OCT 4 2026 | The Spirituality of Giving S1E3 | Sow What?

I want you to turn your Bibles, if you can, to 2 Corinthians 9:6-15. We're in the final week of a three-week giving series. We've been talking about giving in three different covenantal eras. Told you it was like Taylor Swift. It's the Giving Eras Tour, right? First era was pre-covenant, before the Mosaic Law. Not going to re-preach everything. Go back and listen to it. I've had some incredible response from you all. Just incredible response of people like, "Wow, this has been..." I've been getting put on group text, where they're just saying, "Hey, I just want to lean into this. This is so amazing," to their entire small group, and I'm like, "Wow, this is awesome." So hopefully it has been spiritually formative for you. The whole point of this message here is just spiritual formation, not fundraising I'm not doing fundraising. We're doing spiritual formation, and if the church follows the Bible, you don't really need to do fundraising. You just need to have spiritual people. So hopefully, this is forming you as we're in 2 Corinthians. Before we read that-- Well, actually, let me just finish my last thought. I have a tendency not to finish my thoughts. We had pre-covenant, then we had the covenantal era where you had Moses and the covenant, creating a law that God knew that we could not follow, creating laws to show that our righteousness could not be gained by what you do. That includes giving. But he feathered in commanded giving. You were commanded to give. You had to. If you didn't, you would instill upon you a form of God's displeasure. Let's just say it there. New covenant comes, Jesus pays that price. And now in the New Testament, in the New Covenant, there is no command to give anymore. And we're going to see that here in the 2 Corinthians passage. So the three different eras and the pre-covenant, covenant, and then the new covenant. Before we begin, I want to tell you that I hate instructions. I got a shed this week from Amazon. Right? At least it's not IKEA. It didn't come with a, "Here, put it together with this little thing this big." Like, "Yeah, I can do it, I promise." It's a wood shed because my wood gets wet and I don't want wet wood. You get the point. So I pull it out and it looked like it came from the kingdom of Sumeria 1,500 years before the birth of Jesus. It was not like those cool things. I just got a Starlink. It had three pictures. It was a little guy doing one thing, two things. I was like, "Yes, those are my type of instructions." Three pictures of a stick man doing something, and I can do that. But this was 672 pages with 12,000 bolts. I hated it. And I told myself, because I love my wife, I told myself, I said, "I'm going to follow these instructions because I'm going to put this shed up and I don't want it to fall down." And I got to page two and I gave up. I thought, "I can do this better on my own." Do this better on my own than King Nebuchadnezzar's thing that he sent me in hieroglyphics. And I worked, and the shed now is sitting half done in the yard for three weeks, and I need to get the instructions. And they have to be redownloaded because they've blown away because I left the instructions out there. So I need to download them. My wife said, "I'll do it with you and we're a good team, and we will do the instructions." I want to tell you what, instructions are not a command. There was no command. If you don't follow these, this is going to happen. As we move into the New Testament and we get to 2 Corinthians passage here, I want you to know that this is not a command. It's no longer a command. It's an instruction. But I will tell you, I have found from personal experience recently that when I don't follow the instructions, I end up with half-built sheds sitting in my yard blowing over with Santa Ana winds and actually getting bent and being destroyed because I didn't follow the instructions. And so we are here now, Paul, as of many times, speaking in an instructive manner to you. And you can follow these instructions or you can not follow these instructions. It is not a command. I hope that makes sense. Verse 6, "The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully." It's a powerful passage. Verse 7, "Each one must," circle must, "give as he has decided in his own heart," circle heart. Remember I told you can mark your Bibles up here. This is a mark-up Bible church. "Not reluctantly or under compulsion," that's because the law is gone, "for God loves a cheerful giver." You've all heard this. If you've ever been to a fundraising event, you will hear this verse. Four, God loves a cheerful giver. Verse 8, "And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written, 'He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.'" Verse 10, it's a key verse, "He who supplies the seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness." I want you to go back to verse 10 and circle and. You'll see the word and, and circle all the ands in verse 10. Verse 11, we're going to, "You will then be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God." That's a great landing place for your generosity. Verse 12, "For the ministry of the service is not only supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing in many thanksgiving to God." Verse 13, "By their approval of this service, you will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others, and while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift." I read all that last part, which was a lot. I'm not preaching on that last part because it gets to the main point that I spoke about in the first two weeks is that every gift you give points back to the cross. Your giving always points back to a suffering Savior, a Son of God who was given and was crucified on the cross, and that is the goal of our giving. That when you give, you are giving to replicate, not to pay a price, but to replicate what God did, the free gift that He gave. You could argue that the summation of the entire gospel is God giving. You could argue that summation is based in giving and giving of His Son. And so all giving is based in that. Here's a big idea today. New covenant giving, new covenant after Jesus died, instructs each believer to give generously, purposely, and cheerfully from the heart in response to God's grace rather than under compulsion. You might ask, why aren't you teaching on a passage from Jesus today? I would tell you because Jesus lived under the covenant and the majority of his teaching was covenantal. He did speak of a coming new covenant, but Jesus lived under the Mosaic Covenant, and he followed the Mosaic Covenant and was submissive to it, except when he healed people on the Sabbath, which they had problem with. But he was breaking things in order to renew things and to build things anew. And so as we frame up your thought of giving, I want to frame it up to you that giving is one of the most Godlike acts that you can do in regard to your own personal spiritual formation. The keyword here is instructions. The Bible, Paul has the Bible full of instructions, and I would encourage you that if you follow the instructions, there is a blessing that is attached to following those instructions. Here we go with verse 7. Go to verse 7, a personal decision. This is key. "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." First of all, I looked up if there was an imperative of the must because that would imply that there was a law. That must is in there in the English. It is not there in the Greek. And so when it says to you, what they're trying to say is each one should give as he, her has decided in their heart. Now, this is big. Because before this, the majority of giving under the covenantal law of the Mosaic law was based upon a community being told and commanded upon what they must do. And in the new covenant, we still live in community, but there is a lot more autonomy, and there's a lot more agency as we live as new covenant believers because God's intention is for you to freely give To not give under command, not give under compulsion, and to be able to step beyond what the requirement might have been based on each person's gift. And so the first thing God does here is it takes it from a community, which we do talk about the community, right? But it isn't community, you must do this. It's individual. I want to look at the individuals. I want to have individual autonomy, agency, spiritual formation, where you can now work with God to decide as an individual, not just being told as a community, where you would give your resource, your time, your talent, and your treasure. Now, this models a Holy Spirit who leads us individually. Now we're still corporate, right? We still do not forsake gathering together, it says in the scripture. We're still corporate, but at the same time, this puts it in your court to have that conversation with God. So that's the first thing that comes out of this, is that verse seven, it's a personal decision. Verse seven, each one. So that's really, really key. So it's speaking to you individually. Now, the question is for spiritual formation, is are you having that conversation or is it one you avoid? I have lots of conversations I avoid with God. I don't know about you. Not so much about giving. Sometimes about giving, not so much about giving, but about other things. I just want to avoid a conversation with God. And so part of spiritual formation is every time that you have, or I wouldn't say it's definitively every time, but when harvest comes in every two weeks or whenever harvest comes in, we're not agrarian. We're not living according to, okay, well, the harvest is going to come in in October or September. Whenever you get an income of some kind, to just sit with God and predetermine what you're going to do with that. You have autonomy, but it is a Holy Spirit-led decision. Now continuing on to verse seven, it is really key. It says, "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart." I love that this is not a decision of the mind. Faith doesn't pencil out. Just want to tell you that. Faith doesn't pencil out. Now, I don't think that God would say, "Forego your mind." That the mind and the spirit and the heart, and there's some discussion if the heart is the same as the spirit. You can look at that existentially if you want. But in regard to the heart, we're not throwing out the mind, but it doesn't say each one must give after you have your budgeting meeting with your wife or whoever, or your accountant. And after you have decided that you can do this, and you can do this, and your trip to Cancun is not going to be affected or whatever, then you should decide what you might give based on what you think is prudent. We're budgeting right now as a church. Right? I got an email yesterday. These are some of the early recommendations. Really good recommendations, amazing recommendations. One thing we've always tried to do here also beyond our wise, we have financial people that are so, I mean, just like we have talent on stage, we have financial people that are so amazing. And as they give these recommendations, one of the things I want to make sure is that we're not leading a strategic church. Well, giving is down or giving is up 2.4%, so we better make it 2 point, well, let's do it 2.2% so we can make sure we have a little bit extra. And then we make sure we... It's not what we do. Now, we don't not do that. We do that, actually, we kind of do that. I wouldn't say we do it first. I have a vision of what I think it's going to take. I'm not sure what it's going to cost. I always get a vision, and I throw it to them, and they're like, "Oh, how are we going to pay for that?" So far, so good. But once we do that, we crunch numbers, and every single year since I've been here that I can remember, I could be wrong, and we've had multiple finance committees, multiple elder groups, they've all said, "Let's add a faith component. Let's have a faith component upon what we think our budget is going to be." Now this is the opposite of what I'm saying. This is like, what are we going to commit to believing that it'll come in? But the same thing is true as you're making your decision for what's going to go out, the seed that you're going to sow. And so what I would say is do those numbers, but then in your own heart, you'll find often, and God will do this, that your heart might tug in the opposite direction of your spreadsheet and your mind. I have personally found that. And so the first thing we saw here is that each one, this is an individual decision. And let's go back to the big idea because it's going to show. Go back to your big idea. The new covenant giving instructs each believer, that was on purpose, to give generously and purposefully, and cheerfully from the heart in response to God's grace rather than under compulsion. And so each one must give from their heart. How about generosity is a decision of the heart before one of the mind? The keyword, proorizō, is a Greek word, and that word proorizō says is the meaning means has decided beforehand or has purposely chosen. So when you go to verse seven, it says, "Each one must give as he has decided." That he has decided is proorizō. And proorizō means that this is a deliberate decision. Now, when you think of deliberate decisions, you're thinking a decision of the mind. Make a decision. But this is a decision of the heart. Now, that makes sense because are you saved because you confess with your mouth and believe with your mind? No. You confess with your mouth and believe what? With your heart. Neuroscientists have found that the heart has more neural pathways than the brain. It's interesting. You can go do the research on that. Not right now, you that are online watching. Do not pause. I'm telling you. Get to it in a little bit. Even if I'm lying, it's at least 50%. Just kidding. The mind has the ability to believe. Believe in your heart. If your giving, it's really hard to do this. If your giving is based on your mind, I'm not throwing the mind out, but if the final solution of your decision-making is what your mind tells you, it's not a faith-based decision. Faith-based decisions happen in the heart, and we all know what it is to follow God when our mind is saying one thing, but faith in our heart says the next. And so it's something you have decided beforehand, and so you're making this decision, and it is a purposeful decision that you have made in advance. This is what I'm going to do. Now, what I find often happens is when I make a proactive decision on my giving, the water heater goes out. I'm not going to lie. My water heater just went out. Thank God for a home American warranty. Something happens. Reassess. But God knew that when I purposely decided in my heart, and hopefully he led me. And did he lead you or did he not lead you? Now, once again, this is not a fundraising talk. This is a struggle. I understand that this is a struggle. When you're at home and the numbers aren't crunching, what Pastor Adam said on Sunday morning isn't probably going to push you over the edge, but your spiritual formation might. And as you continue to lean into this over and over again, you will start having a record of God's faithfulness in your life, where he shows up over, and over, and over again. One at a time. And then you know because it is only through that that you begin to learn the voice of the shepherd, and the sheep know his voice. The way you know the voice of the shepherd is that you think you heard him, then you activate and act upon it. You see that he was faithful in it, and you think, "Oh, I've heard this voice before." You also can hear the voice of the enemy. The voice of the enemy, one of his main things is to be a forecaster. He's like the weather, the climate change person just screaming into your life. The climate of your life is changing, and it's always going to be bad. He's going to be telling you over and over again what might happen, and he's anti-faith. This is a decision of faith, and it's a heart decision. Let me tell you the final thing on this point. Guilt and pressure cannot produce the heart Paul describes Guilt and pressure cannot create, cannot hewn the heart of gold that God wishes to build within you because it's antithetical to the freedom of which he's offering when you give. This is a free decision. You don't have to do this. It's a free decision. Everything that you give and that you do, but I told you last week, never give, don't do pressure valve giving. "Oh, okay. I feel so bad. Okay, I'm going to throw $100 here. I'm going to buy pizza for the youth group. Okay, I feel a little better." That's not what we do. That is more on the backside of giving than it is on a proactive giving from the front. So it is not guilt. And guilt and pressure cannot produce the heart Paul describes. Moving back actually to verse six. I'm going to go back a verse. "Sow bountifully and reap bountifully." Now this passage starts... I am going to make an argument here that I think God still sticks to blessing you when you give, and I think he blesses you financially. People have asked that question. I told you we'd get to it. And I think this has been overused. I'm going to do my best to prove this from the scripture because I actually don't like it. I told you I didn't like a few things. I didn't like that tithe can be used for other things besides just church development. Like that bothered me, but I was honest with you about that, right? And I kind of just like all this bad preaching about you give to God and he's going to give you money back. I don't like that, and I haven't liked it. So I kind of just didn't want it to say that. I kind of just like that idea of like you're just going to abound in all righteousness. We're not going to say it's money. We're not going to say it's provision. You're just going to get abound in all righteousness. I think this passage clears that up for us. The first thing I want to do is go to verse six. This is interesting. He says the point. The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. We did some sowing in our garden. We did wildflowers, right? We want wildflowers in the spring. So I go buy the $100 wildflower mix. It's expensive for a little thing. Have you guys noticed? Why do wildflower seeds cost so much money? It wasn't $1,200, but nonetheless, it's expensive. And you're supposed to just go sow them around, right? Just sow them into the thing, and then the birds come and eat them all, whatever. I'll tell you what I didn't do. Man, I really want to keep these seeds because the point is seeds, right? Well, that looks like a good one. You wonder what I did? Ah! Ah! The whole bucket out. Sowed it all. Why did I sow that many seeds? Because I wanted that many flowers. Do you see the point? I'm not saying to be foolish. You got to decide in your own heart, but you don't get more flowers. God just put this into creation. You don't get more flowers by sowing less seed. You get more flowers by sowing more seed. And he said that's the point. The point is this, that might make you uncomfortable, but the point is that whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully, okay? Like I say, we're not talking about money here. We're talking about just a righteous harvest. Let's go to, if we can, go to verse 11. Actually, verse 10. There was an argument before I read this. There was this argument that I actually have leaned towards that in the New Covenant, because there is no command to give the blessing, because he did say, "If you give, I will fill your storehouses." He implicitly says that in the Old Testament. You give, I will give you. And they're agrarian, so when he says, "I will give you seed for your storehouse, and I give you all this," they're thinking provision, goats and grain, right? It is actual provision. And it says that specifically, and if you watch a lot of Christian TV, they're going to live in that Old Covenant, and you're going to hear that, right? The question is, is that still true in the New Covenant? And just because Jesus fulfilled the command that you don't have to give, did he remove the blessing? I have found that every command that I follow, there's a bunch in there I don't need to follow. You know what I mean? Like two turtledoves and things of that nature. But there are commands that he gives about ways to live that if you live them, you will experience rich blessing in your life. So the question I'm going to answer, which people have been wanting to know, is does God promise to give you money because you give him money? I'm going to answer that right now according to this. I'm going to do the best I can. Now, first thing is go to verse six. The point is this, he who reaps bountifully will also sow bountifully. Then go to verse 10. I apologize. "He," that's God, "who supplies," who's the supplier? God. "Seed to the sower and," I want you to circle that and, "bread," if you haven't already, "for the food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and," circle that and, that's three ands, "increase the harvest of your righteousness." Let me stop there. I have a friend on staff. We go back and forth on this because I have been like if we give to God, I've just seen over and over again that he takes care of our physical needs. I've seen that over and over again. And what I think my friend on staff says, Harry- We've had this conversation. We have a few conversations that we go back and forth. What I think Harry has said, and I almost texted him last night, "I'm going to prove to you that you're wrong according to Second Corinthians." He does have a microphone. No, we're not dialogical. He's going to preach while I'm in Scotland, so he can have his point back. You can re-preach this passage if you want. What I think Pastor Harry has said to me is God doesn't promise that. I think he would give some allowance that he might, but he just says he's going to give you righteousness, and it can mean anything. You're going to get this harvest, but the harvest is just going to be blessings, joy, love, peace, like everything hippies like, right? I'm just kidding. Sorry. If I am misrepresenting you, I apologize. And most people have said that, and people who have been burned and seen this done really poorly have leaned on this and say, "Don't count on God to take care of your seed and don't count on God to take care of your bread if you give. He's just going to give you a bunch of righteousness, existential righteousness. I have no idea exactly what that's going to mean, but I can't put a finger on it. It'll just be some cornucopia of God's blessing," which I'm down for, right? But if you can, go to verse 10. "He who supplies the seed," okay, so that's seed. That's a provision. Paul's audience would have understood seed as cash because remember he said last week that if you can't bring all your grain in, turn your seed and your harvest into money and then bring the money. So there was no difference in the agrarian mindset between money and seed. "He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food," what does that mean? That means you have food to eat tonight. You have what you need, your daily bread. Jesus talks about that, okay? Your daily bread. Remember he talked about that. "And bread for food will supply," will supply, that's an imperative, "and," there's another and, that's kai in the Greek, "and multiply your seed for sowing." Stop there before we get to the next and, right? Now, I want you to know that these ands, these kais, in English are called a polysyndeton. A polysyndeton means multiplying ands to connect them all together to add to a thought and to crescendo to a thought. It's not a break in between, he's going to do this, then he won't do this. It's actually adding them all together. So let me show you what he's saying he's going to do. If you sow bountifully, which is verse six, he says you will reap this bountiful harvest. He says in verse 10, "He who supplies the seed to the sower," so you're going to have seed for bread and for food, "will supply Will supply, and that's your second and, the poly sydeton, multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. What God is saying there is if you're a bountiful giver, he's going to do three things. And the and, the kai, adds them all together. It doesn't break them apart. The first thing he's going to do, it says if you sow generously, he will provide you seed, more seed, so that when you go out into your yard, you will have more seed to throw. He's going to give you more provision because you have shown faithful in your giving. He will give you more seed. If you had a farmer who was working for you, and you were dependent upon the food of that farmer, and they were really good with seed, whatever seed you gave them grew, would you not give them more seed? Or would you give seed to the guy that's like, "No, uh, uh." So it says right there, Paul says, New Testament covenant giving in the first and before the poly sydeton, he says he will give you more seed. That means he will give you resource. That is fiscal, that is goats and grain. He says it specifically there. And he says not only bread, he will supply bread and seed so that you can sow more. And here's the second one, and the third and, increase your harvest of righteousness. That's attached to it. You see, it's not just one or the other. So Harry and I-- And I wasn't actually sure, and Harry's actually really allowed me to question this thinking. This is the first time I've ever seen where it's all tied together and you get all three. That when you're generous, it isn't, "Oh, you know what? No, he promised it, but we're in the new covenant now. We're not going to get that anymore. We're just going to have to beg and borrow and steal these days, but you'll get some righteousness on the end, right? We all want that righteousness, right?" No. What he is saying is, "I'm going to give you all three. I'm going to give you the bread for your needs. I'm going to make sure." And just my personal experience, I have never met someone who is generous and faithful, especially in tithing and offerings, that has not been provided for. Now, I'm not saying they don't make the stupid decisions and get credit card debt and all that. That's separate. But I've always seen them provided for. And personally, God has always provided for me. So it says he will give you bread, he will give you more seed, and then the final one is that you will get this aura of righteousness that just surrounds your life. Everything that is righteous. What does righteous mean? Everything that is right. That the streams in your life are not crooked, that the pathways in your life lead to the right places, that you will be like that tree in Psalm 1 that is firmly planted by the streams and is watered and in due season and produces its fruit in due season, and everything that you do, you will prosper. Amen. I'm saying the Bible says that. I have always wanted to be on this train. And if you ask me, and I probably need to change this, my giving is more based on, I'll just be honest with you, it's really based on me being taken care of often than it is about thinking I want to be like God the Father who gave Jesus. And if you would've asked me before, and I'm trying to change this because I need spiritual formation just like you need spiritual formation. If you were to ask me yesterday, three weeks ago, why do you give, why do you tithe? And I still stick to the 10%. We try to do 3% to 4% of offering giving on top of that, and then now I'm trying to add alms giving to the poor on top of that. So this is the model that I see in the Old Testament, and I'm trying to follow that. If you were to ask me, why do you do that, and why have you not stopped doing that, I would tell you because I don't want to lose my blessing. Amen. Because I have experienced this incredible blessing that comes along with living like that. Now, there's different types. There's blessings for your mouth, that talks about how you use your mouth. This is just one of a cadre of different blessings and instructions that you can live according to if you want. The thing I'm trying to do, like I said, is stop thinking about my provision, which he's been very faithful with, but begin to think, "God, I just want to be like the Father. I just want to be like you. Whatever you want, you can have it all." Now, let me just finish this because I only want to do three weeks on this sermon series. It was going to go 72 weeks, but it's just going to be three. And the scripture says you are a living sacrifice. Okay? Your wallet is just a component of a greater sacrifice, that is you. C.S. Lewis says God doesn't want a branch here and a piece of fruit there and a limb there. He wants the whole tree down, root and all. And he wants to plant a new tree that'll spring up into righteousness and bear its fruit in season. Says in the scripture as we get to heaven that the tree of life will always be, there will be no season because the season is always the season. It will always produce fruit, and that's where we are moving towards. God is a multiplier. He's a God that wants to increase and move forward and bless. And so I will say the final thing before I have the team come up, and Harry's going to lead communion today. Your harvest depends more on the seed you sow than the seed you save. I'm going to tell you straight up, that's true. Don't tell me that that works with real seed that God created and doesn't have a metaphor for other areas in our life. Do you sow encouragement into your children? Don't tell me that is not going to be a bountiful. Are you stingy with your words? Real stingy to say I love you. Real stingy to say I'm sorry. Or do you say, "You know what? I'm wrong. I admit I make mistakes. I love you so much." Boom, you're throwing that seed. Everywhere in your life you can see that your harvest depends more upon the seed you sow than the seed you save. And so here's your practical takeaway. Lord, where are you leading me to give? And I'm talking about money. I'm not going to soft sell it. I'm talking about your wallet. Okay? And you don't have to give it here. If you want to find another church, go find another church and give it there. Lord, where are you leading me to give, and what steps will you take to follow? Pray about your giving, decide the appropriate amount to your means, establish a consistent rhythm, and stay responsive to the unexpected needs. We have three things we're doing here. We have five foci of ministry I want to tell you about that we're doing here as a church. And so as you do decide to give into this, the first one that I showed you, our priority is to build a children's building and start a preschool. We want that next generation. The second one is to care for the poor, the oppressed, the aged, and the infirm. We're going to continue to lead into that. We're going to continue to take Mrs. Kim, or Pastor Kim, excuse me, and her army, Pastor Jim, of caretakers, and send them into the assisted living homes and to the hospitals and to the lonely and to the oppressed and to the poor all throughout the world, Downtown San Diego. That is a priority. We're going to put money into it. Number three is church planting and restoration. We want to plant churches. We want to restore churches that have fallen to the wayside. So those are three. I've got two more, but the giving series will be ended. I will share two more with you as we go. We're going to have five foci of where we're going as a church. And I want to tell you this, I want this to be a church that you are so, in the spirit of God, proud of. I want you to be like, "I am so proud that I get to go to a church that is doing these things." You are plan A. Let me just tell you what, without you guys stepping into this, it doesn't happen, right? And you have, and I encourage you to. And if you haven't, and you've been here for a long time, step in. Be a part of what God is doing at Sea Change Church and in righteousness. We're going to have Harry lead the communion. The teams come forward.