2 Corinthians 8:10

Herein I give my counsel or advice, for this is expedient for you, who have begun before not only to do, but also to be forward a year ago. Now, therefore, perform the doing of it, that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be a performance also out of that which you have... For I mean not that other men be eased and you be burdened, but by an equality... As it is written, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack.

Giving is a sanctifying work: God plants the desire by His Spirit and then calls us, through His Word, to finish it.

A Church of Sinful People Being Transformed

This is now our fourth week looking at this text in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, dealing with treasure, wealth, and giving. If you are new to our church in the last month, you may think money is all we ever talk about here at Cross Connection. But since the end of January we have been going through the book of 2 Corinthians, journeying for the last four years through Acts and the epistles chronologically. Here in this second letter to Corinth, Paul writes to a church not unlike many modern churches—a church with many problems.

A church is a gathering of people called out of darkness into God's marvelous light. When we come out of that darkness, we do not do so cloaked in any human righteousness. There is not a single person represented here, or in any church anywhere, who is practically perfect. We come to Christ miserable, poor, blind, and naked. That is who we are at the depths of our being.

The wonderful truth of the gospel is that God transforms us and brings us into the body of Christ robed in His righteousness. We have no privilege, no right, no opportunity apart from the work of Jesus Christ making the way open for us to come before the Lord. And praise be to God for His indescribable gift—as we'll see next week in 2 Corinthians 9:15. The gift we have in Christ is unspeakable.

Why the Church Is Full of "Hypocrites"

So we must never think it strange that a church is filled with sinful people. We are saved by grace and granted new life, but we still carry the remnants of our former sinful nature. Every one of us sees that carnal nature every day, and others see it too, however much we try to hide it. So it's understandable the world says the church is full of hypocrites. It's true—we desire to be something we're not. We are righteous before God because we are clothed in Christ's righteousness, but practically speaking, every one of us still has sin that so easily ensnares us. If you think you found the perfect church here, that's just not reality. And your mere presence defiles it even more—I'm speaking biblically.

Yet Christ-likeness is the aim of God in His people. It is His desire and design that we who are in Christ would be conformed more and more into the image of His Son, who Hebrews tells us is the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person. This transformation begins internally—what Ezekiel foresaw in chapter 36 when God promised a new heart, even as Jeremiah declared in chapter 17 that the heart of man is desperately wicked. The new heart is fulfilled in Christ, in the new birth, and then perfected in us by the Spirit and the working of God's Word.

Worship Exposes Our Need

This is why gatherings such as this are so important. The author of Hebrews tells us in chapter 10 not to forsake the assembling together, for when we gather we are corporately provoked through the worship of God unto good works. When we worship God in song, in sacrificial giving, and in the Scriptures, we exalt Him. And when we see Him exalted, we adore His holy perfection—and in that light we see our lowly imperfections very clearly.

This is illustrated in Isaiah 6. Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up and cried, "Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips." That is what should happen when we come in contact with God exalted in worship. God exposes our sinful nature in the light of His glory for the purpose of expunging it. It is His aim, His goal: Christ-likeness. He is transforming us by the renewing of our minds, by the washing of the water of His Word.

We Are Born Greedy

One aspect of the sinful nature, as we have considered, is that we are born greedy and selfish. This inborn covetousness is seen very early in the life of a child. Charles Swindoll, in his book You and Your Child, quoted a report commissioned in 1926 by the governor of Minnesota, the Minnesota Crime Commission. It said:

Every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it—his bottle, his mother's attention, his playmate's toy, his uncle's watch. Deny these things and he seethes with rage and aggressiveness which would be murderous were he not so helpless. He has no morals, no knowledge, no skills. All children are born delinquent, and if permitted to continue in the self-centered world of his infancy, every child would grow up a criminal, a thief, a killer, a rapist.

Could you imagine that being written in 2012 by a government-sponsored study? Never. Some things have changed in eighty-six years. But one thing has not changed: the selfish sinfulness of humanity. It will never change apart from the saving work of Jesus Christ. It is not reformed by better laws or equality.

Sin Is Forbidden Because It Is Bad

That selfishness leads to a sad and bad world. You see, sin is not bad because it's forbidden; sin is forbidden because it's bad. Sin, if allowed to remain, brings destruction and death. The wages of sin is death—not only because God will justly judge sin, but because sin itself is deadly, like the worst poison. The soul that sins shall die, Ezekiel 18 says, because sin will kill you. This is why Adam and Eve were told, "In the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die." Greed and selfishness bound up in every heart will, if left, kill you—like the worst cancer, untreated, destroying inwardly before it shows on the outside.

So sin is a problem of the heart. Sinful behaviors are only the evidence; it is the heart that must be dealt with. The idea that we can legislate a better world only addresses the external symptoms. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5, sin is like leaven—a little bit will leaven the whole lump. So God is in the business of purging out leaven, removing sin from our lives. Jesus pictures this in John 15: "I am the vine, my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away; and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit."

Salvation as a Progressive Work

Salvation is not just something that happened when you prayed a sinner's prayer in the past. It is a progressive work God is doing in those who trust Him. As Paul says in Philippians 1:6, "He who began the good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus." God has justified us, dealing with the punishment of our sin on the cross. He is currently sanctifying us, transforming us from the inside out. And ultimately we look forward to glorification—when we see Him we shall be like Him, transformed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.

God does this work of sanctification by His Spirit through the power of His Word. Jesus prayed in John 17:17, "Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth." Paul said in Ephesians 5:26 that God sanctifies His church by the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, but holy and without blemish.

There's an old story of a man who for years told his grandchildren of the importance of reading God's Word. One day his teenage grandson said, "I've read through my Bible, but I just don't understand the importance of it—I know all these stories already." The grandfather handed him a basket and asked him to fill it with water. The boy said it couldn't be done, but to oblige he ran water through it again and again. Each time he returned, no water remained. Finally the grandfather said, "It may not hold any water, but it's cleaner." So God cleanses us by the washing of the water by His Word.

Greed Revealed as Sin

Although greed is valued, even encouraged, in twenty-first-century American culture, it is revealed by God's Word as sin and as deadly. Our culture is wrong in the light of God's truth. We live in a day that questions truth—"that's true for you, but I have my own truth." But there is a standard of truth, and God incarnate said, "Your word is truth." This is the bar to which every other idea is brought.

So we can be sure God wants to expel greed from our lives, because His Word reveals it as sin, and He does not want His church to die because of it. This is one reason teachings like the prosperity gospel are wrong: they encourage and foster the very greed God wants to remove. And God removes the sinful roots of greed by stirring in us, by His Spirit, a desire to give. Giving is a sanctifying work. Sinful people don't give sacrificially—that is inspired by God working in us. He inspires the desire, and then He encourages us through His Word to perform it. As Philippians 2:13 says, "It is God who works in you both to desire and to do what is pleasing to Him."

Perform What You Have Begun

Now look at the passage before us, 2 Corinthians 8:10-15. Paul says, "Herein I give my advice, for this is expedient for you, who have begun before not only to do, but also to be forward a year ago. Now therefore perform the doing of it." A year ago, the church in Jerusalem had a need, and the Corinthians had a desire to help—they even began to act. But somewhere along the line they stopped. Paul says: now do it. "For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man has, and not according to what he has not."

There's a lot going on in these six verses, so let me unpack four key things. First, notice Paul says, "Herein I give my advice." As we've considered every week, New Testament giving is not mandated or commanded; it is not a tax. Those are big words in our national lexicon right now—mandates and taxes—but giving for health and welfare in the New Testament is not a mandate. Paul does, however, give an exhortation, counseling them to give and reminding them of the expedience, the benefit, of doing so. Why a benefit? Because giving is part of the sanctifying work of God's grace in our lives.

Why They Stopped Giving

Apparently when the needs of the disadvantaged church in Jerusalem were presented a year earlier, the Corinthians—a wealthy church living in the Wall Street of the day—had a desire to help and began to do so. But something held them up. Part of it was that some had begun to question Paul's character, a doubt I believe inspired demonically. We don't want to give to people of bad character. But it also seems they grew reticent because they were concerned for their own well-being: there was a famine in Jerusalem—what if it extended to them? Right now they had abundance, but they began to hold back out of fear. Can anyone identify with that? The Word of God is living and applicable.

Desire to Give Is Good—But Not Enough

So one principle here is that the desire to give is good. "If there is a willing mind, it is accepted." God honors the willingness to give; desiring to do good is good, evidence of God working new desires in us. But desire without the doing has not gone far enough.

Several years ago I was working at the coffee shop we used to run on Grand Avenue, after I returned from serving in Germany. In January 2006 a really cute girl started coming in. After making her coffee a few times, I had a desire to get to know her. If it had stopped at desire, it would have been problematic. A desire needs to motivate action—asking her to dinner, which I did. Months later we got engaged, six months after that we married, and six years later we have three kids. That's the way it works.

So Paul says, "Now therefore perform the doing of it." Faithfulness extends beyond good intentions. What begins as a wish must move into action. Words are good, even necessary, but works are essential. Remember Romans 5:8—God demonstrated His love that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. He didn't merely speak His love; He proved it in action. The word translated "perform" in verse 11 means to perfect it, finish it—in our language, "get it done." It's the same root word Jesus used on the cross when He said, "It is finished." Paul is saying your inward wish needs to move to a place where you can say, "It is done."

Jesus told a parable of a father with two sons. He told the first to go work in the field, and the son said, "Yes, dad," but didn't go. He told the second, who said, "I won't," but then went and did it. Jesus showed the blessedness of the one who performed the work, not merely the one who desired it.

God Honors the Willing Heart

Yet verse 12 shows that God does honor the desire: "If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted." This is powerfully illustrated in King David. David desired to build God a temple and told the prophet Nathan, who said, "Do all that is in your heart." But God told Nathan to go back and say David could not build it. David prepared the work anyway so his son Solomon could fulfill it. Years later, after Solomon finished, he said in 1 Kings 8:17-18: "It was in the heart of David my father to build a house... And the Lord said unto David, whereas it was in your heart to build a house, you did well in that it was in your heart." David was unable to fulfill the desire, yet God honored it.

This does not release us from performing good works when we are able. Proverbs 3:27 says, "Withhold not what is good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do so." If there's a need, and you have a desire, and you have the ability, fulfill it. But if the desire is present and the ability is not, God still accepts the willingness. The desire among the Corinthians was bigger than what they had. Have you ever experienced that—the need is bigger than your ability to meet it? We're constantly confronted with this reality.

Give According to What You Have

The problem was that their desire was bigger than their resources, and apparently they gave up entirely. Paul corrects this: "Whatever you give is acceptable if you give it eagerly and give according to what you have, and not what you don't have." It's illustrated by Peter and John in Acts 3 at the gate called Beautiful. The lame man begged for money, and Peter said, "Silver and gold I don't have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk." What he gave was far better than silver and gold, yet there was recognition that he didn't have what was asked. The greatness of a need should not diminish the willingness of the giver.

Then Paul says, "For I mean not that others be eased and you be burdened." These words challenge our American ethos. The Corinthians had more than some—Corinth was wealthy—but they were not exorbitantly wealthy. This describes us: we have more than many, perhaps more than most, but very likely no one here is part of the one percent. Paul used Jesus in verse 9, who became poor so we might become rich, but that's not what is being asked here. Rather, if you have abundance and another has lack, consider that perhaps the abundance you have is purposed by God to be a blessing.

Both Gathered, and None Lacked

Paul now quotes Exodus 16:18 to illustrate. Israel had come out of Egypt into the wilderness without the essentials. It doesn't matter how much silver and gold you have if there's no bread—no Vons, no Costco. God provided manna each morning. They woke, went outside their tents, and found this white substance "as delicate as frost." "What is it?"—that's what manna means. They gathered every morning for forty years; if they kept extra overnight it bred worms and stank, except on Fridays when they could gather double for the Sabbath. "He that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack." There was sharing between those who gathered much and those who gathered little.

This answers the question of equality being raised in our culture today. First, both gathered. This is important from a welfare perspective. God prescribes in His law that the poor be provided for—especially the fatherless and the widows, those who cannot provide for themselves. God even judged Israel in Isaiah's day for not defending their cause. But "both gathered" means if you can, you should work. As Paul says plainly in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, "He who does not work shall not eat."

The German and the Greek

This is very relevant right now. In Europe, the European Union joins nations like the Germans, known for a strong work ethic, with others who retire much earlier. I lived and worked in Germany; these are diligent, efficient, hard workers. I read an article this week about the consternation Germans feel at being asked to delay retirement to 67 to pay for Greeks who retire at 50. Wouldn't you be concerned? One group says, "We just don't want to work," while another says, "We worked and saved, and our economy is strong because of it."

What's the answer? Everyone needs to gather. You may gather less than someone else, but the requirement still stands. God's design is that one individual's lack be supplied by another's abundance—so that when the tables are turned and the situation reverses, there may be equality. That's the equality Paul speaks of. The biblical concept of welfare presupposes its temporary nature. The idea of forever living on another's welfare is prescribed only for those who truly cannot provide for themselves—the fatherless and the widow. But if you are able, 2 Thessalonians 3:10 again: "If any of you would not work, neither should he eat."

The second principle: no one lacked. When we obey God in this matter, He makes sure there is no lack. This does not mean everyone will be excessively wealthy, but the needs of all can be met.

Rewirement, Not Retirement

One final thought. When Israel received manna, they were in the wilderness; when they entered the promised land, the manna stopped. Biblically speaking, earthly retirement is early retirement. This is not the promised land—our true reward waits in heaven. This challenges our American ethos, which puts excessive focus on a lazy early retirement. Your job description may change in your sixties, and you may no longer identify as a contractor or engineer or salesman, but the work does not cease.

What we pray to see in our church is more of a rewirement than a retirement—where we rewire our thinking and recognize that in our latter years, having gained great experience, knowledge, and perhaps more wealth, we can use our time for the kingdom of God, knowing He has a greater reward than a 401k. And what if you're unable? Then, following the Scriptures, those who cannot provide for themselves are supported—not through taxation or mandate, but by the loving willingness of the body of Christ. That's revolutionary, counter to the culture we live in. It's a paradigm shift. Amen?

Closing Prayer

Father, I thank you for the challenging exhortations of your word. I ask, Lord, that you would work in us that we would think about these things this week, that we would seriously contemplate what you're speaking to us. And if there needs to be adjustment, if there needs to be rewirement, work it in us, Lord. Transform us by the renewing of our minds that we would be conformed into your image and that we would represent you well in the world in which we live. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.