Laws of Prosperity: The New Testament

Luke 6:38. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.’
Mark 4:20. And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’
2 Corinthians 9:6-15. 6 The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7Each 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 for ever.’
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!

Last Sunday we began a series of talks about giving. We started with giving in the Old Testament giving. Today we continue with New Testament giving.

We said that the law did not invent tithing; that it was already practiced among pagan worshipers before Israel became a nation with laws. The law merely regulated how and where the tithes were to be given. Therefore we cannot use the law as an excuse for not tithing.

But we also said that tithing saved Israel from the demonic excesses of other forms of pagan worship. There were no children to be burned, no wives were to serve as temple prostitutes and no eunuchs. The tithe was a sober, mathematically precise manner of giving. This precision is the hallmark of an orderly life, life that is not based on caprice and whimsy. It is not enough to say, “I forgot what the preacher said but it was good.” The practice of tithing helps us to involve the mind in worship and removes capricious and emotional giving which can be disastrous at times.

Tithing then is methodical, precise, a rational mode of worship that is the foundation for an orderly manner of living. There are two fundamental ways in which NT giving differs from OT giving.

1. First, too much method and preciseness in giving can also mean being exacting and calculating, in the negative sense of the term. It is the shield of those who don’t want to give any more than they have to give. These are the people who say to God, “I have given you your fair share; now let me do with mine what I please.”

That is hardly the attitude of one who has experienced God’s grace. We are God’s not once but twice, once by virtue of creation and second by virtue of redemption. We no longer belong to ourselves but utterly and completely Christ’s. It seems to me that we people of grace should do more than the people of the law, not to do less.
The ungrateful does not understand nor appreciate grace. That ingratitude takes him down below the level of the calculating Jew who counts his tithe of cumin. Not only that, it places him below the pagan who sacrifices child and wife to his divinity.
Gratitude distinguishes giving under grace from giving under law. The motive power of the law is fear. Malachi calls those who fail to tithe as thieves. And robbery is a punishable crime. Punishment can only go so far in making a person behave. You know how Filipino drivers behave. They have been fined so many times and yet they never learn.

Gratitude never forgets. If people forget it may be they never really have experienced salvation in the first place. Have you really experienced God’s forgiveness? Have you really experienced being released from Satan’s grip? Have you really experienced deliverance from fear? hopelessness? Have you really experienced healing? If so, how can you be stingy to God? How can you forget?

2. The second fundamental difference between NT giving and giving under the law is this: the tithe is primarily division but giving in the NT is multiplication. Tithe is one over ten. I give to God what I owe to a landlord. It is his share. What I give to God diminishes what remains in my possession. This is the main reason why many who have good intentions fail to deliver. If I have difficulty with ten tenths how can I manage with nine tenths? The NT speaks a completely different language when it speaks of giving. It is the language of multiplication. It is the language of sowing and reaping, or in the language of the entrepreneur, investment and gain.
In Matthew 13, Jesus likens the kingdom of God to seed being sown. If the seed falls on good soil, its harvest is several times-fold the amount of the seed sown. In 2 Cor 9, Paul uses the same analogy. Whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly; whoever sows generously will also reap generously. V 6. “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,” v 10. God will not only increase the harvest; he will also increase your store of seed. In business terms this means not only an increase of profit but an increase of capital.

The NT answers a question posed by economics. Can wealth be created or can it only be distributed? If wealth is finite, for you to get my share is to diminish mine while it increases yours. That is an injustice.

But if wealth can be created, then I can increase my store of wealth without necessarily diminishing yours. This creation of wealth has happened in unbelievable ways within our lifetime. It used to be that wealth is tied up with land and mineral resources. Not anymore. Property is no longer measurable in terms of meters and kilograms. Property is no longer hard but soft. The only raw material of a computer is a small grain of sand that possesses the characteristic of a semiconductor, a material that acts as a gate to open or close the flow of electrons with the speed of light. There is far more wealth in creating software than in making computer hardware. What counts today is creativity of ideas. You don’t even have to invent a completely new product, just improve that one that is already existing. A computer screen that will filter the glare away cheaply. A non-slip cell phone casing. Paper that will degrade rapidly and help in composting. An inexpensive design for healthy and low carbon demand Filipino homes and buildings. In the 60 years since liberation the Filipino jeepney design has not been improved. They are ugly and uncomfortable. They are still made by hand in backyard shops using engines thrown away from Japan. It is waiting for somebody with a good idea.

The words of the Bible are unbelievable. Listen to this: “You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion” v 11. I don’t know how anybody can interpret this other than what it simply says here.

It is God’s intention to enrich his people. Do you believe God is blest by our poverty? Do you believe God is blest by our misery? God may be glorified despite our poverty, despite our misery, despite our sickness but not because of them.
God is honored when his power and goodness is manifested in our lives. God is glorified when we are generous because of the riches he has bestowed upon our lives. God is exalted when we have become givers and not only receivers.

But haven’t we heard this before? Isn’t this OT teaching also? Didn’t God say if we tithe he will open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing there will be no room to receive them?

Yes, of course but the premise is different. God’s blessing is conditioned in the Old Testament by obedience to his law. When in the OT the people failed to tithe, God shut the windows of heaven. Instead of blessing, the people were cursed. Enemies overcame them. Locusts devoured their produce. Famine stalked the land.

We do not hear such curses in the NT. For here the premise is different. The blessing of God in the NT is not conditioned by obedience but by faith. Grace does not operate by fear of the law but by faith in the promises of God.

If Jesus could not perform miracles in Galilee and Judah it was not because people failed to heed the law but because they did not believe. We are poor not so much because we are disobedient but because can’t summon the will to believe. Our failure does not lie in not living up to the commandments but in unwillingness to try so that we can experience the power of faith. When Jesus said, give and it shall be given unto you he was counting on his hearers to demonstrate faith.

Whether it is listening to Jesus’ call to salvation or listening to Jesus’ call to fish, the formula is still the same: by grace through faith. That opens the possibility of wealth open to everyone.

Grace appears to us when we toil all night and there is no fish. Experience tells us that when the moon is full the fish won’t be attracted by the light of our lamps. Not last night, not tonight. Not tomorrow night, And certainly not in broad daylight.

But Jesus calls us, “Children, come to the deep.” Grace always comes to us as a challenge. In salvation we accept the challenge to put our faith in the finished work of Christ upon the cross and say, “He died for me.” In the miracle of provision we put our faith in the promise of Jesus, “Give and it shall be given you, pressed down, shaken together and running over.”

The most important word said by Peter was “nevertheless.” It changed the conversation from “We toiled all night” and “We caught nothing” into “At your word we will go the deep and let down the net.”

Conclusion
Some of you are facing tough situations. This is not the kind of message that want to hear. You want something soothing. A pat in the back. A word of comfort. But if you are toiling and catching nothing. If you have little to show for your labor. If an unforeseen situation has come that is turning all your plans upside down. If you are facing an enemy. What you need is not a pat in the back but a word of faith.

So this morning let’s apply this message to our giving. I want us to give like we have not given before. To give beyond the tithe, beyond calculation and exacting measurement. To give in gratitude and to give in faith. I want the ushers to give every one an opportunity to give. Not as though we are ashamed of what we are doing. That would be robbery. After we have given I would like us to pray God to release his creative, enriching ideas upon us. Come let’s pray for each other.