The Strangest of Statements

This transcript has been automatically generated

Uh, during this month of November on the pursuit of happiness, and I have been trying to discover in the New Testament some of the main ways in which the writers there say that we can find happiness for ourselves. I’ve been assuming all along that everyone is trying to chase this very elusive prey. And in fact, I read an article only this week in a popular magazine about it, in which the writer came to the conclusion that it was almost hopeless to try to find happiness, because no sooner had we thought we had found it, closed our hands upon it, it was so fragile it was broken and gone. Now, I think it is true to say that the New Testament does not tell us to pursue happiness just like that. What it does tell us to do is to pursue the things that will lead to happiness.

I was having a discussion group with a group of people yesterday, and one was complaining about how difficult it was even for a Christian to like everybody, to like his neighbours. And he said about certain people he was trying to help, I can only go back to God and cry to God to give me love for them. Now in a sense I think that may be bad advice. It’s not always right to go to God and ask him to give us a certain feeling for a person. It would be better sometimes to act to those people in a neighbourly way as the Christian commandment tells us to do.

And then we may find to our surprise that the feelings of love and compassion come following on behind very quickly. So it is over this matter of happiness. We shall find happiness following us very quickly if we obey the instructions and commandments of the New Testament in the passages we’ve been looking at during this month. Now the phrase, you probably all guessed, guessed already what it is that I’m going to look at today, is in verse 35 of Acts 20, in which Paul reminds his listeners of words of Jesus. And Jesus had said, happiness lies more in giving than in receiving.

Or in the more familiar translation, it is more blessed to give than to receive. I take it that all of us here would accept that happiness comes through receiving. We don’t need to be taught that. The world can teach us that very well. It isn’t only children who like receiving things.

We all like receiving presents and possessions. We all like receiving the love and gratitude and affection of other people. We all like receiving rewards and increases in salary. We all like receiving things in this life, and in small ways and in big, it makes up a great deal of the happiness that we have. But I don’t need to say this.

There are many shrewd people in the world who know this perfectly well without being Christians, that it’s only a little, not a lot, of what you fancy that does you good. The moment you have a lot, somehow it seems to cloy. It doesn’t need a Christian to get up in a pulpit and say that the joy of eager anticipation of something that I’m working for, maybe for several years, when I actually achieve it, somehow doesn’t seem to be the thing I was expecting. It doesn’t need a Christian to say that.

But the Christian has a positive command to go by, and here it is from Jesus: Happiness lies more in giving than in receiving. And this is going to be our subject today. If you’re a Christian and you want to be happy, then you’ve got to learn to be a giver. I think it would be fair to say that there are 2 great discoveries that we make when we commit our lives to Christ. The first, that I’ve talked about often and I’m not going to stop on today, we discover that God is a giving God.

It would be fair, I think, to say that most of our friends who are not Christians regard God as someone who wants to take Almost to spoil, almost to have his pound of flesh from us the moment we come into his orbit.

The glorious discovery we make when we commit our lives unreservedly to the Lord Jesus Christ is that the God we have to deal with wants to bless us, not to take but to give. He tells us to open our mouth wide that he might fill it. That’s a great discovery. Discovery to make, that God cannot understand why we are so feeble in our intercessions, why we ask for so little. He’s a God who wants to give.

But the second discovery we make, and it’s sometimes quite a long time before a Christian makes this discovery after he’s first come to know God through Christ, the second discovery we make is that God’s children have to go into the family business. That is to say that if we are going to follow Jesus Christ successfully, we have got to become great givers too.

Now I’m going to address these remarks in the first place to those of you who have already committed your lives to Jesus Christ either recently or a long time ago. I have for you today a special promise, a special treasure. I’m going to keep it to the end of my talk, but I’m going to be quite certain that I get there. Because I have something for you from the New Testament which I think is very special for a Christian to know.

But some of these things that I’m going to say this morning are also for those of you who are still unconvinced and uncommitted to the Christian cause.

I think sometimes as you listen to these talks on Tuesday, you may be able to get an idea of what it will mean when you take the plunge and become a Christian.

Now I hope that you won’t think from what I’m going to say that when you become a Christian you have to do a lot of things for God. What I am really trying to say is that when you become a Christian God will start to do a great many things in your life and one of the things he will do is to insist upon your becoming a generous giver.

The Bible never appeals to the uncommitted person and the unbelieving person, please mark this, to give, only to receive.

What the Apostle Paul would have felt like if he’d gone down some of our streets and seen some of the advertisements appealing to the outsider to give to churches, I don’t know. I think he’d have been very amazed, very amazed at those thermometer devices urging people to drop their pennies in and keep the church going, very amazed at some of those notices to save our spa by contributing to the jumble sale with our old clothes. Poor old God, we’ve got to keep him going. What an astonishing picture these notices very often give, don’t they, of a church that is decaying and dying and of a God who doesn’t care. No, the New Testament writers never appeal to the outsider to give to them.

Then let us get straight on to it. Now there are 2 things that giving will mean for a Christian. It will first of all be a matter of principle. And if you have your New Testament open at Acts 20, I’d ask you to look at it again because it does seem to me quite astonishing the way this most moving speech ends. I asked Tony Holden to read the whole speech because I suppose it’s one of the most magnificent speeches in the Bible, and yet it seems to end in an astonishing anticlimax.

Having said to these Christians, I’m going to commend you to the word of God and to his grace, grace, he then starts to talk in a very down-to-earth way about giving, about working hard, about stewardship, if you like. It seems an astonishing anticlimax. It spoils the whole effect of his address, if he ever made an address to give an effect, which I’m sure he didn’t.

And I want you to notice about this appeal that he makes for money, that he does not appeal that they should give to him. On the contrary, He says, I have not wanted anyone’s money or clothes for myself, and all know that these hands are mine. And the impression that that gives is that he actually lifted up his hands as he spoke. You see, these hands are mine. And they could see the marks of the needles doing his tents night after night.

He says, I haven’t asked you to give to me, and I’m not asking you to give to me now. He’s not making an appeal that his missionary journeys all the way through to Jerusalem be backed by the giving of the Christians from Ephesus.

Nor, do you notice, is he asking the world to give to the church, which we, I’m afraid, sometimes give the impression of doing. He is asking the church to give to the world. He says to these Christians, I want you to go back to your work and to work even harder, to make your fortune if you are able to do so. That you may give to those who are weak and needy.

Now I think that that is remarkable teaching.

He tells the elders to go back and to do their work of spiritual oversight but he never imagines that doing work, spiritual work, full-time work as we sometimes call it, is the only work that a Christian could do. He says to the others, go back and work hard that you may have money in excess of your needs to give to those who are weak.

I think it is true to say that Paul very much warned people about the love of money, but although the apostle often says, don’t love it, he never, repeat, never says, don’t despise it.

He does say, I mean, don’t despise it. He never says, don’t regard it as something of no value. Because Paul saw that money, LSD, what the northerner calls brass, is absolutely essential in spreading the kingdom of God.

And he says to the Christians here, you ought to work so hard that you have enough for your families and enough to give for the spread of the gospel.

So his first advice is very down to earth. It’s a matter of principle. Lest anyone should misunderstand me, you may think that I’m saying if a person gives, that person is a Christian. I’m not saying that. What I am saying is that if a person is a Christian, that person will give.

A rather different matter. You see, this is a matter of principle and not of impulse.

I would not want wholly to despise all impulse giving, but I’m absolutely sure that Christian giving, the giving of a Christian disciple, cannot be by impulse mainly. You know what I mean by impulse giving: the giving that is the result of a missionary sermon in which some tremendously courageous missionary comes back from the far bush and with great exhortation and many wonderful storeys manages to wheedle out of a congregation more than they imagined that they were going to give. That’s impulse giving.

Or the amount of money that we put in the box when we see the picture of a little naked baby with an extended tummy, and for a moment we feel compassionate at the fact that this child goes hungry. That’s impulse giving. Nor is it the giving that comes to us in impulse as we go around a gay summer fete. And have a go at a number of the things that are put before us. That again is impulse giving.

And nor is giving a matter of principle if it is the result of a luxury public dinner. That is impulse giving. And I know that I speak to some church treasurers here when they will support me when I say that giving that comes from impulse always has written into it the law of diminishing returns. That is to say, ultimately it fades away.

Sometimes there will be special appeals and moving incidents that will cause a Christian to give by impulse, and that is not wrong. God forbid that I should say that. But what is quite clear here and in the rest of the New Testament is that for a Christian, giving is a matter of principle.

I want you to turn, if you will, to the second thing For this morning’s talk, I have only 2 things to say. The second thing in 2 Corinthians chapter 9, page 475 of the New Testament in your pew. 2 Corinthians chapter 9, and here is the great verse that I want to give to some who’ve never perhaps seen it before.

Verse 8: Now it may be that a Christian says to me, even with a touch of exasperation, well, it’s no good, I cannot do it. I cannot be a generous giver, I can only give a very little because I’m completely committed at the moment.

I cannot make ends meet as it is. Now I’m going to suppose that that is a literal matter of fact. I’m going to suppose that I’m talking to a Christian who, as a literal matter of fact, can only afford a very little and cannot give anymore.

Then to him I want to say that giving according to the New Testament is not only a matter of principle, it is always a matter of promise. It’s not only a matter of work, it’s a matter of faith. And you’ll find that in this glorious promise, a promise that was hidden for me for many years under the translation of the Authorised Version. I remember going into a Christian office in London where this little verse was printed on a text card that hung from, hung from the telephone box. In the Authorised Version it makes a very nice promise but it never said anything to me: God will make all grace abound to you so that you, having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.

A lovely promise. It doesn’t really carry very much of a promise and a punch.

But then I got a Revised Standard Version or a New English Bible And I noticed that it had to do with material things. Verse 8: God is able, you are not able, you are not able to give anymore but God is able, to provide you with every blessing in abundance, and that is material blessing, so that you may always have enough of everything and may provide in abundance for every good work. Now I would be bold enough to say that this to me is one of the most exciting verses in the New Testament on practical Christian living.

It was an eye-opener to me, and it has been ever since, that God is able— I am not able— to provide me with sufficient material blessings in my particular circumstances that 2 things may happen. One, I may have enough for myself and those dependent upon me, and secondly, I may have enough to be a generous and an abundant giver. That is what he says. He does not say, you will be able to do this, he says, I am able to do this for you.

And to use the lovely picture of verse 10, he is able to give you bread for food, that is bread to eat, and seed to scatter. That is God’s desire, his loving desire for every Christian in this church and every Christian in his kingdom. To give me bread to eat, that means he will supply my daily bread and that of my family, and also to give me seed to scatter on the waters. That’s what he wants to do.

You might say, I suppose, that verse 7 gives a picture of God’s ideal giver.

He gives thoughtfully. Everyone must do as he has made up his own mind. This is a personal matter. It is not a matter of rules, it is a matter of my own mind. I am to give thoughtfully, a matter of principle.

He is to give voluntarily, not reluctantly or under compulsion, the second phrase. He is not to give because it’s the order of the day, because everybody is doing it, because the vicar is, um, getting very eloquent at the stewardship dinner. He is to give voluntarily.

Thirdly, he is to give cheerfully, and the Greek word there is hilariously. It is the actual word that brings hilarious into the English language. He is to give hilariously. You see, Paul says exactly the same thing here. This is the secret of happiness, one of them, a great one.

Now I do want you to put these 2 together because it seems to me they make such a remarkable balance. And Paul is always a balanced teacher. On the one hand, he urges the young Christian to work hard and to earn a fortune. He doesn’t tell him to despise money. He says, make money not to keep it and to use it for yourself, but to spread it to the needy in the world.

And there will always be needy. Reading a magazine that was sent to me on my desk this morning, It says that half the world today is hungry and that the chief cause medically discovered for death in Europe today is overfeeding. Well, I don’t know if that’s true, but if it is, it’s rather a shattering connection of facts, isn’t it?

But it’s not only a matter of work, it’s a matter of faith. And this is where I want to raise your faith today if you’re a Christian. I want to raise your faith to grasp Verse 8. I want you to believe as you go out of church, you Christian, that God is able to provide you with enough to do both these things. And what joy that will bring to you.

Actually, if there isn’t time now to go into it, you’ll see at the end of this chapter something of the harvest that scattering the seed will bring to you. It’ll bring the harvest of thanksgiving to God, verse 11. People will thank God because of what you have done. It will supply the wants of those who need, verse 12. That will satisfy you and bring great happiness.

It will prove the reality and sincerity of your faith, verse 13. Under the test of this service you will glorify God by your obedience.

And it will draw toward you the love and prayers of many people whom you help, verse 14. They will long for you and pray for you because of the grace of God in you, in you. And best of all, what about verse 15? It will make you a little bit more like God himself. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift.

God gave on the first Christmas day, he’s given ever since. He’s given down history, he’s given in your life, he never ceases to give. That is his ambition for every child of his. It’s a matter of principle and a matter of promise. He asks it of you, he promises it for you.

Happiness lies more in giving than in receiving. Let us pray.