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2 Corinthians 9:10-11
Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for
food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the
harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you
can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result
in thanksgiving to God.
Have you ever heard of Allen and Violet Large?
My guess is you just shook your head, “No.” I hadn’t heard their names either until
about a year ago when I came across their story on the internet.
For years this Canadian couple has made a habit
of playing the lottery twice every week. Over the years they had picked several
winning numbers – but always for relatively small amounts of money.
In July 2009, the Larges – both in their mid-70s
– discovered that they had another winning ticket. At first Violet thought they
had won $10 – but upon checking closer discovered they had won a somewhat more
handsome sum - $11.2 million.
But, believe it or not, that’s not the fun part
of the story!
The real story is that over the next four months
they gave almost the entire $11.2 million away. They decided to keep 2% of the
total for themselves and gave the remaining 98% to community organizations like
the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, as well as to a number of local churches and
hospitals.
By way of explanation, they simply said, “We’re
comfortable; we have each other, and you don’t miss what you never had.”
I think we all would agree that generosity is a
good thing. I think most of us would also agree with the statement we make
often at FBCG:
Generosity lies at the heart of everything good God
wants to do in us and in his kingdom.
And we certainly all agree that giving away $11
million is an incredibly generous thing to do!
But most of us can’t even begin to imagine that
kind of money, let alone giving it away. So what does regular, everyday
generosity look like?
Read again Paul’s words:
Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food
will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest
of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be
generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in
thanksgiving to God.
Paul first recognizes that everything we have
comes as a gift from God and is intended to “enlarge the harvest” of our
righteousness. This reminds us that, as we learned last week, the first and
greatest purpose of our wealth is to honor God.
But then he goes on to say we will “be made rich
in every way” so that we can be “generous on every occasion.” What does he
mean?
I think he is encouraging us to think of
generosity as an attitude – or lifestyle – that reaches far beyond our money.
Now money might be the first thing we think of when it comes to generosity, and
rightly so, but perhaps scripture is teaching us that there are many more ways
to be generous than just giving money.
We can be generous, for example, with our time.
We can’t listen to a lonely person, or coach a youth sports team, or teach a
Sunday School class by giving money – it takes a gift of our precious time to
do these things.
We can be generous with our talent, skill,
experience or ability. When a friend comes to my house to help me fix my water
heater he is giving me a gift of both his time and his skill.
We can be generous with our possessions; lending
our snow blower or hedge trimmer to a neighbor or giving away clothes or shoes
we have not worn in years.
And we also can be generous with truth; looking
for opportunities to share the grace and love of Christ with a world that has
grown increasingly cynical about church and religion. Perhaps one of the most
powerful expressions of generosity we can offer is being willing to pray for neighbors,
co-workers or fellow students who may not yet know Christ in a personal way.
So, is giving $11 million an expression of
generosity? Yes! But does that mean that if we don’t have millions to give that
we cannot be generous in God’s eyes? Absolutely not!
Ask God to help you see the riches of your life
and how he might use them to enlarge the harvest of your righteousness!
Pastor Brian Coffey
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