beyond the power of the title
Exceeding the strength of the content (2 Corinthians 8:1-5)
In Macedonia, there were the Philippian church, Thessalonica church, and the Perea church. The churches in Macedonia, which were under Roman rule, suffered a lot and suffered economically. However, when they made a donation, they volunteered to donate beyond their strength. The Apostle Paul introduces the spirit of tearful giving of the Macedonian churches and appeals to you to give precious offerings for the Jerusalem church as well.
There are three types of people when giving an offering.
(1) There are people who always give less with a stingy heart.
(2) A person who pays tithing correctly.
A person who is honest but not stylish, who has no joy and is merely a duty giver. I will give you a tithe counting down to the last few hundred won. He kept the law, but did not know grace.
(3) There are people who give in excess of their strength.
In the midst of extreme difficulties, the Macedonians gave their offerings beyond their strength. The same was true of the widow in Luke 21. Although she gave two lepton, it was all her living expenses. I knew that life would be destitute right now. But some of them were not taken away. As she did everything she could to serve God, the inside of her would have seemed to soar through the sky with love and joy.
I would like to tell you to live “exceeding our strength” through all of our lives, rather than giving too much when we donate based on this text today.
When you carry out the mission entrusted to you by the church, let it go beyond strength. When you work at home and in the world, you must not only work for money, but also do what you are asked to do, and let it go beyond your strength.
Here are the prerequisites. You must not only do it on your own, but also volunteer with joy.
In Ruth chapter 1, we see women of amazing fate. A man named Elimelech went to live in a place called Moab with his wife and two sons during a famine in Bethlehem. There, the man died, and his two sons died after marriage, and the three widows lived together. When Naomi hears that Bethlehem's famine is over, she decides to return to Judea. The mother-in-law urges the two daughters-in-law to return home. So Orpah kisses him and returns home, while Ruth continues to pursue Naomi. And Ruth says: If I leave my mother except to die, the Lord will punish me and send more. How did Ruth receive blessings from a foreign Moabite woman by serving her mother-in-law <exceeding her strength> without abandoning her mother? I enjoy the blessing of becoming David's great-grandmother. You will not stay here, but will enjoy the wonderful glory of entering the genealogy of Jesus Christ. By giving Eliezer water to a camel that Rebekah had not ordered, she had the blessing of becoming the daughter-in-law of Abraham, the father of faith.
When Paul writes to the Macedonian church, he introduces them as follows. Philippians 2:4 tells us to look not only at our own work, but also on the work of others, so that our joy may be full. If you don't do your job properly and you are pointing fingers at others and helping others, that's not right. So, first of all, he did his job well. And I gladly served my neighbors in need.
<Conclusion> There are three types of people in the world.
There is a life that sucks blood by trapping a weak insect in the web with an invisible cord like a spider. Next, there is a life that works hard like an ant but only knows itself. Finally, there is a life where the whole world becomes a flower garden by transferring pollen to other flowers instead of getting nectar from flowers like bees. I hope that you will become all the saints in the preface who are faithful to the church, family, and world beyond their strength and live with the blessings of God and the people of the world.