Good evening. It is a privilege for me to be here with you. I've been, one of the ways that I'm getting to serve this city is I've been tasked by your presbytery that potentially soon might be mine as well. My wife and I planted a church in Connecticut with the PCA and have been down here now for back in Charlotte for about three years. but tasked by the Catawba Valley Presbytery to support the mission efforts of the presbytery. One of the specific ways that I'm really working within the presbytery is to help with church planting. So as we come to the text today, as we think about what I'm referring to is the opportunity not to miss the mission. I want you to hear this text in the context both of church planting, in the context of mission in general, but also in the context of any moment, any opportunity that you have to give generously. That's the 3 a.m. morning wake-up call from your child. There's a mission from God at that moment. That's your husband asking you one more time to either speak up because he doesn't put his hearing aids in. Whatever it might be, a chance for you to not miss the mission of generosity and to overflow in joy and service to others. So we're in 2 Corinthians 8. Let me read it to us now. Verse one. We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. In this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord, and then by the will of God to us. Accordingly, we urge Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. But as you excel in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you, see that you excel in this act of grace also. I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you, by his poverty, might become rich. Let me just pray for us as we come to listen and think on God's word. Heavenly Father, we ask now that you would bless the reading of your word that we might hear it with hearts that are tender to you. And God, would you do something so within us that awakens a joy, maybe a joy that we haven't had for so long, a joy in the immeasurable love that you have poured out into us in Jesus. And from that joy, God, may we overflow in a wealth of generosity in every area of our life. Yes, in our giving, but especially in our mission, our mission to our kids, and to our community, and to the saints here in this room, as well as those all over the world. Grant us that joy that we might join you and not miss the mission tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. I have to ask, what would cause you to actually beg to give your money away. I mean, maybe there's an old Rodney Dangerfield joke where he would say, I mean, take my kids, please. All right, I'm not talking about that kind of begging, but the begging here in this text is what we heard Paul saying of a group of Christians literally pleading with Paul to have a chance to participate in the mission of God. And they did this despite their own extreme affliction and deep poverty, Paul says. They were more concerned about missing the mission than they were worried about missing their money. Tonight I have to ask, is that what's inside your heart? If not, we're gonna discover where we can find such a wealth of generosity. Passage comes from this letter that Paul wrote. He's a pastor, teacher, leader, church planter, and he wrote to this group of Christians in the city of Corinth. Might know about this church, if you ever read through Corinthians, they were, those letters, you see this was just, this church was a mess. I mean, unbelievable what they were going through. The things that were happening, the level of, you know, the continued activity of the world that was present within them, as well as their passion, and all along they think that they're the greatest church that's ever existed. I don't think that's you all, but this is who Paul's writing to, and he's exhorting them to continue in their generosity efforts. In Jerusalem, a famine has occurred by several years of significant devastating effect upon that city. And Corinthian church has said, we want to support the church in Jerusalem. I mean, that's where we came out of in the first place. We wouldn't even be here. We didn't even know Jesus if it wasn't for the church in Jerusalem. So they said, we're going to give some of our resources back to them. And so Paul writes this letter to stir up in them the zeal to complete that pledge. And he does so by making known to them, he says in the first part of that verse, chapter eight, verse one, the generosity of the churches in other regions. particularly the generosity of the churches in Macedonia. He's probably talking about Philippi, which we have the letter to the Philippians, but these churches. And through the example of the churches of Macedonia, he's trying to produce in them, in Corinth, the continued zeal to give in a similar fashion. Paul gives three things in this passage that I wanna describe to you. A diagram that's gonna illustrate how grace produces generosity. Then he gives a display of what that generosity looks like. And finally, he teaches us the discipline of generosity. But we're gonna go to a video right now, and I just want you to see this short testimony. And remember, Paul says here, we want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God in another church. So I'm gonna show you a testimony of the grace of God in another place in order to help us see what generosity can look like. So can we run that video now? And I share it with you because I do believe that that video and how that video makes you feel is exactly what Paul is trying to invoke in the Corinthians and in each of us tonight. He starts with this diagram, and we can go to my first slide. It illustrates how even in great affliction and extreme poverty, the abundant joy of God's grace produces an overflowing wealth of generosity to others. That's the basic thesis, what this text is really all about. That even in great affliction and extreme poverty, the abundant joy of God's grace produces an overflowing wealth of generosity to others. If you want to give, not just till it hurts, but even when it hurts, you are going to have to know something profound about God. You see, the people of Macedonia, they were experiencing a severe ordeal. A word in Greek that means excruciating pressure, or the pains of childbirth is what that word means. And it was this testing that was meant to make of them a specimen of tried worth, a refining And meanwhile, they also already were experiencing extreme deep poverty, Paul says. A word that speaks of being beggary. Not just a metaphorical poverty, but literally needing to beg on a daily basis to possibly survive. That's the state of their poverty. You see, many of us didn't sign up for this kind of Christianity. We signed up for protection and abundance, but these young Christians got anguish and poverty. And despite all this, they literally are begging Paul to be able to give to the needs of the church in Jerusalem. Paul says they overflowed in a wealth of generosity. Interesting fact about this word overflowed, and we can go to the next slide. Epiparese, it means to have a remainder. And it's the same word that the gospel writers use to describe what happens after Jesus' miraculous feeding. Not the same word in the readings of today, but John, in John chapter four that we have for the New Testament reading, Jesus is saying, I got food you don't even know about. I'm not even hungry, guys. I'm living on mission in union with God and it's so satisfying that there's this abundance of remainder. What started out as two loaves and five fish and the feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000 ends up in 12 and seven basketfuls of remainder. Where does such abundant wealth originate from? Paul tells us it's because the grace of God has produced in them an abundant joy. So this is our equation. We can go to the next slide. Great affliction plus extreme poverty plus abundant gospel joy equals an overflowing wealth of generosity. Okay, maybe as you see this, you're thinking, okay, this doesn't add up. And actually, that's not even a real equation. I mean, what is that thing over the top of the equal sign? Yeah, I had to make it up, because there is nothing in math that communicates overflow. But I needed something new, because this is new math that somehow affliction, poverty, and gospel joy results in an overflowing wealth of generosity, Paul says. More often than not, we need this new math because we regularly feel more like the Corinthians in this story than we do like the Philippians. You see, in the Corinthians, when they first heard about the need and heard about the mission, they're like, ah, yeah, I'm ready. Sure, we're gonna give, we're gonna sow, we'll go. We're all in, Paul. We got lots in the bank, happy to help. Let us know when you need it. But then, by the time the actual pledge comes along, they probably were feeling more often like, gosh, I don't have any leftovers. Honestly, as a matter of fact, not only don't I have any leftovers, but I'm under such intense pressure in my own life. Things happening in my own job, things happening in my marriage, things happening in my kids, my mental health. I got nothing to give today. I mean, I know I said I'd help, but I got nothing. And so when we hear math like this, we just start to think, how is this possible? Where does this kind of generosity come from? Where do I find extra in my day, extra in my bank account? We need this new math. And Paul puts this new math on display in verse nine. We can go to the next slide. Demonstrates what graceful generosity is gonna look like. Next slide, we have, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor so that you by his poverty might become rich. You see, the church in Macedonia, they got this grace. Corinthians are struggling to believe it. But the Philippi, they were filled with such an abundant joy, and from that it overflowed in what some commentators refer to as a hilarity of giving. That's basically what that cohesion is. You read that and you're like, that's hilarious. exceeding suffering, deep poverty, with joy and somehow it overflows in generosity, a hilarity of giving. And this is the root of all mission, the root of all generosity, the root of all service, wherever it is it's gonna be, whether in the home, out of the home, here or around the world. Gospel joy. Paul starts explaining this grace by showing us that Jesus was rich. Now, if you know Jesus' story, and I hope most of you do, you could say, well, that wasn't true. I mean, Jesus was born to a simple carpenter. When he was born, his parents couldn't even afford a hotel, let alone a hospital. He grew up as a refugee in Egypt. Church tradition holds that his father probably died when he was around. Joseph probably died when Jesus was in his teens. So he had to become the man of the house really early on, taking care of a single mom with at least four kids below him, maybe five, according to church tradition. He didn't have any money. But Paul isn't talking about his worldly riches. See, Paul is talking about Jesus's heavenly assets. He possessed the royal throne of heaven itself. Everything is his. Every privilege, every honor, every element of the material world is his by birthright and copyright. He inherited it all and he made it all. It's all his. Try to just illustrate this. I don't know where I read this, but at one point, a reporter came up to Jeff Bezos and says, what's it like, what does it feel like to be the richest man in the world? Apparently, Bezos says, well, I'm unsure how to explain it, but all I know is that if I want it, I can have it. Well, Bezos, that might refer to a yacht, like a small country, an island. For Jesus, His riches extend to whole planets, stars, the elements of life and matter themselves. Riches beyond imagination. And Paul explains that he gave it all up. And now in this text, he says, and now us, each of us, we are poor. And again, you might go, well, that's actually not really true. We look at our bank account and you measure it up, like compared to 99% of the world, we live with a wealth that probably nobody else has, and yet he says we're poor. Well, he's not talking about material poverty, but Paul is saying you're poor, we are poor, I am poor, beggarly, completely indebted to God because of our sin. Elsewhere, Paul has said that the wages of sin is death. Because of your sin, you've been earning a compounding interest More and more death, a debt unimaginable. I remember talking to my accountant once about this, it wasn't because of me, let me just say this, but asking him about bankruptcy. And he explained to me that bankruptcy isn't something you become, it's something you just are. And so people declare bankruptcy not because they're like, I guess it's time to declare bankruptcy, it's just the state of what you are and it just needs to be declared. I am bankrupt. And so here Paul says that is all of us spiritually before God. We are bankrupt and it needs to be declared. It's not something we are becoming. It's just the state of what we are, poor beyond reckoning. Because of our sin, we are utterly bankrupt, beggarly poor with no way out, only falling more and more in debt until somebody forgives us. And Paul explains to us that Jesus, though rich, gave up his wealth to take on our poverty so that we, though poor, might take on his wealth. And like I said, this isn't solely material. This is ultimately spiritual. He took on all of our debt of death and gave us all of his wealth of love. He took over our infinite loan and gave us his throne. You didn't even buy a lotto ticket. And you just became ruler of the whole universe. And yes, that's supposed to feel like a non sequitur. What? This should be funny. Impossibly funny. How could this ever be so? If you walked home tonight, if I got home, my daughter's babysitting right now, my 13-year-old just says to me, Dad, I just got $7 trillion put into my bank account. What? I mean, how could you not laugh? And what? This doesn't make any sense. That is what the gospel should do to us. It doesn't make any sense, why me? Why and how could he do this? Well, why is easy to explain than it is to understand. Jesus did all this because he loves you. He did this because he loves you. He left his throne, all his riches, he completely emptied himself and he became poor because he wanted you to share his riches with him. He just loves you. But there's more than this. Because he did this for you, he loves you because he loved someone even more than you. He did all of this because Jesus loved his Father. John 14, 31, Jesus says that he will empty himself even further than he already has by going not just from heaven to earth, but from earth through the cross all the way to the grave. And he says, I will do this just as the Father commanded me so that the world may know that I love the Father. He loves you because his father told him to love you, and Jesus is so supremely joyful in God that he possesses a wealth of generosity that enables him to sacrificially love others. This is the generosity flow that you saw in the video that I wanna demonstrate to you today. Jesus emptied himself. I hope this is gonna work. And as he empties himself, it overflows into others. Christ modeled that for us to demonstrate to us the very way of living. He came empty such that now the Father's love is what fills him up. And no matter how empty he is, the fullness of that love flows through him into others on and on and on. And that flow is like nothing you could ever imagine. So however much extreme your poverty might be, however extreme the suffering might be, all that's doing is making you even more capable of receiving the love of God. That's what Paul is talking about. Go to the Old Testament, we can go to the next slide, I think might be a little behind. Keep going. The root of all mission is gospel joy. The generosity flow is a way to describe that. And now Proverbs 11, 24, one of my favorite passages. It reads this way. One gives freely, yet grows all the richer. Another withholds what he should give and only suffers want. What you have up here is my translation. One scatters and gathers, one withholds and molds. That's the principle of the scriptures. This is exactly what Paul is trying to describe. The Philippians, they scatter, and they just get more and more. Others withhold, and all that they have just gets more and more stale. Proverbs says that. Paul is demonstrating it. Jesus lives it out for us. This idea of scattering, it's a really interesting word in Proverbs. I got this thanks to Tim Keller. But the word scatters, it's almost always used as a negative. And so again, the regular translation, one gives freely, but generosity has a different word all throughout Hebrew, and then if you translate it into Greek. Here, this word scatters, it's the word for promiscuity. So it's this extravagant wastefulness that Proverbs is saying. One is promiscuously generous and only gains more while another holds, withholds, and gets poorer. That there is the principle of graceful generosity. The sooner you realize how rich you are in God, and how undeserving you are to be so rich in God, and how easily you can shut it off from your experience of those riches, the quicker you'll go forth to say, I just wanna give it all. I wanna give it all, all that I have, all my time, all my energy, I wanna give it all, that I might experience more of the love of God. What's the only thing keeping me from experiencing more of God? My selffulness. So empty myself. One more day, one more moment, one more time. This phrase is credited to John Maxwell, but I think it represents this so well, we can go to the next slide. God made us to be rivers, not reservoirs. Brothers and sisters, we are stingy because we are stagnant. Trying to live off old bread. When if we will just give him our lunch, back to the feeding of the 5,000, he'll feed the whole lunch line. Two fish, couple loaves, he feeds all of them. Every one of us can do that. The little boy in that story, We have a chance once again to jump into that and not miss the mission. Our verse today shows that happy people, joyful people, gospel joyful people are generous. And it's a gospel joy that produces that overflowing wealth of generosity that the world needs. And such joy only comes from receiving, grasping, drinking in the gospel of grace of God. When you are supremely joyful in the gift of God and Jesus, you will never be surprised by the hilarity of the generosity that flows out of you. It will become the regular activity. Now let me close with Paul's final instruction on the discipline of graceful giving. So here's the playbook, at least here in Philippians. There's others, lots more. I'd love to keep talking about this, because he goes on in the next chapter and he talks more about it. We got it all throughout the scriptures. But for the playbook, we can go to the next slide. Paul says this. Next one, sorry. Give according to your means, unless when especially happy you give more. So look at verse three. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord. No amount of compulsion can produce this kind of generosity. The fact that your pastor tells you to do it, or some missionary gets up there and tries to twist your arm, or I come in here, try to cast a vision for you about church planning, no. You'll never be, compulsion will never produce this type where, in pain and poverty, you're willing to give everything. It's joy that does that. It must be a spontaneous volcanic eruption of gospel joy. And what it will look like is careful, calculated determination of the means that you have to give. They gave according to their means. Do you know what your means are? Real practically, if you haven't ever kept a budget, If you're not managing your budget, you're not going to know what your actual means are. But the clearer and the stronger and the stricter you can become in actually understanding your means and even growing and learning those means, do you know you can actually donate real estate property to a nonprofit while still holding it in possession of your own? Maybe you didn't realize that. Maybe you have a rental home that you've been Honestly, kind of like just getting rent from, but you never thought, well, wait, I can donate the rental home and all that income then becomes tax free and can just go to the kingdom right now. I'm just using examples of things. It's like, wow, I actually can get involved into my own finances to figure out what actually are my means. Paul is here telling you to budget, he's telling you to keep track, all your future expenses, all your anticipated incomes, and then determine what's in your means to give. And then at times, give beyond your means. Not out of a foolish spree of just giving, but out of joyful faith. That you take radical steps. That story where she just, she didn't have any extra income, she'd put away, how long did it take her to put $5,000 away? And she said, okay, I'm giving it all away. I'm gonna trust God to give me the car when I need it. Second, second part of just the playbook. Give to be a member of the community of care for the saints. This is really interesting. But Paul says that the Macedonian church begged for the grace of this mission. I'm gonna quote one of my favorite movies, Nacho Libre. I don't know if you know it. But Nacho says, don't you want to see the little taste of the glory? Don't you want to see what it tastes like? That's what the Philippian church is like. I want to see what it tastes like. Get me in this mission. Brand new Christian. I only got like 15 cents. But let me in, Paul. Get me in this game. Please let me be a part of this. These Christians, Paul says they begged him for the grace of the koinonia of diakonos, of the saints. Interesting, you know that word koinonia? It means community. So they begged to be able to give, to have this fellowship of the service of the saints. Like, I wanna be a part of that. 2 Corinthians 9.7 says, each one of you must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. They're begging to participate in this opportunity because they know, and Paul in chapter nine of 2 Corinthians is talking about the Philippians, they know that God loves a cheerful giver, that there's this unique fellowship that they have as they enter in and give in this way. Did you know that that phrase, God loves a cheerful giver, that's the only time in the Bible that that phrase exists. What? God is love, we got that. God so loved the world, we got that. But where it says God loves blank. It's the only one. And what is it that God loves? He loves a cheerful giver. If it's the only place that you're gonna find that, that's something we wanna underline and think through. When you think about what God loves, I love my daughters. That shapes who I am. I love my wife. I love the Golden State Warriors because I love Steph Curry. That tells you something about me. The minute I say that, I don't know what it might be for you. You love your car, you love your dog, you love your mountain house. That tells us something about you. And here we see God loves a cheerful giver. And the Philippians understood that. They wanted to be a part of that fellowship. They want to be immersed in that love that God has for cheerful givers and that God has for his saints. They wanted to be in that flow, in that fellowship, in that koinonia, that's the koinonia of this flow that Jesus modeled, that then all of his people now come to join in and get in that same kind of fellowship. I want to be in that space, in the space of what God loves. So give to be a part of that, a member of that, member of that kind of communion. Lauren asked me as we were driving up here, Andrew, why are you talking about giving? I thought it was about mission. And if you look through the Bible, most, probably like, I don't know, I'm gonna make up a statistic here, but my guess is 99% of people's participation in the mission of the church is through giving. It's actually through your money, even in the Bible. Paul writes here to the Corinthians, he wasn't necessarily saying all of you go out there, everyone should go to Spain, everyone should go to Jerusalem, every one of you should go be missionaries, he doesn't say that. He says you can participate in the service of the saints by actually giving of your funds. I think it's appropriate for us to think through joining the mission becomes a real way as we sacrificially offer all of ourselves. And that's what gets to the next point. Third thing, final thing on the playbook, give unexpectedly your whole self to Jesus. Then your wealth will flow to his people. Paul says it was unexpected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord, and then gave themselves to the mission of Paul. When you give your whole self to Jesus, you will be free to give your whole wealth to his people. So if you're struggling to be generous, let me tell you this, you don't have a resource problem. You have a relationship problem. It is your union to Christ, it is your experience of his love for you that will enable you to so freely give of all that you have. If you're holding back, it's not just because you're just worried about the future, it's because you're not trusting that Jesus is gonna take care of you. So rather than just looking to the future and counting all your dimes and pennies and trying to figure it out, you turn backwards into the relationship. And you let that gospel joy begin to fill you and suddenly you will find, whoa, I'm feeling more generous. Honey, I think we should give a little more here. Maybe we should go back and take care of the kids on Sunday mornings for another six months. I was thinking we had to give up on that because I didn't have anything left. But when I turned back to Jesus and I realized that he's enough, he will fill me up, he's going to keep flowing, I don't need to worry about the future. He's going to take care of that. What do you want to be wealthy in? Paul says these Philippians, despite their pain, despite their poverty, had a wealth of generosity. You may never, most of us may never, although if we go to a different country, we would be considered wealthy, but at least by our neighbor's standpoint, maybe most of us will say, I never would call myself wealthy. But you can be wealthy in generosity, the real wealth that matters. The Church of Macedonia, for them, missing the mission was far more distressing than missing out on their money. How about you? Have you given your whole self to Jesus? And is that resulting in a hilarity of generosity in your life? I hope I'll get a chance to return someday, maybe do a Sunday school class or be able to talk more deeply about some of the specific ways that now generosity needs to propel us out into the world. I'll just give a few hints to this. The needs here in our own city are growing astronomically. across our own country and around the world, but in just the Charlotte region, due to immigration, birth rate, the declining spirituality of the next generation, the next 30 years will see the greatest gospel opportunity in American history. As more people come to the US, more kids are born, and as fewer and fewer families are raising their kids in the gospel, the needs for gospel witness It's just getting beyond anything we imagined. Millions and millions of kids who are gonna merge into the next generation and the next generation are growing up not knowing about this love. More than any other time in American history, there is a gospel need. And that's to say nothing about the three billion people across the planet who don't know a single Christian or have access to a single church. And God is bringing many of these people from around the world to Charlotte, whether it's on college campuses or just new residents. The city is projected to grow by almost two million people over the next 30 years. And most of them are going to be living in Harrisburg. I'm sorry to tell you guys. If you look actually as the city is talking about where these residents are moving to, it's Harrisburg and Concord and Cabarrus County, it's Lincoln County, it's Waxhaw. Growth beyond anything you've been saying, many of you probably like, I can't believe how much our town has changed. And if you statistically see what's happening and where are they coming from, they're coming from the Northeast. I'm sorry, I'm a northerner, so you're gonna have to get used to us. Northwest, California, and international. Many, most of these places are people who are not Christians, who don't know Jesus. And they're moving to our city. And we can either fight that and say, gosh, so much traffic. And they drive like crazy people. And you go on and on. Or you can say, God is bringing them to our doorstep. I'm gonna have to wait a lot longer in traffic, and I'm gonna be uncomfortable about such and such and such and such, but you know what, Jesus? I'm gonna turn to you, and I'm gonna trust of a wealth of generosity, and maybe you're gonna allow us to take some risks, to do some things, even in the midst of our poverty. I know a little bit of what this last year has been like for this church, even in the midst of our own pain. Might there be a unique opportunities for generosity of new churches just down the street, new churches in other parts of the city and around the world? just to keep up with the same spiritual climate that's in Charlotte right now, over the next 30 years, we will need to plant 1,750 churches. When you have two million people, most of whom don't know Jesus, and many churches that are declining, that's the real data. 1,750 more churches will need to be planted. The evangelical church has only planted 150 churches in the last 30 years. So just to give you a sense of like why the presbytery is asking me to come and help and just try to figure out what can we do to see there be more gospel witnesses to join in this communion of the service of the saints. We have a chance to enter in a unique moment in our time, in our day and age. These are the days where God's people are invited to join in and emptying themselves for others so that God might overflow them through them to the world. What's blocking your heart from this kind of gospel joy and infinite generosity? Let's turn to Jesus again today. Let's let that relationship to him and the experience of that gospel send us forth with that type of joy and giving. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we thank you that even as we come to the Lord's table, so glad we get to take communion today. There's no better picture. Sure, we can see it and get emotional when we see this video of this woman getting a car, but oh God, it is here at this table that we ultimately see how you became poor so that we might be made rich, how you took on our sin debt so that we might have your infinite love poured out into us. Jesus, thank you for loving the Father more than anything else. Thank you for coming and rescuing and saving us. Fill us now, even as we partake of this supper, and as we go forth into the world with this type of overflowing joy in you, that we might live generous lives with each other, with our families and friends, with our community and church, and with the world at large. And may you, Lord Jesus, get all the glory. Come, Lord Jesus, establish your kingdom today. In Jesus' name, amen.