Bountifully (How to Give #2)

While we were singing this morning, I found myself thinking: how did I end up here? It struck me all at once — I’m standing in a room worshiping alongside people in a community I genuinely love, sitting next to my family. Do things ever hit you like that? Not confusion about what you’re doing, but a kind of wonder at the way a life flows into the place it lands.

I serve as an elder here, and today I get to teach on one verse: bountifully.

An Attainable Challenge

As has already been said in this series, this has been, is now, and will continue to be a hard teaching for most people.

I happen to be someone who enjoys intellectual and moral challenges. I like a good poke to the chest, so to speak. I’m told that many of you do not. But maybe — just maybe — this is the kind of challenge you need. An attainable one. A completely realistic, attainable challenge.

Our passage today, 2 Corinthians 9:6, is about reaping and sowing. About giving.

But giving what, you might ask?

Well, there’s always money. That’s the straightforward one for most people. But as we teach here, there’s the giving of your whole fist: your finances, influence, skills, and time.

Money Is the Easiest Thing to Give

Have you ever heard it said that money is the easiest thing you can give?

In my own experience, when I really sit with it and sort through the categories of importance in my life, it does seem to be the easiest thing I can hand over. Money is what we offer up when everything else feels more untouchable than it ought to be.

So while we work through this single verse, I want you to hold that idea in your mind: the untouchable areas of your own life. And I want you to ask God to show you how he could make astonishing use of those areas — in ways you may not currently be able to imagine.

Father, we’re thankful to be gathered here to listen, to be uplifted, to be emboldened, and to be rebuked. Give us clarity, coherence, and understanding of your Scripture as we work through it together. Set it on people’s hearts — and if anyone doesn’t understand or has a problem with something, reach down and pull that question out of them, and embolden them to ask it out loud. Thank you for your word, and for how it bleeds into every part of our lives, even the untouchable ones. In Jesus’s name, amen.

The Verse

Second Corinthians 9:6 is short. Very short. I’m going to talk for a long time even though it’s short.

Paul writes that the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

That’s it. That’s the verse.

But before we work on it, I want to take you far to the left in your Bible, because the Bible is a coherent, cumulative work, and this idea did not begin with Paul.

Gathering the Tabernacle

Exodus 25:1–9 gives a short account of how the materials and the means to build the tabernacle were gathered.

The Lord speaks to Moses and tells him to instruct the people of Israel to bring an offering — and then specifies who it should come from: everyone who gives it willingly with his heart. God then lists what he wants collected: gold, silver, and bronze; blue, purple, and scarlet thread; fine linen and goat hair; ram skins dyed red and fine leather; acacia wood; oil for the lamps; spices for the anointing oil and the fragrant incense; onyx stones and gemstones to be set into the ephod and the breastplate. And then the purpose: let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. Build it exactly according to the pattern I show you.

Notice the wording in verse 2. God says to take up this offering — but it comes from everyone who gives willingly, from the heart. And God calls it my offering.

So a directive comes from God through Moses himself, and a collection is taken for the construction of a place for God — so that he can dwell among his people in the way he ordained for that time.

Gathering the Temple

Now move to the right in your Bible, to 1 Chronicles 29:1–9. (I like that both passages are verses one through nine. It isn’t profound. I just like when things line up.)

King David addresses the whole assembly. He tells them that his son Solomon, whom God alone has chosen, is young and inexperienced, and that the work ahead is enormous — because this temple is not for a man, but for the Lord God.

David then reports what he has already prepared with all his might: gold for the gold work, silver for the silver, bronze for the bronze, iron for the iron, wood for the wood, plus onyx stones, stones to be set, glistening stones of many colors, precious stones of every kind, and marble in abundance.

And then he goes further. Because he has set his affection on the house of his God, he gives from his own personal treasure — over and above everything he had already prepared — thousands of talents of gold and thousands of talents of refined silver to overlay the walls.

Then he turns to the room and asks the question: Who then is willing to consecrate himself this day to the Lord?

And the leaders of the fathers’ houses, the leaders of the tribes, the captains of thousands and hundreds, and the officers over the king’s work all offered willingly. They gave staggering quantities of gold, silver, bronze, and iron for the work of the house of God. Anyone who had precious stones handed them over to the treasury.

And then comes the line I want you to catch: the people rejoiced, for they had offered willingly, because with a loyal heart they had offered willingly to the Lord. And King David rejoiced greatly as well.

Two Collections, Two Wonders

In both passages a great collection is taken up. People give. A bountiful harvest is reaped. And out of that collection for construction came what I’m convinced was a genuine wonder of that age: Solomon’s temple.

Look at who these people were. They didn’t have much. They gathered for themselves over time, preparing for something still to come. God knew where they were going and what they were going to do, and how he was going to glorify himself in it. The collection is taken. The people give bountifully. And they reap bountifully in the beauty of what they build.

The Bible is a coherent, cumulative work, all of it pointing to Christ. So it’s no wonder we find this consistency running from the Old Testament into the New. There are solid connections in Scripture. What we need to do is go looking for them.

What these people accomplished by their giving is a feat, to say the very least — offering freely in order to exalt the Lord God.

The Agrarian Principle

Now turn back to 2 Corinthians 9:6.

Scripture repeatedly uses what we could call the agrarian principle — the comparison to farming. Living in Iowa, I’ll assume you’re aware that farming is a thing. You can walk out the door and see it.

Paul applies that principle directly to Christian giving. The amount of seed you spread relates directly to the size of the harvest you’ll bring in.

That seems very simple, and I don’t want to move away from it too quickly. But when I read this — right after those Old Testament passages where immense sowing produced immense harvest — I immediately saw something else. A logical statement. An if-then.

A Confession About Logic

If you spend any time around me, you’ll learn that I enjoy logic problems and being challenged by them. Finding fallacious logic in other people’s arguments and speeches is something of a hobby.

A word of advice, if you share that hobby: do not point it out in social situations. Ever. When I first fell in love with this stuff, I printed a list of logical fallacies and put it on my office window. People would say something and I’d think, that’s a fallacy. It does not go well for me. So now I mostly sit quietly.

But here in verse 6 you have a classic conditional statement. And if you enjoy logic, you know that a conditional collapses if either the premise or the conclusion is false. You can test it.

So look again: the one who sows sparingly reaps sparingly; the one who sows bountifully reaps bountifully. Do you see it? If the Christian sows bountifully, then they will reap bountifully.

We’ve just heard a true conditional statement. Couple that with the understanding that what God says is inherently true. Couple it with what we read in Exodus and Chronicles. There’s no twisting out of it. This is a straightforward definition: abundance is God’s defined blessing, and it comes to the bountiful sower — and, in its lesser measure, to the sparing one.

Hear This Part Carefully

This is the part I don’t want to get wrong, so hear me well. And if you think you’ve misheard or misunderstood me, go back and read it yourself. Ask questions. Talk to a friend. Talk to your pastor. Seek out any elder here and ask.

There is not a negative, condemning tone in this verse.

Just read it plainly. The verse states that you will take in a measure proportional to what you let out. It’s exactly what we read earlier — the one who sows sparingly reaps sparingly.

No personal attacks. No mention of sin. A simple, true, conditional observation.

And if you look forward into verse 7 — which we won’t dive into today — you’ll find the condition of the willing giver, exactly as we saw in Exodus and Chronicles, and the cheerful giver. Keep that in mind, because that’s where this series is heading over the next couple of weeks. It all fits together, and I like how things nest that way.

The Tithe Is a Mercy

Teaching on this inevitably raises the ten percent tithing concept. We’ve talked about it before.

Studying this passage over the past week, the sowing-and-reaping idea brought percentage-based tithing to a new level of understanding for me. Something dawned on me.

Financial giving is a controversy for some people and effortless for others. Some give freely out of their own pockets and think nothing of it — but they are absolutely immovable when it comes to their time, compartmentalizing their lives and declaring whole sections untouchable. Which brings us right back to where we started.

So if you want to be someone who reaps bountifully, but you’re torn — unable to discern what to give or how much, and everything you hear leaves you feeling like whatever you do isn’t enough — then hear this:

Ten percent is not the burden people make it out to be. It is a mercy. I’m convinced of that.

It’s a simple clarifying line for people who come ready but have no path forward. Remember that the sower is never condemned for the amount — they simply reap less. And if, upon seeing your harvest, you want to increase it and multiply it bountifully, God has given you a sliding scale. It carries upward with you in times of feast and comes back down with you in times of famine.

The tithe as a practice is for you. It’s for you, and it’s an offering to him — as in Exodus, as in Chronicles. It makes me think of the Sabbath and that great rebuke about it: the Sabbath was made for man. The tithe is for you.

The Texture of the Whole Bible

The textual connections keep multiplying. The notes in any study Bible you own would point you to several. Let me belabor the point of how simple and consistent this is.

Proverbs 11:24–25 says there is one who scatters and yet increases, and another who withholds more than is right and comes to poverty. The generous soul will be made rich, and whoever waters will himself be watered.

Coherent so far?

Luke 6:38 says to give, and it will be given to you — good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, poured into your lap. For with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you.

Galatians 6:7 says don’t be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.

Go look these up on your own later. I encourage it.

Your Life Is a Lived Testimony

Two more points and I’ll finish.

In our family, in terms of how we approach our engagement with Christ’s church, I don’t want to lose ground. I want to ratchet things forward — even if it’s only a little, even when it’s uncomfortable. Keep stepping forward. Because this affects our testimony.

Just before our reading today, Paul mentions what the Macedonians will think. My first reaction was: he’s concerned about what other people think?

But think about what your life actually is. It’s a lived testimony. Your willingness to abide in his written instruction is evidence of the rebirth some of you have claimed.

I had the opportunity just this past week to talk, in my own office, about what an outworking of belief does to a person’s actions — and to point out the people who have come through my door looking for answers. I do this in a place where I have never stood in front of a group and spent any time declaring my obedience to Christ. I have not done that there. And yet this still happens to me.

A day lived in bountiful sowing is a day spent pouring — at the right time, in the right season, with wisdom and discernment — into whoever is near you. Your actions, your words, your demeanor reflect your belief in Christ. How people see your fist in action — your finances, influence, skills, and time — matters.

So sow and reap in a way that amounts to boasting in Christ. That’s how you live life alongside one another.

A Warning

Last, I want to end with a warning — and with Christ.

There are teachers in the world who take simple concepts like this one and manipulate them. As has been said from this very stage before: the best lies contain little bits of truth. And there are especially insidious lies that can be extracted from a plain message about a harvest God will bless.

Those messages are used to focus your attention on your earthly possessions for the sake of that teacher and his own glory.

Remember what God said back in Exodus: bring me my offering. It was all his in the first place.

People slip easily into lives where their weak little hands stay clenched for a lifetime — closed so tightly around their own health and wealth that the sowing our hands were made for is cut off entirely. The acquisition of wealth becomes the aim. And the blessing God intended in order to magnify himself in you and in your good, obedient work becomes marred and distorted. It devolves into vain idolatry.

So go back to Proverbs 11 one more time, to verse 28, just after what we read: whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like green foliage.

Take Paul’s advice. It’s as true today as it was then, and as it has been for all time. That’s the nature of the word of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Merciful Liberation, Not Handwringing

You’ll hear it said that people aren’t helped by being told what they can’t do — that you have to lead with permissive, enabling language. I’ve encountered that idea in movies and television, in articles and books. Don’t do this. Stay away from that. Don’t look, don’t touch.

I disagree with that, and so does God’s word. It’s a great lie that people simply convulse when given a negative prohibition.

But if you are poked in the chest by all the don’ts — and I’ll admit I don’t fully understand that reaction — then see this straightforward instruction as something else entirely: a point of special, merciful liberation. No handwringing about a course of action. It’s laid out plainly.

Take that explicit mercy. Go out into the world emboldened by your Lord and by what he says you can do — reap a bountiful harvest for him with your finances, your influence, your skills, and your time.

Great and beautiful things come when God’s people sow and reap bountifully together.

Father, if there’s a person here who is bothered by this, or if I’ve said something in a crass or unconvincing way, help us to see the truth that is in your word. Help me get out of the way, so that my fumbling words don’t cause anyone to misstep. Help us to see the nature of the truth you’ve given us, to seek understanding and wisdom daily, to discern properly, and to live our lives in a way that is a testimony to others. Thank you, Father. I ask all of this in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.