Title: What Does God Want Us To Do With The Seed He Provides?

Text: 2 Corinthians 9:7-14 (J.B. Phillips) 7-9 Let everyone give as his heart tells him, neither grudgingly nor under compulsion, for God loves the man who gives cheerfully. After all, God can give you everything that you need, so that you may always have sufficient both for yourselves and for giving away to other people. As the scripture says: He has dispersed abroad, he has given to the poor; his righteousness remains forever. He who gives the seed to the sower and turns that seed into bread to eat, will give you the seed of generosity to sow, and, for harvest, the satisfying bread of good deeds well done. The more you are enriched by God the more scope there will be for generous giving, and your gifts, administered through us, will mean that many will thank God. For your giving does not end in meeting the wants of your fellow-Christians. It also results in an overflowing tide of thanksgiving to God. Moreover, your very giving proves the reality of your faith, and that means that men thank God that you practise the Gospel that you profess to believe in, as well as for the actual gifts you make to them and to others. And yet further, men will pray for you and feel drawn to you because you have obviously received a generous measure of the grace of God.
10-14

Introduction: 1. The longest reference in his epistles where Paul discussed about Christian giving/Biblical generosity is found in 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9. 2. Some Bible scholars believe that Pauls lengthy discourse in this passage outweighs the social dimension of extending help to the household of faith in Jerusalem who were facing adversities at that time. 3. Generosity has in itself the spiritual dimension that in this passage Paul connotes that it is a living proof that believers in Corinth had a genuine faith in Christ your very giving proves

the reality of your faith

4. Paul expresses his admonition of generosity in the premise that God is the very source of everything we have and that He provides everything that we need. 5. Theres no doubt that God blesses His people and so we, as Gods people need to undertake four actions to what God gives. 6. Let us continue our journey in living out the quality of life that God has designed for His people by following these four principles. I. SOW in verse 10 Paul writes, He [God]will give you the seed to sow We need

to realize that a portion of what God gives to us must be set aside as a seed to sow. God has ordained seed time and harvest as law for as long as the earth exists. A person reaps what he sows says Paul in his other epistle. Sowing in the context of

our text is being in partnership with the ministry of giving that Paul and his associates administer to the believers in Jerusalem. Paul is encouraging the believers in Corinth to consider the generous giving that they plan to do as investmentan investment wherein they can look forward to having returns when the opportune time comes. Stretching the context out a bit, sowing could also mean that we engage in different forms of investment that will yield interests/income or dividends. In the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), the Lord Jesus Christ commended the faithful and fruitful servants who put their money to work. Sowing or investing a portion of what God gives us is how we make it work for us instead of us working for it. In his book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki talks about wise investments by putting it simply thus, assets are anything that put money in our pocket and liabilities are things that get money out of our pocket. There are other good and godly counsels available online as to how to make investments and let the money that we sow work for us.
II. SAVOR still in verse 10 of our text, He [God]gives seed to the sower and turns that

seed into bread to eat This is something that is instinctive to all of us. We need to eat to live. We need shelters where we can rest and rejuvenate. We need clothes to put on to make us look good and make people we meet feel good about us. We need cars and other things to make us more efficient. We want to send our kids to great schools and have the best education there is. Certainly God wants us to enjoy what we receive from Him. We usually allocate great portion of the seed that receive from the Provider to this and theres absolutely nothing wrong with that. Financial management experts always have this to say about making a good workable budget that will save us pains and tears. First is that we be astute in how we spend our money. Prioritize buying the things that we need so that we spend less in what we want. Do our best to get the best value out of our money such us buying wholesale, bargain hunt for the things we need on discounts and sales, consider quality over the price tags. Second, never spend beyond our means. We dont spend today what we havent earned yet. Yes, God wants us to have great stuff and enjoy them.
III.

STORE New International Version has it in verse 10, Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed We should also consider storing or saving a portion of the seed that God provides us. The money we store comes handy and convenient when a need arises. No, we do not necessarily express pessimism when we save money for cases of emergencies. We may also express our optimism by saving money for opportunities that may

present themselves to us. Financial coaches have varying opinions as to how much or what portion of our income should be used as savings but they all agree that we must have a savings that come handy approximately between 15 -30 days of what our regular budget is worth.
IV.

SHARE In verse 8 of our text, God can give you everything that you need, so that you may always have sufficient both for yourselves and for giving away to other people. Sharing in this context is definitely a form of sowing. But to emphasize that we need to make an investment other that what we give in partnership with the people who God has called to preach the gospel, we dedicated our first point to various forms of investments where we can have our money work for us. From the Biblical standpoint, true riches is measured not by how much or little a person has but by the lifestyle of generosity that he lives bya person who shares with others what he has though he may not have much is definitely rich in every sense of the word in contrast with a person who may have much but cannot and will not share with others. The latter simply has a lot of money but remains poor. Poor people do not give though they have plenty; rich people do share with others though they are in need as illustrated by the Lord in his encounter with the rich young ruler and the widow who gave her two mites to the temple treasury.

Conclusion: Recognize that it is God who gives us what we need. He is the source and owner of everything we have. Heres an action exercise we can do in moving forward to Biblical principles of financial literacy and improve our quality of life as a covenant people of God. o If you were given a 100, 200, 500 or a 1,000 pesos a day, how do you plan to sow, savor, store, and share that amount? Remember that God wants to be glorified in the way we sow, savor, store, and share the seed He gives us.

In His vineyard PTR. DHON REYES Haven of Praise Christian Church tagapayo@gmail.com