Sermon – 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 – Generosity Produces Thanksgiving

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

Sermon – 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 – Generosity Produces Thanksgiving

Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Churches

Stewardship Sunday

Nov. 20, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving! Today we give thanks to God for all the blessings we have received. And I pray that this spirit of thanksgiving will be rooted in your hearts throughout this week. Please give thanks for all of your blessings as you gather with family and friends for a feast this Thanksgiving. All of you are invited to my wife's church in Princess Anne this Thursday at 11 when we will gather for worship and a traditional Thanksgiving Feast. Her church is Crossroads International Fellowship and is located at 11747 Somerset Ave. I hope to see you there. Let pray.

“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)

I have learned a lot about farming over the last two years from the men at our Friday morning breakfast group. Each week I ask them what is happening on the area farms. Recently I have heard about combines and the harvest of corn. I now know that in order to harvest corn in the Fall you must plant it in the Spring. In fact you must plant it around the start of the baseball season so that it will pollinate before the heat of summer. And provided that there is just the right amount of rain, and the harmful nor’easters and hurricanes stay away a bountiful harvest can be expected.

According to the apostle Paul this is exactly how thanksgiving works. You must first plant the seeds of thanksgiving before you can harvest it. And this explains why some people are thankful on Thanksgiving Day while others find it very difficult to be thankful. Those who approach Thanksgiving with a spirit of thankfulness have planted seeds of thankfulness long before. And these seeds of thankfulness have been nurtured, weeded, watered and fertilized. This has allowed them to harvest thanksgiving just in time for this big celebration on Thursday. But sadly, others have failed to plant the seeds of thankfulness, or allowed them to be choked by weeds or burnt up in the sun or blown down in the wind and thus find no thankfulness to harvest at Thanksgiving.

Where do we find these seeds of thankfulness? You won't find them at Lowes or Walmart. They aren't in any seed catalog. The only place to find these seeds is in scripture. So lets turn to scripture and see if we can find out about the seeds of thankfulness that we need to plant to experience the harvest of thanksgiving.

2 Corinthians 9: 6-15 The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. 9As it is written, “He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” 10He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us 12for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. 13Through the testing of this ministry you glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ and by the generosity of your sharing with them and with all others, 14while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God that he has given you. 15Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

The Apostle Paul is writing to the church at Corinth. Corinth is a wealthy trading center. The Apostle is writing them to raise money for the church in Jerusalem which is in trouble. Tensions are rising in Jerusalem as Christians are being persecuted. The Romans are concerned with maintaining order. The church desperately needs help so Paul is accumulating the resources he needs to help the mother church in Jerusalem.

Since Corinth is surrounded by a rich agricultural area he made his appeal to the Corinthians with an agricultural metaphor. Just as corn seeds have to be planted in the Spring for corn to be harvested in the Fall so too must the seeds of thankfulness be planted for thanksgiving to be harvested. And what are the seeds of thankfulness that must be planted. According to these Apostle the seeds which we must plant are called in Greek aploths This word has no single English equivalent. Modern translator usually translate it as “generosity”. But since it is crucial that we understand what it is that we plant in order to grow a bountiful harvest of thanksgiving lets take a closer look at what this word might mean.

Ordinarily, in our culture we do things expecting to get something in return. We work all week and expect a paycheck on Friday. We put money in the bank and expect to get it back with interest. We give to the church and expect a quality worship service and visits from the pastor. This quid pro quo is apparent even in nature. Isaac Newton observed that every action has an equal but opposite reaction. Every act of kindness comes with an expectation that it will be reciprocated.

But the Greek term aploths is the opposite of this. The seed of thankfulness consists of giving without the expectation of receiving something in return. There is no duplicity; rather we act with singleness, simplicity, sincerity, uprightness and frankness. It might be best described with the saying, “what you see is what you get.” Obviously generosity is a part of this. But aploths is much more. It is an attitude where you joyfully give away what you have expecting nothing in return.

This is the attitude that was present in the churches established by Paul. And that is why they were so successful adding new members. Their friends and neighbor saw the changes in their lives when they became Christian. People who would never give something for nothing suddenly changed when they joined the church. Christians were a people who gave without expecting any compensation. According to Paul this attitude of giving without receiving is the seed that grows into thanksgiving.

So how did Paul know this? And what caused the earliest Christians to have a gracious world view where they joyfully gave away what they had? The answers to these questions rests in the very character of God as revealed to us in Jesus Christ. You see God forgives. Our sins are washed away by the blood of Jesus. This comes to us as a gift from God with no strings attached. God gives us salvation with no expectation of receiving anything in return. Aploths is a characteristic of God. And so we who receive so many blessings from God and have received the blessing of salvation without any obligation are motivated to give our blessings to others expecting nothing from them because we are created in the image of that God.

I recently saw a production of Dicken's A Christmas Carol at Salisbury Christian School. You know the story. Ebeneezer Scrooge is compulsive about never doing anything without getting something in return. He won't give to poor and needy. He won't give a borrower an extension on a loan. He won't give his assistant a day off on Christmas, because none of these things would benefit him. But God wanted Scrooge to think in a new way and sent three ghosts to talk with him. That night the Ghost of Christmas Past showed Scrooge how he had received so many gifts that required nothing from him. The Ghost of Christmas Present showed Scrooge how his stinginess adversely affected the people of his day. And the Ghost of Christmas Future showed Scrooge that loneliness and death would be the outcome of his stingyness. Scrooge learned that the only way to be thankful was if he gave without expectation of receiving anything in return.

Just imagine what would happen if suddenly all the Presbyterians in Pocomoke began doing things for others expecting nothing in return. What would people be saying about us? What would they be saying about the God we worship? We wouldn't have enough space in this church for all the people looking for what we have. Remember that each time you give without expecting something in return you are planting a seed of thankfulness. These seeds will grow, and you will harvest a great joy called thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving!