Expectantly (How to Give #1)

Today we’re starting a six-week generosity campaign. Which means if this is your first time joining us — thank you for coming, I’m glad you’re here, and I’m sorry. Nothing quite like walking into a church for the first time and discovering they’re about to talk about money.

It’s one of those subjects that makes us squirm. Some churches talk about money constantly, and frankly far too much. We’ve been on the opposite end — we’ve probably not talked about it enough.

I learned a few years ago that roughly fifteen percent of Jesus’s teaching addressed money. If a church devoted fifteen percent of its Sundays to the topic, that would work out to seven or eight messages a year. In our seven and a half years of existence, we did a four-week series two years ago and before that we’d preached exactly two sermons on it. Six times in seven and a half years. We are considerably behind Jesus’s fifteen percent. And now here we are about to do six weeks, which almost gets us to a single year’s worth. Maybe when we’re fifteen years old we’ll finally grow up and be brave enough to talk about this.

Part of why we’ve avoided it is exactly that squirming. It so often feels like this is about what the church wants from you — give us your money. But to borrow a well-known phrase from another pastor: it isn’t about what we want from you. It’s about what God has for you.

I hope you’ll stay with us, not just today but through all six weeks. Because I genuinely believe that if you catch hold of this — if you develop the generosity gene — it will lead you into the life you actually want to live and the life God is calling you to.

Why “Campaign”?

I’ll confess it isn’t only the money topic that makes me uneasy. It’s the word campaign.

Not long ago someone on our team asked me, “Do we really have to use that word?” And I understood completely, because when I hear “campaign” I picture a politician wooing people for votes in order to gain power. Maybe you love politics and it doesn’t bother you. To me it carries some negative connotations. It feels a little icky.

So why use it at all?

The dictionary defines a campaign as an organized course of action to achieve a goal.

Now you understand why politicians use it — organized activities aimed at winning an election. It also explains why the military uses it: when an army goes to battle, it engages in a campaign, an organized set of actions toward winning. And it’s why nonprofits, colleges, and churches run fundraising or capital campaigns — a set of coordinated actions toward a specific financial goal so they can buy land, put up a building, hire staff, or sustain their programs.

Almost all campaigns are time-bound. They last a defined period. (I know it can feel like political campaigning never stops, but in theory it’s supposed to end.)

Since we’re about to engage in an organized set of activities aimed at a goal, “campaign” turns out to be the right word. So I’ve had to get over my aversion to it.

How We’re Going About It

We’re working this through every level of our church family. On Sunday mornings we’ll be in 2 Corinthians 9. If you’re in a growth group, you’ll be studying related passages this week — the guide is in the insert, or you can download and print it online.

We also want to get this down to the individual level. There are devotional books available, and a link to download it to your phone, for the next forty days.

And in our weekly Thursday newsletter, we’ll be working through 1 Timothy 6:17–19, taking a small portion at a time and asking what God is calling us to. We kicked that off last Thursday with a piece called “A Word to the Rich.” You may be thinking, I’m not rich. Go read it — it turns out you are. And what 1 Timothy says there is for us to do as well.

But What’s the Goal?

Remember the definition: an organized set of actions to achieve a goal. So what’s ours?

When most churches run a capital campaign, the goal is raising enough money to buy land, hire staff, or launch a program. And honestly, this is probably the perfect moment for us to run one. We’re halfway through a three-year lease on this building and we have to figure out what comes next. Do we sign another three-year lease? Move to rent-to-own? Try to buy it outright? Abandon it and find somewhere else?

It’s no secret that our elders, our Sunday team, and our partners have reached a broad consensus that the wise thing — the best stewardship — is to buy this building. But how do we go about it? A capital campaign seems like exactly the right tool.

And yet we’re not calling this a capital campaign. We’re calling it a generosity campaign. Why the switch?

It comes down to the goal. If the goal were merely to buy this building, “capital campaign” would be the correct term. But that isn’t our goal.

Too Small a Goal

We just finished a four-week series on defining the church, where we saw that the church is the redeemed people of God. Not a building. Not an organization. The people.

And those people aren’t a pleasant social club of folks who happen to like each other. They’re a group on mission. God gave us a mission: go and make disciples. Invite people to find Jesus and follow him. Go to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.

And as we invite people to follow Jesus, we want them to become like Jesus — to live like he lived and love like he loved.

So how did Jesus live and love? Generously. He gave his presence. He gave his wisdom. He gave encouragement. He gave healing. He sometimes gave food. And most of all, he gave his life. Because Jesus has given all of it to us, he now invites us to do the same — to give all to him. He calls us to generosity.

That’s why we can’t simply run a capital campaign and try to buy this building. That is too small a goal.

The real goal is to help you live a generous life — because when you live generously, you change the world. You become the blessing we keep talking about.

And by the way: when a church starts living at that level of generosity, I’ve noticed those churches usually already have the money to buy land, build buildings, help single moms, plant churches, and support missionaries overseas. Generous living just seems to generate more and more, making us a greater blessing to everyone.

The Numbers That Have Stayed With Me

Years ago I was the young adult pastor at a growing Bible church in Cedar Rapids. When I joined the staff in 2002, they were running two services. Within a year we added a third. About two years after that, a fourth. And after a few weeks of four services, our senior pastor looked at the elders and staff and said, “I cannot do a fifth. This is maxing me out.”

So the elders began praying, researching, and discussing. Over several years they decided to buy land and build a larger facility. For a church of eighteen hundred people, that meant millions of dollars — so a capital campaign began.

We had a very talented graphic designer in the congregation who produced slick materials. There were brochures, meeting after meeting, and finally pledge cards. Everyone received one and either made a large one-time gift or committed to give a set amount over three years. We collected the cards and tallied it up. It was an enormous endeavor.

I happened to be in the senior pastor’s office one day — I don’t even remember what we were discussing — when he said something almost as an aside. He said that if every family in our congregation of eighteen hundred gave ten percent of their income, we would not have needed a capital campaign at all. We would have had so much money that we could have paid for the land and the larger building and gone on to plant a couple of additional churches.

(We’ll talk more about the ten percent figure in later weeks. For many Christians it’s the standard for a tithe. I know some people disagree, and we’re not going to litigate that today.)

Instead, studies showed giving within our church family ran between three and four percent. And a church consultant told us that was actually quite generous — because at that time the average American gave 2.3 percent of their income to their church. In fact, non-Christians were giving more than churchgoing Christians.

I haven’t checked the data recently; maybe it’s changed. But it stuck with me. I remember thinking about how much energy, effort, and money went into running that campaign to raise millions — all of which could have been avoided if we had simply been living generous lives already.

That’s why a capital campaign is too small for us. I don’t want a one-time gift or a three-year pledge and nothing more, because I think God has far more for you than that. I’m not worried about this building. If God wants us to have it, he will provide. I’m far more interested in you living a generous life — going out to live like Jesus lived and love like Jesus loved. That’s the greater issue at stake.

A Church That Was a Mess

We’ll spend these Sundays in 2 Corinthians 9, where Paul packs an enormous amount of detail about generosity into a small space.

In verses 1–5, Paul writes that it’s superfluous — unnecessary — for him to write to them about the ministry for the saints, because he knows their readiness. He’s been boasting about them to the Macedonians, telling them that Achaia has been ready since last year, and their zeal has stirred up most of the others. Still, he’s sending the brothers ahead so that his boasting won’t prove empty and they’ll actually be ready as he said they’d be. Otherwise, if some Macedonians travel with him and find them unprepared, he — to say nothing of them — would be humiliated after being so confident. So he urged the brothers to go ahead and arrange in advance for the gift they had promised, so that it would be ready as a willing gift and not as an extraction.

If you know 1 Corinthians, you know Paul wrote that letter because the church in Corinth was a wreck. We studied it a few years ago and found issue after issue: disunity, sexual immorality, lawsuits between members, abuse of communion, worship services that had descended into chaos. They were the kind of church most people would walk into and think, if that’s Christianity, I’m out.

Then he writes a second letter, and the tone has shifted. He doesn’t rehash the same hot-button issues. It’s as though they took the first letter to heart and made real changes. So in this letter he actually praises them — and one of the things he praises is their generosity.

Why Coach Someone Who’s Already Good?

The “ministry for the saints” refers to churches around the known world taking up collections, sending them to Jerusalem, and letting the apostles and their teams distribute the funds to meet needs. We saw a great deal of this in Acts 2 during the “Defining Church” series, and there’s more context in 2 Corinthians 8.

So Titus and several others show up, sent by Paul, because he’s heard the Corinthians intend to give and he wants to make sure it happens. But here’s the puzzle: he says he already knows they’re generous — and then writes an entire chapter about generosity anyway. If they’re good at it, why waste their time?

Let me ask you this. Why does a professional baseball player take batting practice every day? Why does he still shag fly balls and field grounders? Why does a professional pianist practice four or five hours a day when she already has dozens of pieces memorized and can play them flawlessly?

Because being very good at something doesn’t mean you can’t get better.

Just because the Corinthians were already good at generosity doesn’t mean they’d stopped growing. And our goal is to help all of us live like Jesus lived and love like Jesus loved. I’ve been following Jesus since I was four years old, and I’m nowhere close to where I want to be. Am I further along than I was at four? Sure. But there’s so much growth still needed.

This Week: Give Expectantly

Each week we’ll focus on one aspect of generosity. This week the word is expectantly. And I see two things required to give expectantly.

First, you need a plan to give.

Notice verse 5: Paul thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead and arrange in advance for the gift. At first that almost sounds like Titus and company arriving as bill collectors. But look at the next phrase — for the gift you have promised. The Corinthians had said they’d do this. They’d begun to form a plan.

And if you’re anything like me, you’ve said you were going to do something and then simply never did it. I still have a fog light for my car sitting on my workbench. I bought it, fully intending to replace the broken one, and a year later there it sits.

Saying you’re going to do something doesn’t mean you’ll follow through. That’s why Titus shows up: you’re good at generosity, you’ve said you’ll be generous, and we’re here to help you carry out your plan.

Because here’s the truth: if you don’t plan to be generous, you will not be nearly as generous as you think you are.

The Wallet at the Offering Plate

Years ago I was doing premarital counseling with a couple. During one session I had them work through an exercise assigning percentages to a question — the sort where the numbers should total about a hundred. If you wanted to cop out, you could put 33, 33, and 34 and be done.

The groom’s percentages added up to 215.

So we needed to talk about finances, and my advice was that he should not be the one keeping the books. She, on the other hand, was excellent at it. She told me her dad had sat her down and taught her how to maintain a checkbook and build a budget, and had really worked with her on it. I was genuinely impressed.

Except when it came to giving. She described how they’d arrive at church on Sunday, the offering plate would start moving down the row, and she’d watch her dad pull out his wallet and start doing mental math. We’re going to lunch afterward. Oh, I was going to pick that up. I might need some of this. Okay — I’ll give this much today.

If you’d asked that man whether he gave to his church every week, he’d have said yes, and he probably felt quite generous. And yet his generosity was nowhere near what it could have been — what I’d argue it should have been — because every bit of his giving was spontaneous.

We’ll get to spontaneous giving in a moment, and you absolutely need to respond to those moments. But without a plan, you will not be as generous as you believe you are.

How Much, When, and Where

So here’s my advice for building a plan.

First, decide how much. I won’t say much about this today — next week’s message from verse 6 covers giving bountifully. But you need a number.

Second, decide when. Some people give weekly as part of their worship — a rhythm that says, Jesus, you gave your life for me, so I give now to you. Others need to give the moment the paycheck arrives, as a reminder that it came from God in the first place: the first five or ten or fifteen percent goes straight out. We have people here who log into our giving portal and make a separate gift for every single check they receive, precisely so nothing slips past. And some people keep a running tally all year and write one enormous check at the end, because that single act of sacrifice is what makes it feel real to them.

Third, decide where. Paul is writing to a church telling them to give to the broader church, and some of the people in Corinth had needs that this money would also meet. So if you follow Jesus, I’d say the first place you give is your church.

But I’d also argue it shouldn’t be the only place. Decide on a generous amount for your church, and then add another one, two, or three percent and direct it elsewhere. Maybe that’s sponsoring a child through Compassion International. Maybe it’s an overseas missionary. Maybe it’s a church plant, or an organization whose work you deeply believe in because they’re bringing the gospel to people.

When you do that, it expands your heart and your mind. You start seeing where God is at work beyond your local congregation.

God has wired each of us differently. We need to give together, because together we see God do more than any of us could alone. But we also need to give where God has specifically called us — because you may be passionate about something I’m not, and that thing is just as close to God’s heart. So find those one, two, or three other places, and give generously to them.

Second: A Posture of Generosity

The second thing we see in these verses is that we need a posture of generosity.

Look at the first phrase of verse 2: I know your readiness. Paul is praising them — you have a reputation for generosity, which is why I’ve been boasting about you. In other words, you have an orientation toward it.

Some of you in this church family have exactly that orientation, and I’m overwhelmed by you. I’m deeply grateful God brought you here. We’ve also had outside supporters with that same instinct — people already giving to their own churches who chose to support a brand-new church plant, many of whom will never visit this place and have never set foot in this town. They simply believed in the mission God had given, and they gave. Their generosity is what got us to this point.

But most of us don’t have a natural inclination toward generosity. We live in a culture that teaches us the person with the most stuff and the biggest bank account is the happiest and most successful. So the idea of handing over money and receiving nothing in return is genuinely hard.

If you’re giving me a steak for it, I’ll gladly pay. Ice cream, a flat-screen, a new car — sure, I’ll hand over the money, because I’m getting something that will make me happy. But to simply give? That’s harder.

A Faith That’s All About Change

But if you follow Jesus, you belong to a faith tradition that is fundamentally about change.

Think about it. If you’re a follower of Christ, that means at one point you weren’t. You crossed from spiritual darkness into light, from spiritual death into life, from separation to adoption. Christianity is all about change.

And it doesn’t stop at that initial moment of salvation. It continues through what’s called sanctification — the ongoing process of coming to look like Jesus, to live like he lived and love like he loved.

So even if you’re not good at generosity yet, you can be. You can grow. You can become more like Christ and develop a posture of giving.

Jesus Had Both

When we look at Jesus, we find he had both a plan and a posture.

Jesus did not arrive on earth, survey the situation, and think: Oh no — these humans are sinful, and the penalty for sin is death. What are we going to do? I’ve got an idea. I’m sinless. Why don’t I spontaneously die for them?

No. There was a plan. Go back six hundred years before Jesus and read Isaiah 53. Go back a thousand years and read Psalm 22. Go back two or three thousand years and read Genesis, and watch how it all points forward. God had a plan, and the plan was for Jesus to give his life.

But he also responded spontaneously, because he carried a posture of generosity.

We’ve been in Mark for the last year and a half. In chapter 6, Jesus receives news that John the Baptist has been beheaded. John was his cousin — and an extraordinary figure God used to prepare the way. Jesus knew it was coming, and he’s still grieved. He wants to withdraw. Meanwhile the twelve have just returned from their first missionary journey, bursting to report everything. So Jesus essentially says, let’s get away together, and they set out for a quiet place.

And Mark 6 tells us that when they came ashore, a crowd was already waiting. Jesus saw them as sheep without a shepherd. In that unplanned moment, grieving and exhausted, he gave his presence, his teaching, his healing. He gave — because he had a posture of generosity.

Or take blind Bartimaeus, sitting by the road crying out, “Son of David, have mercy on me.” Being who he is, Jesus surely knew what would happen. But Scripture doesn’t show him gathering the disciples beforehand to brief them: All right, we’re entering this town, there’ll be a blind man named Bartimaeus, he’ll call out, the crowd will try to silence him, we won’t — here’s the plan. No. They’re simply walking through town, it unfolds, and Jesus shows them: you are to meet needs as they arise. You are to carry a posture of generosity.

How the Posture Grows

So if you want to live like Jesus lived and give like Jesus gave, you need both the plan and the posture.

How do you grow the posture? The same way you grow in any area of spiritual life. Some of it comes from reading the Scriptures. A great deal comes from prayer, as you surrender this area and ask God for help.

But honestly, most of it comes from practice — which is where the plan comes in. You make the plan and you start doing it.

I once heard a woman describe how, when she was waiting tables and making very little, she built a giving plan and started following it — a set percentage off every restaurant check. Then she landed a real job with real money. And when she went to apply that same percentage, she realized she was about to write a single check larger than what she used to earn in an entire week at the restaurant.

Suddenly it got very, very hard.

That’s exactly where the plan helps. As you enact it, something changes in you, and the posture forms — so that when opportunities appear, your instinct is already I should give to this. I can help.

Not Just Money

And let me be clear: none of this is only about money.

Everything we’ve said applies to your time. Some of us are deeply selfish with it. Maybe you need a plan for how you’ll give your time to certain people in certain places, and then grow a posture so that when an opportunity arises you can step in.

What about your skills? You could plan when and how you’ll apply a particular skill to help people, and as you grow into it, develop the posture where you see a need and think, I can handle that. I have the skills to give to it.

This is what God wants for us: to give expectantly. And to do that, we need a plan and we need a posture. Because when we have both, we’re beginning to give the way Jesus gave — which means we’re living like Jesus lived and loving like Jesus loved.

Father, help us grow in generosity. For those already gifted in this, thank you for the way you’ve wired them — and keep calling them further. For those of us who struggle, who assume we can only afford so much and now find ourselves challenged, keep helping us grow. Come into our lives, our hearts, and our thoughts, and change them until we reflect the love of Christ.

Jesus, you gave it all. You are the very definition of generosity — you embodied it completely. It’s your character, and any generosity we manage merely reflects you. So help us live this way, not so that our church can afford a building or make a name for itself, but so that you can use us to live the life you’ve called us to and be the blessing you’ve called us to be, helping people find you and follow you. Unleash this generosity in us, for our joy and for your glory. In Jesus’s name, amen.