From the September 9 sermon “Jesus Gives through Us,” preached by Pastor Mark Driscoll:
Jesus is the most generous giver ever: he was rich but became poor, sacrificing himself to pay our debt to God. Everything we enjoy is a gift from him; we give because he’s given. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor—are you generous? Generosity is measured by sacrifice, not percentage. It’s not a question of rich or poor, but righteous or unrighteous stewardship. God loves a cheerful giver.
Was Jesus rich or poor?
Before we talk about your loot, we're going to talk about Jesus. Before we talk about you giving anything, I want to talk about you getting something.
Here's how he says it. 2 Corinthians 8:9. "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was--" what? "Rich." Was Jesus rich before he came to the earth? When he lived in heaven forever as God, rich? Yes or no? Oh yes. Like, really, really rich. Here's the picture of heaven: "Seated on a throne." That's usually an indication. Or how many of you have a chair? Very few of us have a throne. A throne, now that says something. "Where will you be?" "I'll be on my throne." "Well." And he's surrounded by angels who minister to him and worship him, and--wow, that's quite a staff. Heaven, as well, is described as a place with streets made of what? Gold. […]
So, he went from luxury to poverty. He went from glory to humility. He went from being served to serving. He went from seated on a throne to laid in a manger. […]
He humbled himself to come down and to join us. So, the eternal God, the maker of heaven and earth, enters into human history as the God-man Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the most generous giver
Some of you are here and you're not Christians; you're thinking this is a lecture about money. First of all, it's a lecture about Jesus.
Some of you would come and ask, "Well, how does someone become a Christian? What do they do?" No, it's not what they do, it's what he's done. It's not what they give to Jesus, it's what they receive from Jesus. Right, Christians?
We come to God not with our hands full, "God, here's all the good things I've done for you." We come with our hands empty, "Jesus, I need you to give to me." Forgiveness of sin, salvation, reconciled relationship with God the Father, the Holy Spirit, eternal life. Jesus is the greatest giver, the most generous giver, in the history of the world. Everyone who is a Christian knows, because they have experienced, that Jesus gives generously. [. . .]
Looking at Jesus giving us his righteousness, giving us his salvation, giving us his sinless life, giving us his substitutionary death, giving us his forgiveness of sin, and what that does, that causes us to receive--to receive the good things that Jesus gives, and then have a heart change that compels us to want to share them because that's all worship is. It's mirroring, imaging, reflecting who Jesus is to others.
Generosity is measured by sacrifice
God, through Jesus Christ, is generous to us, and we are to be generous to others […]
Some people will always ask, "How much should I give? What percentage of my income should I give back to God through the church?" And they'll go to the Old Testament and say, "10%? All the tithes combined, 25%?"
New Testament, new covenant, grace-centered giving doesn't set an amount, so we don't teach tithing at Mars Hill. We don't. We don't. What we do teach is sacrifice, and that's what the Bible's talking about here.
I'll give you an example. Let's just say we decide everybody gives 25%. For the single mother with three kids whose husband just left with his secretary and emptied the bank account, that's going to destroy her whole family. For the person who is very affluent, wealthy, inherited money, has a company, owns, you know, a decent investment portfolio and has margin, they may not even feel 25%.
So what does sacrifice look like for each person? Well, for the mom, it may look like 1% and that might be an enormous generosity. For the person who's very affluent, it may be tithing, giving 90% and living off of 10%.
Everyone needs to find themselves somewhere on this continuum. So I'd ask you what percentage of income, what percentage of gross-- that's what it means by firstfruits-- has God the Holy Spirit compelled you to say, "That's where I'm at this year and, you know, if I lose my job and things get bad, I may roll back, if things get good, I may roll forward, but this is where I'm at right now with the percentage of giving that God has appointed to me."
We don't teach a percentage. Instead, what we teach is receiving from Jesus and then prayerfully, carefully considering what he's asking of you, and then we are certainly glad that you would follow through in those obligations and we rejoice in whatever that percentage is.
