A follower of Jesus
By ray
By ray
2) We give generously AND we give eagerly.
What if we give generously, but it feels like the money is being pried out of our hands because we give begrudgingly? What if we give but there is no joy and we feel coerced by God or God’s people to give. You could say, I did it. I gave. I had right actions. Why did Paul say in 1 Cor 13 – if I donate all my goods to feed the poor, but do not have love, I gain nothing? Because genuine love is always more than action. Paul didn’t hold the Macedonians up as examples of love just because they gave generously. He held them up because their giving was the overflow of abundant joy in the grace of God. Actions alone that do NOT flow from our joy in God’s grace is not a loving action. And if our actions are not loving, then to God, they are worthless. The heart behind our actions is important.
2 Cor 8
4 they begged us insistently for the privilege of sharing in the ministry to the saints, 5 and not just as we had hoped. Instead, they gave themselves especially to the Lord, then to us by God’s will.
The Macedonians gave in two relational ways. The money was not first. First they gave themselves especially to the Lord. And then they gave themselves to us by God’s will. First, the self is given up to God. I am not my own, I have been bought with a price. I belong to God. I am a steward of all that God gives to me. Second, the self is given up to the people of God. I am not my own. I belong to God and then to the people of God. I am the servant of all. Only then, they overflowed with generosity to minister to the saints who were suffering.
This giving was not simply mechanical. The Macedonians begged Paul insistently for the privilege to give. Nobody was prying money from their hands. The giving was passionate. Giving for them was so much a part of their joy in God’s grace that they begged to give. Did you ever wonder why they had to beg? This probably reveals that Paul might have tried to stop them from giving since he knew they were poor. And they were saying, No, Paul, our joy will not be complete until it overflows to meet the needs of others. Please, let us give. They begged insistently and eventually Paul relented. Okay, if you insist, give. I can’t hold you back.
2 Cor 8
7 Now as you excel in everything—faith, speech, knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love for us—excel also in this grace. 8 I am not saying this as a command. Rather, by means of the diligence of others, I am testing the genuineness of your love.
Paul is encouraging the Corinthians to be like the Macedonians in their generosity. They excel in this grace of giving and now Paul issues a challenge to the church at Corinth. If you say you love your brother or sister in Christ at the church in Jerusalem, show it through your giving. Paul even says that he wants to test the genuineness of their love. We can easily say we love someone, but if someone we love is in desperate financial need and we don’t want to help them, then our words “I love you” are nothing more than that–words. When your family member is in financial need, you give money and you don’t even think about it. You don’t think twice. You get out your checkbook. How much do you need? Because you love them. There is a relational connection. It’s much harder to give money when it’s outside of the family, isn’t it? But that is precisely what is going on here. Saints are giving to other saints in another church.
2 Cor 9
6 Remember this: The person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the person who sows generously will also reap generously. 7 Each person should do as he has decided in his heart—not reluctantly or out of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver.
Clearly, the Macedonians generosity was not a dying to self sort of giving. It’s not like they really wanted the money to buy an Apple Powerbook and so they had to kill that desire in order to fork over the cash. We mustn’t think that their generosity was a struggle against their honest desire to keep the money. When the impoverished Macedonians beg Paul for the privilege of giving money, it’s not like they didn’t know the value of money. They were poor. That money could have gone to food for that evening’s meal. So it was a sacrifice to give. Their self-denial is not for the sake of some sterile, joyless, death-to-self act of duty. They are giving up the pleasure of extra food for the joy of sharing God’s grace with others. These people are so full of joy in God that giving—even out of poverty—is not a burden but a blessing. Joy in the Lord affects the amount of our giving–we give generously–and the eagerness with which we give. We give eagerly, passionately, we beg God for the privilege to give.
Each person decided in his own heart how much to give. They were not coerced. There was no guilt trip laid on by a church leader. Church shouldn’t never coerce people to give. I have no idea how much people at this church give. At the same time, churches can make the opposite mistake and not talk about finances at all because even the mere mention of the topic seems to place a certain amount of pressure. There is a pressure that comes straight from the text, which I think is healthy because it is from the Lord. It’s quite another thing if I say, there is a building fund and I STRONGLY encourage every member of this church to contribute $5,000 each because we want to expand. How much you give is between you and God. But it is our responsibility as the preachers of this church to teach what is in the text and it’s your responsibility to wrestle with what the Lord is speaking to you individually.
As part of your personal wrestling with the topic of finances, I want add another difficult teaching that we all need to process. God loves a cheerful giver. God loves a willing, cheerful giver, not a constrained or coerced giver. It might be possible to coerce a church into giving, but in the end, even if all the bills are paid, it would be of no value. If our generosity and faithfulness in giving is not the result of an overflow of joy expressing itself in love, then whatever money is collected will profit nothing. This reiterates the point of chapter 8: cheerfulness in giving not coercion. The statement, God loves a cheerful giver, is shocking if we think about its implications. I thought God loves all men in the same way. But he doesn’t. He loves all in that he gives life to all, and reveals himself in nature to all, and in Christ made atonement for sin that can be offered to all. But those who love him and are called according to his purpose and who cheerfully give because Christ has made them rich in love and joy—these God loves uniquely, in that he works everything together for their good and turns all their generosity into limitless spiritual blessing. Not so that they live comfortably, but so that they can excel in the grace of giving with increasing generosity.
I take that to mean that God is not pleased when people act for the good of another person’s good but don’t do it cheerfully. When people don’t find pleasure in their acts of giving or their acts of service, God doesn’t find pleasure in them either. He delights in cheerful givers and cheerful servants. If we are indifferent to whether we do a good deed cheerfully, we are indifferent to what pleases God. And what pleases God is when we delight to give. Give cheerfully, eagerly, passionately.
3) We give generously, we give eagerly and we give to increase God’s glory.
2 Cor 9:11-15 describes the great outcome when God’s people overflow in generosity.
2 Cor 9
11 You will be enriched in every way for all generosity, which produces thanksgiving to God through us. 12 For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing in many acts of thanksgiving to God. 13 They will glorify God for your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with others through the proof provided by this service. 14 And they will have deep affection for you in their prayers on your behalf because of the surpassing grace of God in you. 15 Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.
The outcome of Christian generosity is fourfold: 1) the saints’ needs are met, 2) the gospel of Christ is preached, 3) the recipients of the gift give thanksgiving to God, and because of thankful hearts, 4) God is glorified.
It all begins with God’s inexpressible gift of Christ who became poor so that we might become rich. Then this good news that the Son of God came and died for our sins and rose again is preached. Because of what Christ did, the grace of God fills their hearts with joy, even amidst poverty. And out of this joy, love for other people is born. Not cheap love, but genuine love which is validated by their generous giving for saints in need.
God sees this and he loves it. He loved to see their cheerful giving so he responds with increased spiritual and material enablement to be even more generous. And the ultimate outcome of this remarkable generosity is that the recipients of this financial gift give thanksgiving to God for the surpassing grace he has put into the hearts of people who gave for their benefit. When thanksgiving rises to God from the heart, he is glorified. His glory is displayed in the world. Is it any wonder that the poverty stricken Macedonians begged Paul for the privilege of giving?
A few years ago, I went with Life Baptist WLA to Tijuana in Mexico to pass out food to families living in cardboard boxes over dirt floors. Across the border, just a few minutes drive north is San Diego and people there live in million dollar homes. The disparity was shocking. All of us need to have our bubbles burst by seeing people in poverty, even a couple of hours drive away. I remember we had a sharing time afterward and the only thing I could say was, it’s not fair. Why do they have so little and I have so much? God taught me a lesson. He is in fact fair because for what these people lack monetarily, God has more than made up for spiritually. The saints there at Centro Shalom, the church ministering to the poor kids in the neighborhood were so joyful. They were so happy to receive food and supplies. Their eyes lit up. And then young kids from the church, because they were blessed, would go out regularly into the community and distribute bags of rice or beans and bottled water. They carried this on foot and walked for miles in the hot sun because they were joyful in the Lord.
As the neighbors received these small blessings of food and water, there was such thankfulness on their faces. We prayed for these families. The gospel was preached. And God was indeed glorified. So God is fair. We eat our breakfast, lunch and dinner and say our prayers, but honestly, we are not that thankful because we have so much. And our lack of gratitude for God’s abundant provision robs us of spiritual riches. We are often thankless. We often grumble and complain that life is so hard. We seek our own glory instead of God’s glory. God is fair. We have material riches but we are spiritually bankrupt, aren’t we? While others may have nothing in the eyes of the world, yet they are spiritually abundant. They are thankful, they are generous, they desire to serve to meet the needs of others instead of hoarding for themselves. In their gratitude, the gospel is preached and God is glorified.
There is no application for this message because I want it to be between you and God. He may call you to rip up your credit cards if you are college student, or if you are older, God may prompt you to cut expenses and to live simply, or perhaps, He is calling you to make as much money as you want so that you can give away as much as you can in radical generosity. This last one is going to be extremely difficult because Money is a sinister Master. Our good intentions are often sabotaged by our own evil desires. Pray through these principles. The motivation for our giving is Christ. Jesus sets before us an example and by His Spirit, he empowers us to follow his lead in the area of finances. Once we have been freed from the master of Money, we can give generously, we can give eagerly and we can give for the glory of God.
By ray
The motivation for our giving.
Before we talk about our giving, we need to discuss the motivation behind our giving. Why should we give? We give because of what God gave to us in Christ.
2 Cor 8
9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though He was rich, for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich.
This verse speaks to the incarnation. The incarnation where the Son of God became a man is the motivation behind our giving. Jesus Christ, the God Almighty, the second Person in the Trinity, One who lives in unapproachable light. Jesus dwelt in the glorious heavenly realms with unending spiritual riches. And it was from this infinite height that he performed the unimaginable condescension to be born a man. He left infinite riches to literally become a poor, itinerant Rabbi in order to make us spiritually rich.
This is the grace of God that turns selfish sinners into joyful givers. What Jesus did by becoming a man and eventually dying on a cross is the sole basis and motivation for our giving. Gospel motivation is God enabling you to view money differently, not something to be hoarded and tucked away or invested, but something that we can freely give away.
2 Cor 8
2 During a severe testing by affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed into the wealth of their generosity.
When grace came into the lives of these believers in Macedonia and people were converted to Christianity and changed into joyful lovers of people, persecution and trouble came too. Grace does not remove trouble. But here’s the mark of someone who is properly motivated to give because of what Christ did for us: joy in the midst of “severe affliction.” Joy that is rooted in grace, not in freedom from affliction. The affliction is “severe,” but the joy in it is “abundant.”
In addition, grace does not remove poverty. There is not even a hint of a prosperity gospel here. Instead, grace has made poor people radically generous people. We need to let this sink in a bit. Here are people, unlike us, undergoing severe affliction and extreme poverty, and instead of grumbling and complaining and whining, they are overflowing with an abundance of joy. Paul captures this sentiment in Phil 4:12-13.
Phil 4
12 I know both how to have a little, and I know how to have a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content—whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. 13 I am able to do all things through Him who strengthens me.
That is the key to all Christian giving, no matter what, there is joy and contentment because Christ himself strengthens us.
When God is our master and the joy of the Lord floods our hearts, our attitude toward money changes and 3 things change.
1) We give generously.
This is not giving some spare change to God or giving God our leftovers after we buy everything we want. This is giving until it hurts. Money is no longer something we need to selfishly clutch onto, but it is something that we can give away freely because we are so joyful in the Lord. Content with Him. We are so satisfied in our relationship with the Lord and so money doesn’t have a grip over us like it used to.
2 Cor 8
3 I testify that, on their own, according to their ability and beyond their ability, 4 they begged us insistently for the privilege of sharing in the ministry to the saints…
These new believers gave “beyond their means.” I don’t know how else to take that but to say they took risks with their giving. They gave like the widow with two coins. They gave in a way that was more than they “could” give. When you make $75k and you tithe 10%, it will hurt, but you will survive. You might not be able to get everything you want, but clearly with that kind of income, your needs will be met with a lot of room to spare.
When you have almost nothing materially speaking and you can still give generously, beyond your ability, that’s possible purely because the grace of God is doing its work in your heart. You are free from the grip of money.
2 Cor 9
8 And God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work. 9 As it is written: He scattered; He gave to the poor; His righteousness endures forever. 10 Now the One who provides seed for the sower and bread for food will provide and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way for all generosity, which produces thanksgiving to God through us.
Here is an important biblical principle: the more you give, the more God will enable you to give. This truth is stated three times. First, in verse 8–so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work. This is God causing people to excel in their giving. Second, in verse 10–God will increase the harvest of your righteousness, that is, he will enable you to give even more for righteousness’ sake. Who supplies the seed and the bread in order that the harvest may be increased? God does. Third, in verse 11–You will be enriched in every way for all generosity. The more you give, the more God will enable you to give.
The truth is plain—it is a promise. You may have much, you may have little. The promise remains: the more you give for the sake of others, the more you will be enabled by God to give. Let me stress that Paul is not promising to make generous Christians wealthy. He is promising to make generous Christians capable of even greater generosity.
There is a mentality that says: with the increase of income there should also be an increase in the material signs of wealth. A larger house, a fancy car, a Gold Card, Platinum Card, Titanium Card and an array of expensive toys. This mentality says, buy it because you can afford it, or buy it because others will be impressed. That mentality is the complete opposite of the mentality of this text. God allows generous Christians to display greater levels of generosity.
We can enjoy the grace of God because things are going well. But how deep and impacting true grace is when it allows believers to overflow with abundant joy even when their physical circumstances should cause the opposite reaction. The Macedonian Christians should be thankless grumblers, yet they are abundantly joyful and they are extremely generous. It doesn’t make logical sense, except to say that the grace of God is powerful enough to cause a change so deep that we can be such joyful people no matter what life throws at us. The inward grace became the outward grace of abundant joy and generous giving.
Paul would argue, generosity is a demonstration of God’s grace. The focus is not on the people who are giving, but on the grace of God. God is the main actor who has enabled the giving. Paul never praises anyone’s virtue without giving God the ultimate credit. His grace, God’s grace, His enabling allowed for generosity to overflow to others.
By ray
Intro: Money is a sinister master.
The front page of CNN last night was about Powerball, the $600 million lottery. The title of the article was “$2 and a Dream.” What does that front page article tell you about Americans? I find it troubling and it’s related to the topic this afternoon. Today, I want to talk about a topic that most preachers avoid–finances. I understand this is a touchy subject. Even when we go through our membership class for prospective members and we get to the topic of tithing, I just pass out a handout because I prefer that people read Scripture and struggle with this topic on their own. Because when it comes to finances, I know how people get.
I myself have a personal reaction against certain televangelists who will promise you a life of healing and blessing if you call them and give them your credit card. There are many false teachers today who are pretending to be ministers of the gospel. Instead of feeding the flock, they are fleecing the flock into giving away all of their finances and falsely promising that if you give money to God’s work, you the giver will be blessed financially. Meanwhile, these false teachers live in million dollar homes and their congregations gather in multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art facilities. The prosperity gospel is a false gospel. From today’s text, we will learn unequivocally that God never promises blessing and prosperity if you give money to the church. That’s unbiblical. If you hear something like this at any church, I suggest you leave because you are listening to a false teacher.
We need to understand what the Bible says about finances. There are some famous verses about finances. Like Matt 6:19-21–
Matt 6
19 Don’t collect for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But collect for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Then, a few verses later, in Matt 6:24–
Matt 6
24 No one can be a slave of two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot be slaves of God and of Money.
Most of us hear these verses and think, money and slavery? I am not a slave to money. I remember telling my parents when I was recently converted zealous sophomore in college that I didn’t need much money. Back then, I was a single guy, making $60K which was a lot back then and still is and my rent was $300-$400 so I was making way more money than I needed to live. So I believed sincerely that money had no hold over me and that I could live just above the poverty line and give away the rest to those who needed it more.
My dad is a professor and so he is not shy with words. He listened to me and responded, Ray, you are naive. You don’t know the value of money. He is a finance professor so he actually knows quite a bit about the value of money. He went on to lecture me that everything in life is tied to money so how can I say, I don’t need it. You know what? He was right. I didn’t know fully what I was saying. I wasn’t married. I didn’t have kids. I didn’t have a mortgage so I didn’t really know what I was talking about then. If I can say the same thing now when I have a wife and 3 kids and a mortgage, then my words carry more weight. I would have to really believe it when I say, I can live with very little money because life is much more complicated now. And it’s not me, the single guy, but my view of money affects my family.
If it is true that there are 2 primary masters in life–God or Money–and it is because Jesus himself says so, AND we live in an affluent nation like America, we got to know that many of us are simply blind to the hold that money has over us. If you are like me when I was college student and said, money has no hold over me, then you’re probably blind or naive or both. If you never really studied this topic of finances biblically and never really struggled over concrete decisions related to finances, I hate to say, but you are probably blind.
Money is such as sinister master because it enslaves us with many invisible chains and the worst part is that we don’t even perceive the chains. Think about people in credit card debt having to pay back 15-20% interest. They are bound. They can’t do anything because all extra funds are siphoned off to the credit card companies. We don’t perceive the chains. In fact, we don’t even think finances is something we need to struggle against. If you are demon-possessed, then you know you are enslaved because you look in the mirror and everyone around you can see the visible effects of that bondage. But the enslavement that comes from Money is harder to discern because its chains are often hidden from view. Just because you don’t buy fancy cars and you don’t live in a million dollar home does not mean that you are necessarily free from bondage to Money. Sometimes the most frugal people are the most enslaved.
Consider the American Dream, which even Christianity in America has adopted wholesale as part of our faith. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Since when did personal happiness become the goal for a follower of Christ? I thought we were to deny ourselves and to take up a cross and follow Jesus. Since when did having financial security and living in a home with a two car garage and a white picket fence become the Christian ideal? Didn’t Jesus himself say, foxes have dens, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head. Jesus and the 12 lived as nomads. They wandered around and lived off of the generosity of others as they went around from place to place preaching the good news.
I hate to break it to you, but the American Dream of buying whatever you want is not the same thing as Christian reality. The American Dream is built upon the foundation of selfishness. The more I give, the less I have for myself. And the less I have for myself means the less ability I have to buy the things I want.
On the Forbes website, I read that there have been studies which confirm that beyond a certain threshold for a household income, more money does not translate into more happiness. The amount is $75,000 and even that is a lot compared to 99% of the world’s population. But we don’t believe that we need to put a cap on our standard of living. We think more is better. Why? We think more money equals more happiness. This is a flat out lie. Because once you open the door to consumerism, there is no end to human greed. Greed is like a broken cistern. A leaky jar. The more you pour into it, the more leaks out. And in the end, there is nothing in the container.
Other studies show that on average the richer people are, the smaller the percentage of money they give to charity. Whether the American church is a generous church compared to the church in the third world will be revealed at the last day when all the accounting is done on the Day of the Lord. It is my prayer that God would guard us from the blinding and binding effects of wealth. It can be a great source of joyful giving, but it more often turns wants into “needs.” When we see an ad for the Samsung SIV, we think, I NEED that phone. I can’t breathe unless I have it. Not only do we turn our wants into needs, wealth also makes us blind and callous to what is happening in other parts of the world.
In this country, we work and we work and we work so that we can get promoted so that we can get paid more so that we can work even harder and longer hours. In the end, we provide for our families nice things, but we don’t even have time to give them what they need most–ourselves. Time spent together. And even when we do have time together, you are so exhausted from work that there is no quality time. You are too tired to do anything except to veg out in front of a screen together as a family. And in places like LA where the cost of living is so high, we assume that both parents have to work. It seems everyone lives in a double income family around here. Just to make ends meet because we keep raising our standard of living.
The best we can muster is a week long family vacation and then you get back and the rat race continues. This is insanity. This is not how God wants us to live. No wonder there is so little time for God. Could it be that you and I are blind to the invisible chains of our master named Money?
If you agree with Scripture that next to God, our most likely master is Money, then the rest of the message is for you. If you do not believe that Money could be enslaving you, may the Lord give you ears to hear as this message is preached.
Part of the difficulty here is the fact that when you are blind to some truth about God or yourself, you can’t see it. That’s what blindness is. Because we have grown up in the West, in comfort and relative riches, there comes with it a certain blindness about things like money. I remember reading a Christianity Today article a few months ago and they compared a typical Western interpretation of the Prodigal Son parable with a group of readers from poorer nations. The Westerners interpreted the parable in a very individualized, personal, hyper-spiritual way while the people from a different culture and a different socioeconomic background noticed details that few Westerners picked up on. For example, one of the details that was mentioned by the non-Western readers was the fact that the Prodigal Son wasted his inheritance and had no money and was literally living among the pigs. In absolute poverty. When your own reality is not that far off from the Prodigal eating with the pigs, then you notice such details. While those of us who have much gloss over the same details. Our interpretive lens is very much influenced by our context, which means, we all have blind spots.
I don’t know how many years I read certain passages when the “poor” was mentioned and I spiritualized it. How am “I” spiritually poor? God began to reveal to me a few years ago that I had been reading those verses all wrong because the context shows that the writer was speaking about those who were poor materially. It was not talking about spiritual poverty at all. The Bible mentions throughout the plight of widows and beggars and the sick and the diseased and orphans, people who have no money. We need to be aware of our biases and our possible blind spots and study the Scripture in its original context and prayerfully ask the Spirit to illuminate truth so that we don’t end up believing what we want to believe or what is comfortable to believe.
Background
2 Cor chapters 8 and 9 are prime examples where many Christians miss the uncomfortable intent of these chapters by making the application overly general.
2 Cor 8
1 We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God granted to the churches of Macedonia.
Grace here means spiritual forgiveness and love and mercy from God. This is the general definition of grace that often comes to mind. But there is a specific, narrow use for the word “grace” that we find here, starting a few verses down in v7, we read–
2 Cor 8
7 Now as you excel in everything—faith, speech, knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love for us—excel also in this grace.
Here, grace refers to the grace of giving money. Likewise, in 2 Cor 9:6, we read–
2 Cor 9
6 Remember this: The person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the person who sows generously will also reap generously.
We like to read this as sowing and reaping generously with our time and our talents, but if you read on, v7–
2 Cor 9
7 Each person should do as he has decided in his heart—not reluctantly or out of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work.
What are we to give and what are to excel in? Again, we are to excel in the grace of giving, not time, not talent, but treasure. Giving money.
Lastly, 2 Cor 9:14–
2 Cor 9
14 And they will have deep affection for you in their prayers on your behalf because of the surpassing grace of God in you.
What is the surpassing grace of God which causes other believers to have deep affection for the Corinthians? It is the grace of God as demonstrated by their financial generosity to the saints in need.
To give you more of the background, turn with me to 1 Cor 16:1-3. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians while he was at Ephesus and he speaks about a collection.
1 Cor 16
1 Now about the collection for the saints: You should do the same as I instructed the Galatian churches. 2 On the first day of the week, each of you is to set something aside and save in keeping with how he prospers, so that no collections will need to be made when I come. 3 When I arrive, I will send with letters those you recommend to carry your gracious gift to Jerusalem.
Paul is on his way to Corinth to pick up the money and take it to Jerusalem for the church there. Jerusalem was the original church, probably numbering in the thousands because in one day, Peter preached and 3,000 were saved. It was probably the largest mega church of the first century and given the economic situation of the day, it is likely that there was a large number of saints there who had great financial need. So Paul is headed north through Troas, across the northern part of the Aegean Sea, through Macedonia where the Philippian and Thessalonian churches are, and south toward Corinth. On the way, he writes 2 Corinthians to send ahead of him, and he devotes two whole chapters to the collection of funds that he hopes is ready for him when he arrives. Quick side note–notice how God is concerned about the saints who are poor. God’s heart aches for the poor in society regardless of their belief, yes, but God’s heart aches in a special way when he sees his own people, the saints at Jerusalem, suffering economic hardship.