do I mean by that? You see, we often say, if I had more, I would give more. We might even tell that to our friends, people in our small group, we might even talk to our spouse that way, we might talk to God, God, look, if I had more, I'd give more.

That's often not the truth, that's often not the truth, because many have gotten more from that point, and they've only used it for themselves. Dr. John MacArthur speaks about, one time he read this book, he read of a preacher who went to a farmer, and the preacher says to the farmer, hey farmer, say you had $200, would you give 100 of it to the Lord?

And the farmer says, I would. Then the preacher says, farmer, if you had two cows, would you give one of the cows to the Lord? And the farmer says, I would. Finally, the preacher asked the farmer, farmer, if you had two pigs, would you give one of them to the Lord?

And the farmer said, now that's not fair, preacher. You know I have two pigs, one cow, and $100.

Do you see?

The farmer had $100, but in this imaginary situation, if he had two, he'd give away 100, and he'd keep what he had already. He already has 100. Hey, if you had two cows, would you give one away? Well, he already had one.

Sure, I can imagine giving one away. Would you give two pigs? He already had two pigs. And he's like, no way, I'm not giving one of my pigs away. He's thinking about, he puts it off and puts generosity away from him, going if only I had more, I'd give.

But he doesn't even think about giving what he already has right now.

Right now.

And in these what if scenarios, we always say if we had this imaginary thing, we'd give it, look, oh, people jest with pastors even. Pastor, you know if I won the lottery, I'd give like half of it to the church.

Sure you would, buddy. Sure you would. No, I'm just kidding. But people have said that. People have said that. And I'm sure it could be true of many. But that's often not the case. We can give this imaginary abundance in our minds all day long.

Oh, Lord, be pleased with my imaginary giving. If I had a million, I'd give 100 ,000 right now. Oh, Lord, be pleased with this imaginary generosity. But what do we have right now? It doesn't matter what we give in our imaginations to God when we're not generous with what we actually have at this moment.

Jesus said in Luke chapter 16, verses 10 through 11, he who is faithful in a very little thing is also faithful in much. And he who is unrighteous in little is also unrighteous in much. Therefore, if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you?

Church, we're not waiting to become millionaires, to be generous. God's asking us to be generous as Christians right now.

Right now.

Now let's go over some of the errors surrounding giving in the correct biblical understanding to combat them, okay? Let me talk about a few errors. The first error, and I've mentioned this a lot, Pastor Andrew even said in his prayer, Lord, we're not giving to get.

And that's the first error is you give to get. You give to receive back. Proponents of this make giving to the church or to someone like buying a lottery ticket. You know, it's an investment and I'll get tons of money back.

They'll even quote a lot of the verses that I've given you last week and even today, using them to fuel this view. You give to get. If you go to TBN, and I realized by the way, when I say that, TBN, more and more people don't know what I'm talking about.

But when I was growing up, it was channels 20 through 23. It started with one TBN channel, then multiple, kids' TBN, and that was the Trinity Broadcasting Network. You probably, if I showed you a picture of the lady with the big pink hair, you'd know what I'm talking about.

These televangelists giving what we know to be called the prosperity gospel. You have men like Benny Hinn, you have Creflo Dollar, you have T .D. Jakes. By the way, Creflo Dollar is the preacher's name.

I can never get over that. Creflo Dollar, you know that's not his real, I don't think that's his real name. That's like a stage Christian name, you know?

Who does that?

Creflo Dollar, T .D. Jakes, Paula White, Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, Jesse Duplantis, Joyce Meyer, John Hagee, just to name a few. These are people who have used the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the free gospel of grace for sordid gain, for personal gain.

And I don't say that flippantly. I wouldn't call out people flippantly. These are people who have been shown to use the gospel for personal wealth. Personal wealth. People with far more experience than I have looked into this, it's incontrovertible.

And they don't make their living from the gospel like Paul said to do. Paul said, if you leave your vocation, he says, don't we have the right to take along a believing wife? Don't we have the right to get the support from the gospel?

Doesn't the ox who tread the grain have the right to eat some of it while he treads it? It's not that, they're doing something else. It's not to make a living, because making a living is to live, but what they're doing is to live in so much excess riches at the detriment of their congregations or the Christian church in the world.

And I'm not saying a pastor has to live poorly. It's hard for pastors to ever say that, but there's kind of this weird pietistic view that a pastor has to have nothing and be in rags. And so I'm not saying that either, by the way.

Although again, I don't think that they have to have like these people, these mansions and these airplanes, these personal jets and multiple vacation homes and things like that. Nevertheless, they will take the biblical concept of sowing a seed, that's language used in the Bible, sowing a seed, and they'll make it about you getting rich.

You getting rich. But who's really getting rich? When they say, hey, sow a seed of faithfulness and you'll get rich. Who's really getting rich when they say that?

Them.

They're the ones getting rich when they say those things and do those campaigns.

They are.

Now, I wanna be very clear though, very clear on this. I don't wanna leave any of you confused. There are Bible verses and principles showing that generosity from you will beget generosity to you. We're gonna go over those in just a minute here.

But the main reasons why this give to get concept is wrong are because number one, it turns giving to the Lord into like a loan system. You give to God what you think is yours already and now God owes you.

God, I gave 100 bucks. You owe me 200. At least double it.

You owe me, God.

And so it puts God to the test. And we are not to tempt the Lord our God. It's against scripture. Number two, it relegates giving to a slot machine or buying a stock on the up and up. Which means number three, that the motivation behind giving this way is to receive as much as or more than you gave.