Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2716
“For you know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you, through His poverty might be rich.” 2 Corinthians 8:9.
IT is well to notice that Believers are to be constrained to Christian duty by Gospel motives rather than by legal arguments. It is poor work to try to stir up a Christian to perform an act of Grace by an argument fetched from a heathen moralist. And it is equally poor work to try and lead a child of God to perform a service of love by an argument which is applicable only to a slave. Hence you will find that the Apostle Paul, when he wants to urge the saints in Corinth to liberality, does not tell them what they are bound to do according to the requirements of the Law of God, for they are not under the Law—he uses arguments suitable for men who have come under the blessed Sovereignty of Divine Grace!
It is also noteworthy that with regard to Christian liberality, there are no rules laid down in the Word of God. I remember hearing somebody say, “I would like to know exactly what I ought to give.” Yes, dear Friend, no doubt you would. But you are not under a system similar to that by which the Jews were obliged to pay tithes to the priests. If there were any such rule laid down in the Gospel, it would destroy the beauty of spontaneous giving and take away all the bloom from the fruit of your liberality! There is no law to tell me what I should give my father on his birthday. There is no rule laid down in any law book to decide what present a husband should give to his wife, nor what token of affection we should bestow upon others whom we love. No, the gift must be a free one, or it has lost all its sweetness.
Yet this absence of law and rule does not mean that you are, therefore, to give less than the Jews did, but rather that you shall give more because, if I rightly understand what is implied in the term, Christian liberality, it is to be according to the example of Christ Himself! Our text really gives the Christian law of liberality—“For you know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you, through His poverty might be rich.” That is to say, we should give as we love. You know how much our Lord Jesus Christ loved by knowing how much He gave. He gave Himself for us because He loved us with all the force and energy of His Nature. Why did that woman break the alabaster box and pour the precious ointment upon Christ’s head, when it might have been sold for much, and the money given to the poor, or when she might have kept her ointment for herself? She gave much because she loved much. I commend that rule to you —give as you love and measure your love by your gift!
Further, for this also seems to be the teaching of the text—give till you feel it—for the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ was proven by the fact that, “though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor.” He gave till He felt it, gave till He knew that He was giving all that He had. And I do verily believe that the great sweetness of giving to God begins when we feel the pinch, when we have to deny ourselves in order that we may give. Then it is that there is the true spirit of Christian liberality! Our Lord Jesus Christ gets from a good many people what they would not dare to keep back from Him, and what they can readily enough part with—it is sometimes about as much as their shoestrings cost them in a year—certainly not as much as they spend upon the smallest of their many luxuries. Yet the most of them consider that they have done all that they should when such insignificant offerings have been laid at their Lord’s feet! But, dear Friends, I hope that it will be your rule both to give as you love, and to give till you feel it.
And next, we should in some sense give all, for that is the meaning of the text—“Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor.” He emptied Himself, He gave all that He had. And we, as Christians, are bound to confess that we belong to Christ and that all we possess is to be used by us as stewards under Him, not reckoning anything to be our own, but gladly admitting that He has entrusted it all to us to be used prudently, wisely and discreetly for His Glory. Oh, that we all came up to that standard! Then should we have the great pattern and model of Christian liberality reproduced in ourselves far more largely than it is at present!
I was obliged to say what I have in order to introduce the text to your notice, for we ought never to take a passage of Scripture out of its connection without first of all explaining its real meaning and purport. Still, Christian liberality is not to be my main subject at this time. I want, rather, to show you, first, how Christ has enriched us by His poverty, “that you, through His poverty might be rich.” When I have spoken about that, I purpose to spend a few minutes in speaking upon our enjoyment of the riches which Christ’s poverty has bestowed upon us.