(Malachi 3:6-12; 2 Corinthians 9:6-15)
Martin Rinkart was a Lutheran pastor in Eilenberg, Germany in 1637. He was also the only pastor in Eilenberg, Germany in 1637. I don’t know what happened to the rest of them, but I have my suspicions. You see, this was during the Thirty Years’ War, and in 1637 Eilenberg was attacked three different times. When the armies left, they were replaced by desperate refugees. Disease was common, food wasn’t, and Rinkart’s journal tells us that in 1637, he conducted over 4500 funerals, sometimes as many as 50 in a day. Death and chaos ruled, and each day seemed to bring some fresh disaster. But out of that terrible time, Martin Rinkart wrote these words:
Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in whom his world rejoices;
Who, from our mother’s arms, hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
During Napoleon’s reign in France,a man named Charnet offended the emperor—unintentionally—and was thrown in jail to rot. As time passed, Charnet became bitter and lost faith in God, finally scratching on the wall of his cell, “All things come by chance.”
But there was a little space for sunlight to enter his cell, and for a little while each day a sunbeam cast a small pool of light on the floor; and one morning, to his amazement, in that small patch of ground he saw a tiny green blade poking out of the packed dirt floor, fighting its way into that precious sunlight. Suddenly, he had a companion, even if only a plant, and his heart lifted; he shared his tiny water ration with the little plant and did everything he could to encourage it to grow. Under his devoted care, it did grow, until one day it put out a beautiful little purple-and-white flower. Once again, Charnet found himself thinking about God, but thinking very different thoughts; he saw that however much we may pound down this earth, the glory and beauty of God still breaks through, and so he scratched out his previous words and wrote instead, “He who made all things is God.”
The guards saw what was happening. They talked about it, they told their wives, and the story spread, until finally it came to the ears of the Empress Josephine. The story moved her. She became so convinced that no man who loved a flower in this way could be dangerous that she appealed to Napoleon, and persuaded her husband to relent and set Charnet free. When he left his cell, he took the little flower with him in a little flowerpot, and on the pot he wrote Matthew 6:30: “If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith?”
Rinkart and Charnet give us powerful examples of what it means to live by true faith—the sort of faith which enabled the poet Joyce Kilmer to write, “Thank God for the bitter and ceaseless strife . . . Thank God for the stress and the pain of life. And, oh, thank God for God.” That’s really the bottom line of faith—“Thank God for God.” That’s why Wayne Brouwer, a religion professor at Hope College, has written, “Maybe it’s not that believers are grateful to God but that those who are grateful to God are the ones who truly believe him. Only those of us who are truly thankful are able to ride out the storms of life which might otherwise destroy us. . . . Only the grateful believe.” In other words, the root of our faith is gratitude.
That’s the connection point with Malachi, in case you were wondering. Malachi 3:6 links the patience of God with his people to his faithfulness, his unchanging nature and commitment to his word. “You, O children of Jacob”—righteous and unrighteous alike—“are not destroyed”: why? Because “I the LORD do not change.” Because when God says a thing, he will do it, when he makes a commitment, he holds to it, when he gives a promise, he keeps it—and when he chooses a person or a people, he does not let go, and he does not go back on his choice. The only reason Israel still exists is because God is trustworthy—and the same is true for us. If we couldn’t trust God, we wouldn’t be here. Some of us wouldn’t be anywhere at all.
And yet, though we can trust him with our very lives, and with every part of our lives, we don’t—not consistently. Sometimes we do better, but distrust keeps creeping in, and the desire to put our trust in ourselves. This is the crux of God’s complaint: his people are robbing him because they don’t trust him. They are literally faithless—lacking in the necessary faith to obey God fully. Obedience is an expression of trust; they don’t trust, so they don’t obey. They’re struggling to survive, and so they’re holding back on their giving to God because they don’t think they can afford to give the full tithe, the full 10%. God responds, “Robbing me isn’t the solution to your financial problems—it’s the cause of your problems. You’re struggling because I’m not blessing you, and I’m not blessing you because you’re not being faithful to me.”
And then we get this: “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house”—why? “Or else I’ll continue to curse you?” “Because it’s your duty?” “Because I said so?” No. Instead, God says this: “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, and thereby put me to the test. See if I won’t throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there won’t be room to store it.” He’s telling them, “Just trust me. Trust me enough to obey me, that I will take care of you better than you can.”
Now, this doesn’t mean that everyone who gives faithfully will end up with lots of cash. God’s blessings go beyond just numbers in the bank account. But it’s a promise that those who are faithful will be blessed in many ways, and that if the nation as a whole will give God what he requires, he will bless the nation and everybody will have enough, without having to fight so hard to survive. We won’t have all we want, but he’ll never fail to give us all we need. The way to true security is not to hold on to everything we have—it’s to give it all away to God.
The attitude Malachi commands, Paul commends. What does he say—God loves a rich giver? No, God loves a cheerful giver. God loves one who gives freely and generously—not beause he has to or because she’s been guilt-tripped, not because she wants to impress someone or because she feels forced, but one who delights to give generously to God and the mission of his kingdom. And look where Paul goes from this: “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” It’s the same thing Malachi says: “Give to God, give without holding back, and God will make sure you have more than enough to do every good thing you have to do.” A cheerful giver, a generous giver, is one who gives in the calm assurance that they can’t out-give God. A cheerful giver is one who knows that Paul speaks the truth in verse 11: if you give generously to God, God will enrich you in every way to be generous in every way, so that others will be blessed and will give thanks to him.
Blessed are the generous—not just those who give a lot, but those who give out of generous spirits, who live life with open hands and open hearts, not clinging to whatever they can grab but letting the blessings of God flow freely through them. Blessed are the generous, because they are the ones who are walking by faith. Blessed are the generous, because their hearts are full of gratitude for all that God has done for them. Blessed are the generous, because they understand that all of life is God’s gift, and they receive it as his gift. Blessed are the generous, because they are firmly founded on trust that God will supply all their needs. Blessed are the generous, because generosity clears the heart of the anxiety of stuff and makes room for the peace of God. Blessed are the generous, because the generous are the grateful, and only the grateful believe.