Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

Welcome to the second and the final week of a little series called Money Talks. We’re talking about money. Straight up, in-your-face, gut-level honest truth about money. That’s what this series is all about.

Contrary to what we usually think, money is not an inanimate object. Money can talk. In fact, your money talks a lot. Last week, we saw how our money likes to tell our secrets. All those things that we would rather keep buried deep within our hearts…our money tells those secrets.

Today, we’re going to crank up the intensity even more. Your money doesn’t just tell your secrets. Your money reveals your commitment. Let’s pray, and then we’ll get into week #2 of Money Talks.

If you’re committed to something, your commitment will be tested. Your response to that test reveals if you really have a commitment or if you have something less.

For example, our very own Brian Morrissey is a fan of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The last time I checked, the Buccaneers record is 1-8. I’m sure that a lot of Tampa Bay “fans” have jumped ship during this rough season.

But Brian still wears his Tampa Bay hat. He still walks around proudly sporting his Buccaneers jersey. And I’ve made fun of him for it, because while his Bucs are 1-8, my Colts are 9-0. Undefeated baby. Took down the New England Patriots last Sunday night. It was awesome!

I take every opportunity I can find to remind Brian that his team has won one game. My team hasn’t lost one game. But here’s what I’ve discovered…Brian’s commitment to his team hasn’t wavered. He told me that he doesn’t care what their record is. He still bleeds red and pewter. He takes his licks. He takes all the ribbing and he still remains firm in his commitment to his team.

You don’t know if you’re truly committed to a team until they have a rotten season. That’s what separates committed fans from those who just jump on a winning bandwagon.

In the same way, you don’t know what your commitment to Jesus is until it is tested. Until you endure a tough season. Until things get hard. Until you run into a command from Jesus that you don’t want to follow.

That’s when you see whether you have a commitment to Christ or convenience. If you’re committed to convenience, then you’re going to bail out. But if you’re committed to Christ, you’ll stand strong.

One of the greatest commitment vs. convenience tests is money. Jesus gives some very direct teaching about money…teaching that is hard. Teaching that a lot of us don’t like.

Money is a filter that separates people with a true commitment to Jesus and people who are committed to their own convenience. We want people to believe that we’re sold out to Jesus. We’re 100% committed. But money talks. It reveals the condition of our heart and the level of our commitment.

We’re in 2 Corinthians 9 in this series. Today we’re going to pick it up in verse 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.

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

Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ,

and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you,

because of the surpassing grace God has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:10-15, NIV)

This is a longer passage, so we’re going to take some time to unpack it. There is some incredible truth about money in this Scripture.

In verse 11, the Apostle Paul writes, “you will be made rich in every way…” Sweet! Did you know that was in the Bible? That’s awesome! That’s my new favorite verse! Keep reading.

“so that you can be generous…”

If God has made you rich, He has done so for one, and only one, reason. So you can be generous.

Some of you are thinking, “Well, I’m off the hook then. God hasn’t made me rich. I might be a lot of things, but rich isn’t one of them.”

How many of you own a car? At least one car. You’re among the 7% of people in the world who have that luxury. 7% of people on this planet own a car. There are a lot of people in this room who own 2, 3, 4, or even more cars. Not to mention trucks, boats, motorcycles, etc.

Did you know that, worldwide, the average annual income for a person is $7,000? According to the Department of Health & Human Services, the poverty line in America for one person is designated at $10,830. Think about that. The average person in the world lives nearly $4,000 below what is considered to be the poverty line in our country. Anybody feel rich yet?

We could go on, but you get the point. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. I’m just trying to give you a proper perspective. Don’t give me the, “I’m not rich” argument.

We are incredibly blessed. We’re just a few days away from Thanksgiving, and we all have a TON to be thankful for. Almost every single person in this room is rich beyond what most people in our world can even dream of.

The Bible says that if God makes you rich, He does so for one reason: to make you generous. If you are rich and not generous, you are living in direct contradiction to the will of God. Living in contradiction to God’s will is the very definition of sin. So to be rich and not generous is to live in constant sin.

Now, look at what comes next in this verse. “on every occasion…” “You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion…” (2 Corinthians 9:11a, NIV)

If God made you rich, then He did so to make you generous on every occasion. In other words, any time the opportunity presents itself. A godly person lives on constant watch, always looking for an opportunity to be generous.

Now, here is where the excuses can spread like wildfire. “I am generous. I’m generous with my time.” That’s great. That’s not what the Bible is talking about here. When you read this in context, it’s painfully obvious that the Bible is talking about money. I’m glad you’re generous with your time. God has called you to be generous with your money, too. Quit trying to explain it away.

Another excuse - “Well, you said to watch for opportunities to be generous. I just don’t see a lot of opportunities.” What exactly do you think this is (hold up offering plate)? It’s not a Frisbee and it’s not used for skeet shooting. This is a weekly opportunity to demonstrate godly generosity.

I’m not suggesting that the church is the only place to be generous. Godly generosity extends into every area of your life. The church isn’t the only place to be generous…but it is the place to start. If you are going to live a life of godly generosity, it starts here in the Body of Christ.

Check out what the Bible says in Galatians 6. “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” (Galatians 6:10, NIV)

We do good to all people. We are generous in all areas of our lives, but this verse tells us that God’s church gets preferential treatment. The church gets our first and our best. That is a picture of Biblical generosity.

It starts with the tithe. The Biblical benchmark for generous giving is 10%. Returning 1/10th of your income back to God. Last week, we noted that the average Christian gives about 2.5% of their income. That is woefully below the godly standard of the tithe.

If ACC is your church, then you need to be bringing a tithe or beyond every week. Like we said last week, you can’t claim to love our church if you are just using our church. If you encounter Jesus here, if your kids encounter Jesus here, if God is doing something in your life because of this church…bring the tithe. It is one of the most tangible ways you can thank God for what He is doing in your life through our church.

But here comes that convenience vs. commitment thing again. Some of you aren’t willing to take that step and start tithing. You’re quite content to sit here and take and take and take, but never give anything generous in return. You don’t have a commitment to our church. You are here out of convenience.

And, since you’re living in direct opposition to God’s Word, let me push down even harder. You don’t have a commitment to Jesus. You are connected to Him by sheer convenience. If you were committed, you would obey Him and live generously toward His church.

Jesus puts it so simply. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21, NIV)

Your money reveals your heart. It reveals the secrets of your heart. It reveals the commitment of your heart.

Using Jesus’ formula, if you want to see how committed you are to Jesus, you simply need to look at your checkbook. Your money talks loud and clear about how deep your commitment to Christ really is. I know that it doesn’t sound spiritual to use something like money to gauge your commitment to Jesus…but I’m not the one who came up with the formula. This is straight from Jesus Himself. And it’s one of the hardest things He ever said.

Now, if you think I’m up here just trying to solicit money, you’re wrong. Anytime I preach a series on generosity…anytime I mention the word tithing…somebody thinks that I’m just trying to pad our church’s budget. They think I’m fishing for a raise.

Look…we’re not in desperate financial straits. God has blessed us. And as for me…I’ve been here almost four years. You know how many times I have failed to receive a paycheck? Zero. It hasn’t happened one time.

That’s because God bankrolls us. Jesus is our CEO. We’re taken care of. I’m not preaching so hard about this because we just so desperately need your money. I’m preaching passionately because money separates commitment from convenience. Jesus is not interested in a church full of convenience seekers. He wants a church packed with people committed to Him. And He told us that money is the most tangible thing we have to measure our commitment.

Let’s go back to our text in 2 Corinthians 9. Verse 13 says, “Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.” (2 Corinthians 9:13, NIV)

Did you catch this phrase? It jumped off the page at me this week. “the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ.”

It’s one thing to confess Christ. Lots of us do that. We’re not ashamed to claim the name of Christ. We’re a Christian, and we wear that name proudly.

Paul’s point here is that it has to go beyond words. There has to be more than a confession of Christ. There has to be obedience to Christ.

And then he reminds us that part of this obedience is generosity. Money is the one of the most concrete things we have to measure our commitment to Christ and His church.

This church has a long history of generosity. We are where we are today because a lot of people have made a lot of sacrifices over the years. A lot of you have given your lives to Christ as a result of this church. You owe a great debt to the people who gave so sacrificially and generously in the past. There are people in this room who have been given and sacrificed for this church for decades. And we are deeply, deeply grateful to them. Think about it. If you have given your life to Christ in this church, where would you be without them?

Where will the next generation be without you? It’s time for you to make your investment in the Kingdom of God. Your generosity will propel our church forward. People will meet Jesus. Heaven will be more crowded. All because you decided to live generously.

As part of our vision of Connecting, Growing, Serving, we announced a few weeks ago that we are hiring a new, part-time student minister. We don’t have all the money that we need for this, so the only way we can do that is through the generosity of our people. This position is central to our vision and it’s critical for our students. And we are relying on the generosity of our church to make it happen.

But your generosity doesn’t just benefit our church. Whenever I preach a giving/tithing series, certain people will think that it’s just a money grab for our church.

I make no apologies for saying that your generosity should begin in God’s church. The Bible is clear about it. The Lord’s church gets your first and your best. But that’s not the be all and end all to living a generous life.

We are giving you an opportunity right now to be generous in a way that has nothing to do with our church budget. You walked past a board in the foyer filled with opportunities for you to be generous.

Every year, our church provides gifts for families who are having a hard time. If it wasn’t for our church, the kids in these families would wake up to a pretty sad Christmas morning. Take a gift or two off the board before you leave today. Go purchase a gift for a kid that you may never even meet. Through the generosity of our church, these kids will have a merry Christmas. Families in our community will experience the love of Jesus. And it has absolutely nothing to do with putting cash in our church’s coffers.

And you also need to know this. We’ve been calling you out to start tithing. To give 10% of your income to God’s church. You need to know that our church will tithe your tithe. We give away 10% of all the money we bring in to missions. Missions in our own backyard and missions around the world.

When you live generously toward our church, people in our community will be able to feed their families. Our church partners with the Grace & Mercy Outreach Center right here in Amelia. I’m proud that our church is Grace & Mercy’s biggest supporter. We partner with them to help to feed the hungry in our community. Your generosity makes it happen.

When you live generously toward our church, you also help kids learn about Jesus in a life changing way at Woodland Lakes Christian Camp, also right here in Amelia. We’ve had a long partnership with WLCC, and our church is proud to support their ministry.

But your generosity doesn’t stop in Amelia. In fact, it doesn’t even stop at the borders of this country. It extends to Italy, Albania, and India. People in these countries receive an education. They are fed and clothed. And they hear the gospel of Christ…all because of your generosity.

If this was a money grab…if it was all about padding our budget…we wouldn’t be giving our money away. But it’s not about that. It’s about the call of God to live with generosity. And I’m proud to say that our church practices what we preach. Your tithe doesn’t just fund our ministry. It doesn’t just pay our staff. It feeds the hungry, clothes the poor, educates kids, trains preachers, and spreads the gospel around the world. All of that happens when you commit to live with godly generosity and make tithing your money priority in your life.

Now, these are great reasons for us to be generous, but it’s actually not the greatest reason. The greatest reason is in verse 15 of our text.

“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15, NIV)

We said this last week. We can’t say it enough. God is a giver. A lavish, extravagant, generous giver. If God wasn’t a giver, we’d be in a world of hurt. If God wasn’t a giver, He would have never given us His Son.

Our hope, our joy, our very salvation is all because God is a giver. We couldn’t have been more unworthy, and yet God showed us the full depth of His generosity when He gave us Jesus.

For those of you who have heard this two-week series, and nothing has changed…you’re not tithing, and you’re not about to start…you’re going to keep right on using God’s church…you’re going to keep right on living selfishly instead of generously…here’s what I would say to you.

You don’t have to explain yourself to me. You’re not accountable to me. You don’t need to try to come up with some lame excuse to tell me why you’re not going to tithe. You don’t have to explain anything…to me.

You are accountable to God, who is a prolific, abundant giver…who gave you everything He had when He gave you His Son. You get to stand before Him one day and explain why you just couldn’t be generous.

You can tell Him why you couldn’t afford to tithe, but you could afford a 50 inch HDTV. Why you didn’t have the money to be generous, but you still managed to find the money for NFL Sunday Ticket or some other premium cable package.

You can explain to God why generously supporting the body of Christ wasn’t a priority in your life, but a new car was. Why helping your church clothe the poor wasn’t important to you, but your own wardrobe was really important to you. You can explain how you couldn’t help your church feed the hungry, but you could afford to eat out 3, 4, or 5 times a week.

You can just lay it all out before Him. I’m sure He’ll understand.

“Well, you’re just trying to make me feel guilty. You’re trying to guilt me into giving.” I’m just telling you the truth. If you feel guilty about it, don’t blame me. If I hit a nerve, that could be the Holy Spirit trying to knock some sense into you.

The truth is that you are accountable to God for how you handle your money. He is the one that has blessed you, and He is the one who commands you to live generously. And the way things stand right now, a lot of us will have some serious explaining to do when we stand before Him.

But there is another option. You can get to heaven one day and, instead of making excuses for your selfishness, you can look around and see people from Amelia, and people from Albania, who are in heaven because you lived a generous life on earth. You can see how many people you touched. How many lives were changed. All because you made the decision to live generously toward God’s church.

God has given us an indescribable gift. How do you describe a God who sacrifices His own Son for my sin and for yours? How do you describe that kind of God? You don’t. You can’t.

Instead of describing Him, you simply thank Him. You commit your life to Him. You bring everything in your life into submission to Him. You give because God gives. You love because God loves. You serve because God serves.

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ doesn’t just save our soul. Jesus redeems our time. Jesus redeems our job. Jesus redeems our stuff. Jesus redeems our money. When we place everything under His control, that’s when things start to happen. That’s when we see blessings occur in our lives that never happened before. That’s when we see our lives through a completely different lens. That’s when generosity stops being a chore and starts being a privilege. When you truly place everything under Jesus’ control, that’s when your life begins to change.

And this is the starting block for that to happen. Living with generosity toward Jesus’ church. Making the needs of His church a priority in your life. Making your commitment to Him and your commitment to His church a reality instead of just a theory. What happens right now is far more than just passing some wooden plates around the room. It is God’s church standing together as one, saying, “This matters! The church matters! Caring for others matters! The gospel matters!” That’s what is happening right now.

The church only wants my money. Some of you have heard that before. Some of you have said that before. Generosity is highly valued here because it is highly valued by God. And we don’t apologize for that.

But we’re not after your money. We’re after your heart. We want you to give your heart to Jesus. We want Him to change your life. We want you to have an eternity alteration. We want to hang out with you in heaven forever.

Money is just an outward sign of what your heart is really like. That’s why I preach it. That’s why God cares about it. What He ultimately wants is a heart totally sold-out, completely devoted to Him.

And if you’re ready to cross that line and declare that you do belong to Jesus, then this is your time. You can accept the love and forgiveness available through His death. You can be buried in baptism and rise to a new life, just like Jesus rose from the dead. You can leave here today totally free from guilt and condemnation. This is your time. All because of what God has given to you.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: 2 Corinthians 9, generosity, giving, money, Money Talks, tithing