God provides what I need to be generous!

You are blessed when you get to go to school with a lunch packed with good things. All the good things in your school lunch were provided by mom, dad, a grandparent or some other grown up. When lunch time comes and you find someone who is in need and you get to share your lunch with them, it leads to giving thanks for whoever bought, assembled and sent you to school with that lunch. It also leads to thanking God, who made the food and provided those who grew, packaged, sold, bought, cooked and assembled the food.

Today there are many shows that test a person’s ability to get food as a self-sufficient survivalist with limited resources out in the wilderness. There was an episode on one of these survival shows where two survivalists were out in the jungle and one of them got sick. During the couple of days where the sick survivalist was down, the other picked up the slack. This allowed the other to push through the sickness, return to health and again contribute to their mutual survival. Then, the pair endured a couple of almost sleepless nights because of constant bites from mosquitos and other insects. On one of those nights, the survivalist who had been sick went fishing and caught a roughly 14-inch catfish, when all they had been catching during the day were little 4-inch fish. When the survivalist came back to cook the fish, the other was asleep. At that point, a choice had to be made whether to wake the other survivalist to share the fish.

The Israelites understood the need for food when out in the wilderness. It had only been a matter of weeks since the Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt and miraculously crossed through the Red Sea on dry ground, when they found themselves hungry in the wilderness. They had a choice in how they were going to respond to their hunger, and we hear their choice words in our Old Testament reading from Exodus 16. When they came to Moses and Aaron,

3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” 4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you.”

Rather than come with full confidence in God’s ability to provide for them and kindly ask Moses to pray to God to provide food, the Israelites hangrily, a combination of hungry and angry, approached Moses and Aaron. They doubted their leadership’s ability to lead, and even worse, doubted God’s love and power to keep them alive. In response, God graciously withheld punishment against the Israelite’s for their insults, and blessed them with manna, honey flavored bread flakes, and quail to eat. The manna was something no one had seen before and so, we read in Exodus 16,

15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.”

The people were sure they would not have enough to survive, but God provided them with all they needed.

Over one thousand years later, in the first century AD some of God’s people were in need again. The Christians in Judea were struggling, but the word had spread and the many Christian congregations throughout the Mediterranean promised to send their offerings to help. Among them were the Christians in Corinth, and the Apostle Paul was going to come pick up their offerings to deliver them to Judea. Before Paul arrived in Corinth, he sent words of encouragement so that when he arrived the offerings would be ready, and no collections would have to be made from those who had promised to give but had not yet brought anything. Paul used this situation as an opportunity to teach fundamental principles of Christian giving in chapters 8 and 9 of his second letter to the Corinthians. Our New Testament reading today comes from 2 Corinthians 9, and begins with these words,

8 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

Paul’s instruction to the Corinthians and to all Christians regarding giving began with the source of what we have.

God is the source for all that we have. Any opportunity to give then is a redistribution of something God graciously gave to us. Again, we can illustrate this principle with the example of all the work put into a student’s lunch that is handed to them to eat and even give to other students in need. With all that God has given to us, we have so much to give, but we often give as if our lunch was packed with things from a gas station on a long-forgotten backroad rather than from the vast riches of Buc-ee’s. Because of our sinful self-centered nature, we look at what we have and the work we put in to get what we have, and we assess the needs of others before considering what to give. When we get focused on ourselves or what others need, we end up being greedy and covetous, and limiting or putting qualifications on what we give to others. This happened with the survivalist who was able to recover while the other survivalist picked up the slack, and once better caught a large catfish during the night. When he brought the big catch back and found the other survivalist asleep, he had a choice. Selfishly, without waking the other, the one survivalist ate the whole fish. And this happened once more. The survivalist’s actions revealed a selfish heart. And for us, our lack of giving generously reveals something. Our sinful hearts stop our generosity as the good response to all God’s gracious generosity to us.

By the grace of God, we have a God-sufficiency. Rather than a self-sufficiency, Christians understand God is the source of all we have. The Bible teaches this in many passages like in Acts 17,

28 For in him we live and move and have our being.

Then, in Psalm 139,

13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

And, in Romans 8,

30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

Finally, in Acts 14,

17 Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.”

Paul captured what these and other Scriptures passages teach with his words in 2 Corinthians 9,

8 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

God cares about what you give because it’s connected to your heart. Faith, thankfulness and giving are linked. This link is expressed in the Paul’s quote in the next verse from 2 Corinthians 9,

9 As it is written: “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor; their righteousness endures forever.”

Paul is quoting Psalm 112 which is linked with Psalm 111. In Psalm 111, we hear these words,

5 He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever.

God created you and he sustains you with food. He also remembers his covenant, which is his promise to give you life. Our Savior Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise to give you life as we hear in John 3:16,

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Psalm 112 is the response of the thankful believer for all of God’s grace spoken of in Psalm 111. God’s grace saved us and his grace pours out of us in our good works.

One result of God’s grace to us is our generosity. By God’s grace, you were born in this time, to your family, with the skills, experiences, relationships and everything else in your life. You can think of God’s grace like water from a spring flowing into a pool with a stream flowing out of the pool. You are that pool, and your sinful nature wants to damn up all the water flowing in so that very little gets out. God’s Word breaks that damn down with his law to convict us of sinful selfishness and his gospel of forgiveness, grace and continuous blessings leading us to generosity. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 9,

10 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.

Paul is addressing our hearts in this verse. God produces a giving attitude in our hearts, and he works though us a harvest of righteousness. In our Gospel reading from Mark 6, Jesus showed his disciples and a crowd of thousands that he is the supplier, able to give all that is needed,

41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 They all ate and were satisfied, 43 and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. 44 The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.

Jesus taught us to look to God first, then to the needs of others, rather than looking at ourselves.

God cares about your generosity. Everyone has a different amount to give, but we have the same righteousness from God. Filled with the grace of God, the attitude of your heart will be to share that grace with others. We have this guarantee from God as we give generously,

11 You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

As with the Corinthians, the Holy Spirit works in us a thankful, God trusting, generous attitude, which leads those who receive our gifts to give thanks to God. We are to be wise, godly farmers who sow generously expecting a harvest of righteousness resulting in thanksgiving to God. So, if it has been a while since you have evaluated your attitude toward giving, sit down and consider all that God has given you, list it out in your mind, on your phone, on a piece of paper, in a conversation with a good friend, family member or spouse, then filled with thanks and joy consider what you get to give away.

You are blessed when you get to go to school with a lunch packed with good things. When you get to give away some of those things to someone in need, it leads to giving thanks for whoever bought, assembled and sent you to school with that lunch. It also leads to thanking God, who made the food and provided those who grew, packaged, sold, bought, cooked and assembled the food. God is our Creator, Savior and Faith Giver. Let us continue to consider what we are able to give because God provides what we need to be generous. Amen.