Not About the Money

Sermons | Cities Church

“It’s not about the money!”

You’ve probably heard that sentence before: There’s some situation involving money, but to assure all parties involved that there’s something deeper and more meaningful going on, the party with an interest in money will say, “It’s not about the money.”

And right away, when we hear that, what do we think?

There’s a good chance that our knee-jerk response is to be a little cynical. I did a Google search last week looking for a famous “It’s not about the money” quote and what popped up the most was that “If someone says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.”

We can be a tough crowd. We know that flattery can be pretext for greed (see 1 Thessalonians 2:5). We don’t like schmoozing. We lean toward suspicion in these things.

So, for example, the National Collegiate Athletics Association (the NCAA) has never allowed college athletes to be paid until just recently, and through the whole saga of coming to that decision, one thing that the NCAA could NOT say was that “It’s not about the money.” And the reason they couldn’t say that is because NCAA Division 1 athletics rakes in around $15.3 billion of revenue every year. It’s almost like people dared them to say “it’s not about the money.” Because we’re all pretty sure it’s about the money.

So when it comes to this topic, I think at best, we can be responsibly suspicious; at worst, though, we can be callously cynical.

And I mention this at the start, because I want us to check our default thinking here as we look closer at Philippians 4, verses 14–18. Because the apostle Paul talks about money in this passage — he talks about the partnership that he’s had with this church at Philippi (they’ve been his most cherished financial supporters and he’s writing to them about that support). And the main thing Paul says to them is that it’s not about the money.

When it comes to a Christian’s giving of money, it’s not about the money — and Paul tells us three reasons why that’s true. That’s what I want to show you this morning, but first let’s pray again and ask for God’s help:

Father in heaven, in these next moments with your word open before us, I ask that you would do more in our hearts than we could ask or imagine. This is indeed your word and we are your people. Manifest your glory in, by, unto, and upon us, in Jesus’s name, amen.

Three reasons why, when it comes a Christian’s giving of money, it’s not about the money …

1) Giving money expresses true partnership (verses 14–16).

And I just wanna say, I went back and forth on the best language to use here. Other ways to say “giving money” would be phrases like “material gifts” … or “financial contribution” … or “practical support” — those terms sound nice.

But I just decided to go with “giving money” because, for some reason, that sounds a little more uncomfortable to us, but it’s most basically what this is. Paul is talking about this church giving him money. That’s the hard reality. I wanna be clear that’s what we’re talking about. But look what Paul says in verse 14. He says:

“Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble.”

Remember this goes back to verse 10. (Last week’s sermon focused on verses 11–13, and that was a little tangent in the passage.) But overall, Paul is talking about the money this church had sent him, and in verse 10, he starts by saying:

“I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity.”

Then verse 11 explains how he thinks about needs … I can do all things through him who is strengthening me. Remember this is Christ-sufficiency.

Verse 14:

“Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble.”

So already here, if we put verses 10 and 14 together, notice how Paul has referred to the act of this church giving him money: in verse 10, he calls it “reviving your concern for me.” In verse 14, he calls it “shar[ing] my trouble.”

Then in verses 15–16, he explains what he means. Look at verse 15:

“And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only. Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again.”

History of Partnership

So Paul and the church at Philippi have a long history of partnership — and it’s one that goes back to “the beginning of the gospel.” The ESV does a literal translation here — Paul says straight up, “beginning of the gospel” — but what does he mean by that?

When we think about the beginning of the gospel — we might think of Genesis 3:15, right? That’s when the gospel was first promised, when God said that a son of woman would come and crush the serpent. Or, is the beginning of the gospel Christmas morning? Or maybe it’s Good Friday? When did the gospel begin?

This is actually a deep question, and the right answer goes back to the heart of God before the foundations of the world — but that’s not what Paul is talking about here. The NIV (which is another English Bible translation), it translates this phrase in verse 15 as: “in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel.” That’s a great way of saying this.

Paul is saying that this church, since it’s very inception, since the very beginning of when they heard the gospel and believed back in Acts 16 — they have partnered with Paul, and no other church has been like that. Therefore, the church at Philippi is special to Paul. They’re unique.

And what Paul says here goes back to how he started the letter in Chapter 1, verse 3. Think back to January for us, when Paul says, 1:3,

“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.”

Then Paul says, “God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus” (1:8). Paul really loved this church, and they loved him. They had a true partnership, and that’s what this church’s financial support expressed. They were actually friends — that’s what the money was about.

And I think that’s clear to us by what we’ve already seen, but there’s a little phrase in verse 15 that doubles down on this idea. Paul says, verse 15,

“no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only.”

Giving and Receiving

Get this: Paul calls this church giving him money to be a partnership of “giving and receiving.” And right away, we might ask what’s the receiving part: This church gave money to Paul; what did they receive?

But before we even get there, just the phrase by itself, “giving and receiving” — that was a loaded phrase for these first readers. Within the Greco-Roman mindset, the two actions of giving and receiving were both considered necessary for true friendship. That was the popular thinking. That was the song on the radio. True friendship required true mutuality. True friendship required a genuine exchange of benefits.

And I won’t get into this now (I chased a rabbit hole last week, you can ask me later), but the most popular treatise on the topic of friendship at this time was by the Stoic philosopher Seneca. And his teaching was that in order to have a true friendship — as opposed to a mere functional arrangement — true friendship meant that there was shared giving and receiving by both parties for the others’ good.

Paul was very aware of the thinking of this day and he knows what he’s doing in verse 15 when he says “giving and receiving.” He’s taking the criterion of true friendship in the Philippian mindset, and he’s saying,

Church, that’s what we have. This is not a utilitarian partnership. Your giving has not been a one-way street. But you’re giving has been part of giving and receiving. We have a true friendship.

And that friendship is the foreground of this passage. Church, really, it’s not about the money.

Here’s the second reason why:

2) Giving money resulted in spiritual receiving (verse 17).

So if there was a giving and receiving, what did the Philippians receive? This is in verse 17.

Verse 17 is a clarification to what Paul just said in verses 14–16, and this is exactly what Paul did last week in verse 11. Glance back at verse 11 for a second …

Verse 11 starts,

“Not that I am speaking of being in need…”

Now look at verse 17:

“Not that I seek the gift…”

For the second time here, Paul clarifies something. He’s saying, I’m not seeking the money.

The money was not his aim. Instead, his aim is the fruit that the church receives from their giving the money. That was how Paul did support-raising.

Hey, would you give me money? I’m not asking for it because I want your money, but it’s because I want you to be blessed in the giving.

The word “fruit” there in verse 17 is another literal translation, but in a context like this, another way to translate it is to call it “profit.”

The idea is that as this church is giving money to Paul — from their hearts, because of their friendship, for the advance of the gospel — as this church is doing that very practical, earthly thing of giving money, they are accumulating interest in their spiritual account. They experience an increase of spiritual credit and that’s what Paul wanted!

And he’s using a commercial metaphor here. This is the way business people would have talked when they were making a deal. One commentator says that Paul is talking this way probably with a smile on his face; he’s talking with his friends, and it’s like he’s being playful with this metaphor.

And the main thing I want us to see is that this church is benefiting. They are truly receiving. In fact, in return for their giving, they are rolling in a profit, but the profit is not material; the profit is spiritual.

The Spiritual Is Real and Now

And immediately, we modern people wanna say, “Ah, C’mon! Giving physical money and receiving ‘spiritual,’ invisible benefit! Are you kidding me!”

And the reason we go there right away is because we have a disease. We have worldview disease. We have been influenced by our world to think that the spiritual is not as real as the material. The material is hard, concrete, right here, but the spiritual is invisible and out there and basically fake (we’re taught to think).

And just to be clear, that way of thinking is a historical and cultural phenomenon. Most people throughout human history have understood that the spiritual world is real, and most cultures today (except for the West) still understand that the spiritual world is real.

So check your worldview: we need to view things the way that Paul does here, and the way that the church at Philippi does here — and the way that Jesus does! The way Jesus taught! Jesus taught us, in Matthew 6, that through our giving, now in this world, we can “lay up treasure in heaven” (see Matt. 6:19–24). That’s spiritual profit. Jesus taught that.

And now there’s a question here on this passage about when exactly do we experience the spiritual profit?

So, if giving now means we can accumulate profit in our ‘spiritual account,’ does that mean we have to wait for the Second Coming of Christ before we experience the profit? Or can we experience some of it now? If we’ve got treasure in heaven, do we benefit from that treasure today, or do we have to wait until we get to heaven?

The answer is Yes.

There is nothing in the passage that would make us think that we only receive spiritual benefits in the future. The contrast here is not present/future, but it’s material/spiritual, and what’s implied here is that, in this life, we can experience the spiritual blessings that come as the result of financial giving. We can receive spiritual benefit in the present, but the caveat is this: the benefit is truly spiritual.

Paul’s True Aim

We must be careful here. Evil false teachers have twisted the Bible’s teaching on this topic. It is a heresy to say: “Give money today in order to be physically healed.” Or Give money today in order to get more money so that you can buy yourself that new, shiny doohickey. Or Give money today in order to shorten your family member’s time in purgatory (and there’s no such thing as purgatory, but that was said years ago).

Throughout church history there has been “Give money in order to” nonsense that is driven by greed and distorts Scripture.

Paul is not saying that. If we’re learning from Paul, we’d talk more like this: we’d say … Yes, our increased financial generosity will likely mean that we experience an increase of faith. If we give, we will most likely see the provision of God at work. He will supply seed to the sower. We will know the nearness of Jesus in details that maybe we didn’t recognize before. There’s a goodness in the giving. There’s joy here. We have a reward in heaven.

Church, we’re talking real spiritual profit. And that is Paul’s aim. That’s what he wants for this church.

And Paul wants to prove it. Somebody might ask, “Well what if Paul is talking all about this spiritual profit just because he wants the church to keep giving him money?”

Paul settles that question in verse 18, because he says: I don’t need anymore money! He uses three strong verbs to make that clear. In verse 18, he goes:

I’m paid in full!

I abound!

I am well supplied!

The subtext here is,

I really mean it when I say that my aim is your spiritual blessing. I’m not just saying that because I want you to give more money. I’ve got enough money! Consider me “paid in full”! I’m overflowing! I’m well-supplied!

Church, really, it’s not about the money.

And here’s the third reason:

3) Giving money is a pleasing sacrifice to God (verse 18).

Until we get to the end of verse 18, the focus has been on the partnership between Paul and this church, but now that changes. Look at verse 18:

I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent [he’s talking about money here, which is], a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.”

In other words, the money that this church gave to Paul was a pleasing sacrifice they gave to God. Financial giving is an offering to God.

We saw this in the Book of Hebrews. The Old Testament sacrificial system ended in the sacrifice of Jesus, and now our sacrifice is a life of worship and praise. Hebrews 13:5,

“Through [Jesus] then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

The Wonder of “Offering”

Giving money is an offering to God. And that’s actually common knowledge for most Christians. That’s why when we give financially we call it an “offering.” That little box in the back is an offering box. We get that language from the Bible. Christians have been talking this way since the early church. … and we can sorta take it for granted, but this is amazing.

Think about this: material giving can only accomplish material things. When the church at Philippi sent Paul the money, they were not funding conversions. That’s not how it works. The money is not what makes the gospel advance — people do that. Paul is the one speaking the gospel and doing the ministry — all the physical money can do is help Paul get physical provisions so that he can keep speaking the gospel and doing the ministry.

This is the way it has always been. Money does not accomplish gospel advance, it’s a means to sustain the people and resources for gospel advance. The money is so incredibly earthy and material — and yet, we call it an offering to God.

The only way that makes sense is because God is God. God is real.

What Paul does in verse 18, is he takes our eyes and lifts them from looking around at one another — which is a good thing — but now Paul directs our eyes to God. When it comes to giving, I think that’s always the most important part. We need to remember God, again and again.

What It Means to God

That was my big takeaway from the little book Plastic Donuts — it’s a book I read a fews years ago before we started the Rooted initiative. It’s so good. The convicting part of the book is that, when it comes to giving, so often we get stuck thinking about the difference giving will make for us. That’s our focus — it’s how we’re impacted by the giving and what we or others think about it. But what if instead, when it came to giving we thought first and mainly about what God thinks about it?

Like: we start to see giving not in the terms of what it means to us, but in terms of what it means to God. We think, first and mainly, that God is our heavenly Father and he cares for us, and he will supply every need of ours, and our giving money to Paul — or giving money to the church or to the cause of the gospel — that is an offering to God and it brings delight to his heart. It’s pleasing to him.

That’s where Paul takes us here in verse 18. He takes us to GOD! Remember GOD.

Don’t you know that God loves a cheerful giver?! God is happy with your generosity. Your giving is pleasing to God! Church, really, it’s not about the money.

This church’s giving expressed their true partnership; it resulted in spiritual receiving; it was a sacrifice that pleased God — and these three things are not just the case for the church at Philippi, but they apply to us too.

Over the last decade, God has given us a generous church. It’s one of the things that we recognize as a hallmark of our church culture. You are a generous people — God has always taken care of our church and he has made our church a blessing to these cities and beyond through your giving.

And I wanna say: thank you for that, and there’s more for us here. There’s more opportunity. There is yet more good that God has for us and our ministry together through our giving.

And that’s what brings us to the Table.

The Table

Verse 19:

“My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

Verse 19 is so amazing that it’s gonna be its own sermon next week, but for now, look at those last words: “his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

Do we have any idea about the wealth of God?

And church, do you know what he has spent for you?

He gave you — God gave you — the life of his Son.

And that’s what we remember at this Table, as we receive the bread and cup. We say “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” And if you have received that gift this morning, if you have put your faith in Jesus Christ, we invite you to receive the bread and cup with us.