Matthew 13:44-46 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

Ask my son oldest son what’s his favorite color, and he will tell you, “I don’t have a favorite color.” He resists the whole “favorites” trend in general–no favorite food, TV show, game, or team. My other children have a running joke about which of them is our favorite child. Our third even added, “a.k.a. not the favorite child” next to his name in his mother’s cell phone, and “a.k.a. favorite child” next to his brother’s name in the phone.

It’s not written anywhere that you have to have a favorite color or food. As long as we don’t actually show favoritism to any of our children, there is no harm in joking around about it in the family.

But there is an area of life in which favorites make a spiritual difference. What is our favorite of all things? What tops the list of all the things we love? What is our greatest treasure?

Both of Jesus’ little stories tell us, “God’s kingdom is worth so much it is worth more than everything else you have put together.” But people come to discover that in different ways.

Some people stumble upon God’s kingdom and what it is worth. They weren’t on any sort of quest or search. The man in the first parable wasn’t going through the fields with his metal detector and a shovel, thinking he was going to find a treasure. He found it completely by accident.

That’s not because God tried to make his kingdom hard to find. Often it is right there in front of our nose. Tons of people go stomping through the field and don’t see anything at all because sin has made us spiritually blind. It’s not a detail that fits into the parable as Jesus tells it, but God has to guide our path to the treasure, and then open our eyes, so that we can see it when we trip over it.

Other people find the gospel when they have been on a search, “like a merchant looking for fine pearls.” Maybe their family isn’t working the way it is supposed to, and they are searching through the religions and philosophies of the world to find some help. Maybe their career has hit a roadblock, and they have some idea that a little religion might be what they need to inspire them to take their game to the next level. Maybe they just sense an emptiness in their lives. “Is this all there is? There has got to be something more.” So they go looking.

Because they don’t understand their true need, they don’t really know what they are looking for. “The customer is always right” some salesmen will tell you. Discover someone’s felt needs, and then give them what they want. That won’t work in religion, though. God needs to show us what our true needs are before he can fill them. Looking for fine pearls is not the same thing as looking for the one pearl of great price.

So here we are, members of God’s Kingdom, staring at the great treasure and priceless pearl of God’s grace. What is Jesus saying to us? An honest man who professed to be a Christian once told me that his priorities went like this: Business first, family second, God third. I’m sure you know in your head that isn’t right.

But if in our hearts God doesn’t make it to the very top of our list, if he isn’t so far above family and possessions and work and education that we would be willing to give it all up for him, then Jesus’ words are calling us to repent. If we have lost all of the excitement about our place in God’s Kingdom, like the two men in the parables, the old self has been gaining ground in our hearts and needs to be crucified again.

Then we need to spend some time enjoying our great treasure and gazing at our priceless pearl. Before we got engaged, after I bought the ring, I would take the ring I bought my wife out from time to time, turn it in my hands, and just enjoy the sparkle.

Get the gospel out of its box, open up your Bible, and enjoy the sparkle. Listen to your heavenly Father’s “I love yous.” See the sacrifice Jesus made to forgive you. Let the promise and the peace and the hope sink in, and God’s Kingdom will be your greatest treasure, so much so that you will know that it’s worth everything.

1 Corinthians 1:12-14 “My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, ‘I follow Paul’; another, ‘I follow Apollos’; another, ‘I follow Cephas’; Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name.”

If we are agreed on God’s Word, if we are united and share the same beliefs, then we can see the foolishness of elevating one leader over another. Did Paul, Apollos, and Cephas (which is the Hebrew for Peter) teach something different? Peter has two letters in the New Testament. You can read them for yourself and see that Peter taught the same morals that Paul did. He taught the same way of salvation: Christ crucified in payment for all our sins, received by faith and faith alone. What sense could it possibly make to say that you followed one man or the other when they believed and preached exactly the same thing?

A number of years ago a couple with whom I was counseling got upset when I told them they shouldn’t be sleeping together before they were married. So they made an appointment with the other pastor at our church because they wanted a different judgment on their lifestyle. Did they get it? There are over 1000 pastors in the church body I serve. I am confident they would get the same response from all of them. We have all agreed to agree with what God says in his law, and what God says in his gospel. That’s a defense against the rise of competing parties in our churches.

I skipped over one statement about “following” made by these people in Corinth. “I follow Christ.” On the surface, that would seem to be the right answer. We should all follow Christ. That’s what it means to be a Christian.

But funny that Paul doesn’t complement them for getting their allegiance right. He just goes on to expose the divisions. It seems that these people, too, were forming their own party in the church. Theirs was not based on following a person but on personal pride. They didn’t encourage everyone else, “We follow Christ. We all do. Let’s not separate ourselves this way.” No, they said, “I follow Christ,” as if to say, “I’m just a few degrees holier than the rest of you.”

Let’s agree that we are all equally sinners who have been equally rescued and freed from our sin by our Savior. Then we won’t fall into some of the more recent ways Christians are tempted to put themselves into a special class above the rest. “I’m not just a believer,” they say. “I’m going to be a disciple of Jesus.” But you can’t be one without the other. It’s always a package deal. The Bible never distinguishes believers from disciples.

“I’m a born-again Christian,” some people say. But there is no other kind. It’s like saying, “I’m a Christian Christian.” If you are a Christian, you have been born again. If you haven’t been born-again, you aren’t a Christian.

“Jesus is not just my Savior. I have also made him the Lord of my life.” Of course, we don’t make Jesus anything. Every heart he enters as Savior, he also enters as Lord.

If we agree with his word, we won’t try to create special parties and classes within God’s church. We will all confess that we are helpless sinners saved by the grace of a loving God. We will follow our Lord and any leader who faithfully teaches his word.

Matthew 14:15-16 “As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so that they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.’ Jesus replied, ‘They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.’”

Asking Jesus to send the crowd away wasn’t really asking Jesus for help. It was an attempt to excuse themselves from having to help. When Jesus looked at the crowds, he saw an opportunity for ministry. He saw a chance to serve and to love. When the disciples looked at the crowd, and their location, and the lack of food, they saw only a problem. And it wasn’t a problem they wanted to deal with. I mean, why help people when you can just let them try to help themselves?

Since the disciples weren’t getting this ministry thing right away, Jesus turned around and gave the problem back to them. “Jesus replied, ‘They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.’” He was interested not only in feeding these people. He was interested in growing his disciples into better leaders, and better servants. He didn’t want them to duck responsibility. He wanted them to take it. But he wanted them to do so leaning on his assistance.

That’s why this ministry he gave them was so much bigger than their resources, humanly speaking. “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. In one of the other gospels we hear Philip blurt out, “Eight month’s wages would not buy enough for each one to have a bite.”

Really, how much would it cost to feed more than 5000 people? Let’s say you got a great deal on the catering, and it cost between eight and ten dollars per plate. That’s forty or fifty thousand dollars! Let’s say you decided to prepare the food yourselves. Maybe you get by for ten or fifteen thousand dollars. Then there’s the logistical problem for 12 men–that’s mostly fishermen, not professional cooks or chefs– having to prepare that much food that quickly. Jesus gave them a ministry far bigger than they could afford or staff, humanly speaking.

What is Jesus teaching us here? He isn’t teaching us to be irresponsible. He doesn’t want us to bite off more than we can chew. That would be tempting God. He still expects us to be good stewards of the resources he has given us. He wants us to live within our means, both as a church and as individuals.

But Jesus doesn’t want to teach us that we can get by entirely on our careful and clever planning, either. Sometimes he himself will drop a bigger mission into our laps than we can hope to afford or accomplish on our own. He intends to leave us no choice but to seek his help. Then we would be trusting God. We already know we can’t solve the problem of our sin ourselves. We have no choice but to rely on his grace and forgiveness. Apply that here. Apply that to the rest of life. He wants us to find his power and love hidden in our helplessness and need.

He even teaches us how it’s done. “‘Bring them here to me,’ he said.  And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied…” First, Jesus takes the food the disciples have and puts it to work. God doesn’t give us our resources to hoard and save. He intends us to use them up and put them to work.

Next, he prays. He teaches us to look to heaven for our help, and with an attitude of thanks for what we have, even if it seems very little. Let God make it stretch to cover our needs.

Finally, he doesn’t tackle this project alone. He makes use of his human resources. All of the twelve are pressed into service distributing the food. God’s work gets done best when all his people find a way to be involved.            

Jesus mercifully fed the multitudes, but he gave these twelve men something more. Perhaps they grew as much as the bread and fish on this day. The crowds received their healings and food, but the twelve received grace for their souls and strength for their hearts. Here our Savior demonstrates his grace and forgiveness in continuing to involve us in his mission, though we might prefer to do something else. Here he proves his promise to provide all we need for body and soul, faith and life, though we may forget to seek his help.

Jesus is still giving us gifts, even when he gives us work to do.

Matthew 14:13-14 “When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.”

What “happened” was the beheading of John the Baptist. John’s death couldn’t help but remind Jesus of how his own life would end, and that the time was getting short. He needed a little time away, time to mourn, time to catch his breath. He couldn’t have made his intentions clearer. Usually he was seeking a crowd. Now he withdrew. He did so privately. He got in a boat and sailed away to a place where there were no people. For once in his life Jesus wanted to be left alone.

The crowds didn’t care. They pursued him like the paparazzi. All they cared about were solutions for their own problems. They wouldn’t wait a few days. They wanted relief now. It doesn’t even enter their minds to give Jesus a breather.

None of the gospels give the impression they pursued Jesus so hard to answer their spiritual questions, to relieve the agony of their souls, to escape the burden of their guilt and sin. All they cared about was the temporary needs of this life. Some of them may have been managing their diseases for years. Would it have killed them to wait a few more days?

Do we show a similar level of concern for the people we want or expect to serve us? When we want help from someone, we can act a little pushy and entitled. We do not stop to consider, “I wonder how he is doing.” If we leave a message with the doctor about some issue, and a couple hours go by without a response, do we think only, “What’s wrong with that guy and his staff?” Do we stop to consider, “I wonder if everything is okay with the doctor and his family? I hope nothing is wrong.” Like the crowds pursuing Jesus, we are inclined to think only of ourselves.

Then marvel at Jesus’ mercy when people seek his help. “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.” Note that it doesn’t say, “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he rolled his eyes at how inconsiderate these people were;” or “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he was irritated about the way they were changing his vacation plans;” or “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he bit his lip and grudgingly gave a few people some help.”

No, “he had compassion on them.” He was genuinely moved by their condition. When my son was less than a year old, he caught a virus called RSV. He wouldn’t stop crying. Then we noticed that there weren’t any tears. We had to rush him to the hospital in the middle of the night because he was struggling so hard to breath. We weren’t irritated that he interrupted our sleep and kept us up all night. Our hearts were filled with concern. Jesus’ heart was filled with concern for the crowd that chased him down in that deserted place.

Then he did something about it. “He healed their sick.” With Jesus, compassion immediately leads to action. He rolls up his sleeves, and he goes to work giving these people relief. And all this in spite of the fact that he had come here to be alone, and he needed time for himself.

Shouldn’t we be seeking his help, too? We know Jesus’ mercy better than these crowds from Galilee. Mercy led him to look down on us in all our sin and not turn away in disgust. It’s the reason he was there on that day instead of enjoying himself in heaven. This was just one stop on his way to the cross, where mercy led him to give up his life to save the millions and billions who have given him every reason to abandon them. But he came and he stayed. He suffered and he died to relieve us of our guilty consciences and revive our sin-sick souls.

We know the supreme demonstration of Jesus’ mercy. Don’t be afraid to seek his help for a thousand lesser issues as well.

Matthew 10:39 “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Many people are on a quest to find themselves. “Who am I?” “What am I here for?” Sometimes that quest has a very spiritual flavor to it. But more and more Americans prefer to go searching without the help of “organized religion.” Through personal meditation, private prayer, time dedicated to volunteering and helping others, limitations on their spending to accumulate things, sensitivity to the ecology of our planet (you know, concerns about things like recycling and pollution and sustainability), they are trying to become “a better person.” The pot of gold at the end of their rainbow is to get to the place where they can say, “I feel good about myself. I like myself. In fact, I love myself. If there is a god I have to stand before someday, I think I am ready to face him on my own.”

For others, “finding life” is all about material success. I want to be rich. I want to be famous. I want to have a great career. I want to travel all over the world. At the very least, I want to have a happy, decent middle class family. The pot of gold at the end of their rainbow is simply to enjoy the good things the world has to offer.

It may sound cruel, but we need to hope that none of these people is successful in their search. “Whoever finds his life will lose it,” Jesus says. A life without Jesus at the very center is always lost in the end.

 “And whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Maybe you never made enough money to get your picture in the society pages. Your “15 minutes of fame” doesn’t interest the tabloids, or never happened at all.

Perhaps you didn’t get to spend all your time pursuing your favorite hobby or interest. You were so busy serving, and being treated like a servant, that all your strength and energy were used up loving others and spreading the gospel.

Sometimes the “golden years” do not turn out so golden. You spend your money and your health taking care of others and serving at church. Maybe life itself is being shortened in some way from putting your Savior first. Some Christians face martyrdom, but the wear and tear of a hard life lived sacrificially also takes its toll. The cumulative result of late nights and early mornings and little time for the doctor and a not-so-careful diet because of time given to the kingdom, and to the Savior, results in fewer years on earth.

You have lost nothing. “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” With Jesus there is always grace, always forgiveness. That means heaven is always waiting with a life there that will never end. There we will find more love than we ever dreamed possible. There each of us will find who I really am, what I am really here for, because there we will find the God who made us, and then made us his own a second time by the blood of his Son.

Along the way between here and there we discover that the life of serving and sacrificing has more positive things than we might have imagined. Lose your life following Jesus, and you will find the only life worth having.

Matthew 10:38 “…anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”

Following Jesus means carrying a cross. This is unavoidable for the Christian. In order to follow Jesus, we give up certain things, and that always pinches a little, sometimes a lot. We pass up some opportunities for pleasures. Sometimes they are sinful. Sometimes they simply fall down the Christian’s priority list and we don’t get to them. We may give up business advantages at times because we are no longer looking out only for ourselves, but for what serves my neighbor.

Depending on where they live, Christians may not get to be popular. Others may not accept them. Those who are open about their faith on university campuses may find themselves accused of bigotry or ignorance. Those who live their faith at work may jeopardize their careers. A friend of mine was criticized, and eventually let go from his job, because he “wasn’t making an effort to be a part of the team.” His employer’s issue with him? He didn’t join his coworkers in visiting strip clubs each night after work.  

One Christian blogger shared some of the hate mail he received in a blog post. While accusing this blogger of being hateful, the emails expressed a desire for the man to be dead, hurt, or sexually brutalized. Some wished for him to burn in Hell for all eternity. A few threatened to kill him for his ideology.

Jesus is worth it. When he says that those who refuse the cross are “not worthy of me,” he is not saying that we “earn” something by our suffering. God’s grace is still free. But you can’t “have” Jesus, you can’t believe in him and follow him, without there being consequences. If I gave you some free food, you can’t eat the food without also ingesting the calories that come along with it (though we may wish that were possible). The food was free, but the calories come along as a consequence. The only way to avoid the calories is not to eat the food.

If I had a swimming pool, I could let you swim in it for free, but you can’t swim in it without getting wet. The swimming is free, but you get wet as a consequence. The only way to avoid getting wet is not to swim.

If two countries were at war, you may be free to pick a side. But you can’t pick sides without making the other country your enemy. You get the picture.

It is possible to avoid the cross that comes with following Jesus. But you have to give him up in order to do it. It’s a package deal.

Jesus promises he is worth it. Crosses come into our lives as a consequence, but that is not the only consequence. Your 70, 80, or 90 years of earthly trouble will be replaced by an eternity of heavenly bliss. That’s a no-risk guarantee. Even now he promises freedom from carrying your guilt with you everywhere. You have been justified. He promises relief from the uncertainty and frustration of trying to work your way into God’s favor. Forgiveness is free. He promises peace in knowing that all of life is lived under the umbrella of God’s love. Angels are always protecting and watching. Prayer gives immediate access to God at all times. The Holy Spirit permanently resides in Christian hearts to help with resisting temptation and understanding God’s word.

            These things, too, belong to the package deal, so value your Savior. He is worth all your crosses.

Matthew 10:37 “Anyone who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

“Family values” are practically universal. Parents will do almost anything to save their children, whether animal or human. On one of my morning runs I saw a mother bird attacking a cat that had gotten hold of her young. I don’t mean merely dive-bombing the cat. This mother bird was hopping around on the ground next to the cat, pecking at its head, as though it were trying to start a fight.

I know of one mom with cancer who declined chemotherapy in order to save the baby in her womb. She needed the chemotherapy to save her own life. She declined to take it because it certainly would have taken the life of her child.

Jesus doesn’t say it’s wrong to love family and friends. He simply insists he is worth more. Because family affections run so strong, all these relationships pose a potential temptation. Would you compromise your faith in Jesus for someone close to you? Some of the sadder chapters in my ministry have come from counseling or calling on spouses who have given in to that temptation. One spouse is a believer. The other is not. For the sake of peace in the house the believer stops going to church. A wife I know not only tolerated, but even participated in, her husband’s pornography addiction to keep him in the relationship.

Parents dote on their children to the point of compromising their faith. Spanking may not be the appropriate response to every misbehavior. But can you deny that the Bible calls for us to discipline the children that God has entrusted to us? “He who loves him is careful to discipline him.” Yet a worldly affection may set in that just can’t bear to see the little princess suffer. Parents end up making excuses for them instead of holding them responsible.

In other cases, parents’ dreams for their children get in the way of their love for Jesus, too. They are so sure junior has what it takes to play professionally that church is set aside. In its place they haul their little one to to every tournament, every game, every practice or workout that invades the Sunday morning schedule.

Children become guilty of the same thing. The fourth commandment says, “Honor your father and your mother,” but even God’s own command can be taken too far. I worked for over two years with one man, trying to lead him to see Jesus as his God and Lord. He was drawn, he was troubled. But the beliefs of his Jewish father, a man he seemed to revere more than Scripture, kept getting in the way.

Jesus’ conclusion when we bump him out of first place is clear: “Not worthy of me.” None of us is ever “worthy” of Jesus in the sense that we have done so much good that he is obligated to love and accept us. Salvation does not come by putting family second, but it could be lost by putting family first. That is against the first commandment, “You shall have no other Gods.” Giving ourselves over to such false values and priorities, is toxic to faith and cuts us off from grace.

Why is Jesus worth so much more? No family member ever has or will sacrifice what he sacrificed to save you. None of them ever traded heaven for earth, but he did. In extreme cases, a family member may give up their life to spare another. But no one else ever carried the full weight of our guilt, and endured the full punishment of hell for our sins, as Jesus did on the cross.

Some dear member of the family may claim they love you so much. Big nut-brown hare may love little nut-brown hare all the way to the moon and back in the popular children’s book. But Jesus loved us all the way to hell and back, and all the way to heaven and back, to save us.

No human family member will ever give us what Jesus gives. Parents give their children a home, the necessities of life, a place to belong, but only Jesus gives a place in the family of God. Members of the family can supply what is needed to keep you alive, but only so long. Someday all their resources will be useless to give you another breath.

But Jesus gives life after death. He gives life that never ends. He takes his people home to heaven. Family is worth a lot, but Jesus is worth even more. Let your love for him reflect his superior value.

2 Corinthians 8:6-9 “So we urged Titus, since he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. But just as you excel in everything— in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us— see that you also excel in this grace of giving. I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”

Paul encouraged the Christians in Corinth to complete an offering that had been begun. Notice how careful he is to make his encouragement in the spirit of the gospel. “I am not commanding you,” he tells them. There is not a list of rules about how much each one should give and when they must have it turned in. Giving that deserves the name Christian (even more, all living that deserves the name Christian) isn’t a mere matter of rule keeping. God doesn’t want to go on treating us like criminals who need bars, and guns, and razor wire to keep them in line.

No, “It is for freedom that Christ has set you free,” Paul told the Galatians. Martin Luther was fond of saying that Christians become “little Christs.” As children of the heavenly Father, we have inherited what our world would consider our Father’s “idiosyncrasies.” He has always related to us in grace. We have experienced his grace uninterrupted since the day he claimed us by faith. He keeps on giving and loving regardless of what we have done.

So now Paul describes our giving as “this act of grace on your part.” He encourages us to “excel in this grace of giving.” Like Father, like son— sons and daughters, that is. Our gifts aren’t “obeying the rule.” They are family traits. They are expressions of one of the most significant ways in which we have become like our heavenly Father: grace. Giving and generosity have become a part of us. They flow from faith in God’s giving and generosity to you and me.

But someone might object, “Doesn’t Paul say that he wants to test the sincerity of the Corinthians’ love by comparing them to the Macedonians? Doesn’t that suggest some kind of mild threat?” Let’s not think our Lord deals with us like a teacher threatening grade school children with a test. The Greek word for “test” in this verse focuses on the results of the test. This was testing so that something could be proved genuine and true. This was not a threat. It was a means by which the sincere faith and grace-filled hearts of the Christians in Corinth could be made clear for all to see. Paul had every reason to be confident. Why?

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” We know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, too. We know his grace not like we know multiplication tables or state capitals. We know grace like we know the laugh of our dearest friend, or the difference between our baby’s dirty diaper cry and hungry cry, or the smell of grandmother’s kitchen. You and I have experienced this grace.

You and I have been awed by the depths to which Jesus descended to save us. We can imagine what it would be like to have lots of money. It is difficult for us to imagine the kind of riches Jesus gave up. Rich people we know still get sick. Their money can’t always keep them alive. They still do unethical things, and their money can’t always keep them out of jail. They still say mean and hurtful things, and their money can’t always save their relationships.

Jesus freely left riches where there was no sin, sickness, or sadness. He did so to suffer pain, be rejected, and finally die as his gift to save us. It was grace, purely a gift on his part. and now we thrill to think about the riches that are waiting for us as the last installment of Jesus’ gracious gift.            

Children of the heavenly Father, little Christs, know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. I trust that this has made you generous people, whether or not I reminded you of Paul’s encouragement today.

2 Corinthians 8:1-2 “And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian Christians. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.”

Paul uses the word “grace” here in a way that we aren’t used to seeing. Usually, when we think of grace we think of God’s undeserved love for us, that unearned favor with which he regards us. This love led him to make a gift of his dearest treasure. He gave up his only Son for the sins of the world, including you and me. Grace is how we know that God is on our side, that we can trust him, and that we are safe with him in spite of the many ways in which we have offended him.

But sometimes grace is used in another way. Since God so loves us, he also is moved to give us gifts of his power. He works within our hearts and souls in a way that changes us. He lifts us up and ennobles us. Everyone who comes to know and trust how freely God loves us in his grace also receives gifts from him–grace, if you will–to live a life of love. If your heart has been captivated by God’s grace, you can’t help but be filled with it. It is going to produce a different kind of life in you.

That is the example Paul holds before us with the Macedonians. Their example offers not so much a pattern to trace, or a standard by which we should be measured. Rather, it is an example of the wonderful difference grace makes, the beautiful things produced in the lives of people by the love and forgiveness God has impressed upon their hearts. The Macedonians were poor. They received a lot of grief from their non-Christian neighbors. Still, they were incredibly generous. That generosity assures us God’s grace is real. It makes a genuine difference.

God’s grace still impacts the generosity of his people in unexpected ways. Parents in my church once placed before their little girl the opportunity to give to our building fund. They didn’t tell her she had to give. They didn’t even say she ought to give. They simply talked about some possibilities. She might set aside a portion of the money she received in gifts. She might give up some of her other things to support the program. Do you know what she did next? She went into her room and cried. The thought of giving up something of her treasure made her sad.

But when she came out of her room, she had a plan. She wanted to give something to Jesus for his church. There was no coercion. All that had been laid before her was the opportunity. Something else had replaced her tears with the desire to give.

Is it hard to see why such a thing would bring joy to a parent’s heart? A little girl’s gift may not be impressive in size, but it is evidence of God’s grace, isn’t it? The love of Jesus is alive and working in a little heart. Is it hard to see why Paul was excited to share the example of the Macedonians? Here was evidence that the preaching of God’s grace had taken hold in their hearts. Your giving, too, is evidence that God’s love hasn’t fallen on deaf ears. His grace has changed you. That itself is a gift, a grace, for which to give thanks.