God Loves a Cheerful Giver and Six Ways to Become One (2 Corinthians 9:7)

In 2 Corinthians 9:7, Paul wrote, “God loves a cheerful giver.” God loves everyone, but He has a unique love for cheerful givers. If for no other reason, we should strive to give cheerfully because we love the Lord and want to be people He loves. Read, listen, or watch this material from Your Finances God’s Way to learn six reasons we should be cheerful givers. https://youtu.be/1h01mek6B34 In 2 Corinthians 9:7, Paul wrote, “God loves a cheerful giver.” Learn six reasons we should be cheerful givers. Table of ContentsHow We Want to Receive Gifts1. Give Cheerfully Because God Loves a Cheerful Giver2. Give Cheerfully Because It Sends Wealth Ahead3. Give Cheerfully Because We Can’t Take Wealth with Us4. Give Cheerfully Because We Enjoy Wealth for a Short TimeIn Light of Eternity We Enjoy Wealth as Long As Daniel5. Give Cheerfully Because God Sees What’s in Our Hearts Versus Our Hands6. Give Cheerfully Because of All We’ve Been GivenThree Simple Recommendations If You Still Struggle GivingFootnotes I used to coach junior high wrestling. After one season, some of my wrestlers decided to buy me a gift. They pooled their money and purchased a nice plaque they planned to give me at the end-of-year banquet. While riding their bikes with the plaque to the banquet, one of them accidentally dropped it on the road and damaged it. They were so happy to give me the plaque that, at first, nobody told me why it was damaged. Finally, someone apologized and explained what had happened. But they didn’t need to apologize because I was blessed by how happy they were to give it to me. Regardless of what it is, a gift means so much more when given cheerfully. The opposite is also true: a gift means little when begrudged. Picture people who give through clenched teeth with the gift (figuratively speaking) having to be pried from their hands. Imagine they say: “I hope this makes you happy, but I bet you would never give me something like this.” “You better appreciate this because you wouldn’t believe how difficult it was for me to get it.” “I don’t want to give this to you, but I know it’s your birthday, so I hope you enjoy it.” Nobody wants gifts from stingy people, and the Bible even discourages us from accepting them: Proverbs 23:6 Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy; do not desire his delicacies, 7 for he is like one who is inwardly calculating. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you. In other words, he doesn’t want to give you any of his stuff. How We Want to Receive Gifts If you’re a parent, think about a young child giving you a gift. If we’re honest, unless our child is very talented, the gift probably isn’t something we would purchase if we saw it in a store. Our children’s gifts are not valuable to us because of their quality. They are valuable because they are signs of their love for us. Another way to say it is children’s gifts are meaningful because of the heart behind them. Giving is much bigger than the gift. An analogy: the gift is an iceberg above the water, and everything that goes into the gift is below the surface. The last sermon focused on the sacrifice involved in giving or the sacrifice below the surface. This sermon will focus on the way we give, or our attitudes because like we want gifts given to us cheerfully, so does our heavenly Father: 2 Corinthians 9:7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. I shared this verse in a previous sermon but didn’t cover its conclusion: God loves a cheerful giver. The Greek word translated “reluctantly” is lypē, meaning “with grief, sorrow, or sadness.” God wants glad givers, not sad or mad givers. Robert Rodenmeyer said, “There are three kinds of giving: grudge giving, duty giving, and thanksgiving. Grudge giving says, ‘I have to’; duty giving says, ‘I ought to’; thanksgiving says, ‘I want to.’”4 God wants the third type of giving. The Greek word translated as cheerful is hilaros, which is related to our word hilarious. This is the only place it occurs in Scripture. God wants giving from hearts that find it enjoyable and entertaining. You might say: “In the previous sermon, you said to give sacrificially, and now you’re saying to give cheerfully. These don’t go together! I can give sacrificially or cheerfully, but I can’t do both! The more sacrifice that’s involved, the less cheerful I am. The less sacrifice involved, the more cheerful I am. I recognize the tension between giving sacrificially and cheerfully. But the Macedonians are an excellent example of doing both. Look at 2 Corinthians 8:1: 2 Corinthians 8:1 We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, 2 for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. Notice it says they gave with “an abundance of joy.” They didn’t merely have some joy when giving. They had an abundance of it! It’s like they had so much joy they gave and had some left over! It also says “their extreme poverty” and “overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.” They were destitute but still gave generously, which means they gave sacrificially. They gave cheerfully and sacrificially! So, if you find giving challenging, let me give you six reasons why we should be cheerful givers. 1. Give Cheerfully Because God Loves a Cheerful Giver As Christians, we should be familiar with what God loves, and there are quite a few examples in Scripture: Deuteronomy 7:9 says God loves those who keep His commandments. Psalm 11:7 says God loves righteous deeds. Psalm 17:7 says God loves those who seek refuge from their adversaries at [His] right hand. Psalm 33:5 says God loves righteousness and justice. Proverbs 8:17 says God loves those who love Him. Proverbs 15:9 says God loves those who pursue righteousness. John 3:16 says God loves the world. John 16:27, God the Father loves those who love His Son. Romans 5:8 says God loves us while we are still sinners. Hebrews 12:6, which quotes Proverbs 3:12, says God loves those He disciplines. Finally, according to 2 Corinthians 9:7, God also loves a cheerful giver. But notice it doesn’t say God loves cheerful giving; it says He loves people who give cheerfully. The Amplified Bible says, “God loves a cheerful giver [and delights in the one whose heart is in his gift].” God loves everyone, but He has a unique love for cheerful givers. If for no other reason, we should strive to give cheerfully because we love the Lord and want to be people He loves. 2. Give Cheerfully Because It Sends Wealth Ahead Consider this story from J. Stephen Jordan: A rich man died and went to heaven. Abraham greeted him and said, “Welcome to heaven. Let me show you where you’ll be staying.”As they walked, the rich man saw beautiful mansions stretching out in every direction. They were constructed of gold, silver, and precious gems. As they passed one mansion, the rich man said, “Who gets to stay here?”Abraham replied, “That’s for your groundskeeper. He was a godly man who loved Jesus and served Him all his life. This is his reward.”They continued past other mansions until they reached an extremely large one. The rich man asked Abraham, “Is this one mine?”Abraham said, “No, this one belongs to your maid. On the little bit of money you paid her, she raised six children and gave to her church.”They continued to walk until they came to a different section of homes that weren’t as nice. As they walked up a small hill, they stopped in front of a shack made of tar paper and used sheet metal. The front door was cut out of an old refrigerator box. It was held together with baling wire, twine, and duct tape. After pausing momentarily, the rich man asked, “Who lives here?”Abraham responded, “Why, this is yours!”The rich man couldn’t believe it. He said, “There must be some mistake!”Abraham said, “No, there’s been no mistake. We did the best we could with what you gave us!”[2] It is tragic that some people work so hard to prepare for the final years of this life but neglect the eternity that follows! We have two choices with our wealth. The first choice is to send it ahead! What we give away on this side of heaven is kept for eternity. The best givers in this life have much waiting for them in the next life. The second choice for handling our wealth is to keep it for ourselves like the rich fool: Luke 12:18 He said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ If we keep our wealth for ourselves, we will be prepared for this life but unprepared for the next. When we choose to enjoy our wealth now, we don’t get to enjoy it in heaven, which leaves us eternally destitute. Luke 12:20 God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ The answer? Not his! Whatever we accumulate in this life will be left to others, which brings us to the next reason to give cheerfully: 3. Give Cheerfully Because We Can’t Take Wealth with Us Matthew 6:19 “Do not lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” Jesus described what happens to our earthly possessions: they break down, rust, decay, and are stolen. Keeping this in mind makes giving cheerfully easier. Our earthly wealth loses value in our eyes and becomes easier to part with. And even if this doesn’t happen with our wealth in our lifetimes,...