How Christian Is ‘Pay-It-Forward’?
00:00:00.000 | Eric Olson from Springfield, Missouri writes in, "Pastor John, does the popularized pay-it-forward
00:00:10.740 | concept nullify grace?
00:00:13.560 | I just read a segment of your book, Future Grace, and I think it clarified why I've been
00:00:17.560 | discontented with all of this paying it forward.
00:00:20.600 | It seems too easily to fall into the camp of human obedience to match past grace or
00:00:25.760 | the idea of giving to get.
00:00:28.520 | Can you show a scripture that might reveal our motives in the pay-it-forward phenomenon
00:00:32.600 | that we see today?"
00:00:33.600 | Let me give a little background first because my guess is some of our listeners are not
00:00:40.160 | familiar with this at all.
00:00:41.560 | I certainly was not aware of the phenomenon he's talking about, so I had to do a little
00:00:47.640 | poking around.
00:00:48.640 | So pay it forward is an expression for describing the beneficiary of a good deed, repaying it
00:00:57.920 | to others instead of the one who did the good deed to him.
00:01:02.640 | So the concept is very old, but the phrase may have been coined, according to Wikipedia,
00:01:10.160 | by Lily Hardy Hammond in 1916 in her book, The Garden of Delight.
00:01:19.240 | There was a movie in 2000 called Pay It Forward, and the lead line in the movie was, "When
00:01:24.880 | someone does you a good deed, don't pay it back, pay it forward."
00:01:28.680 | That's the idea.
00:01:29.680 | There's a pay-it-forward foundation, there's a pay-it-forward novel, there's a pay-it-forward
00:01:35.600 | day, April 30th, maybe that's why the question came recently.
00:01:40.160 | Benjamin Franklin loaned a man in need some money one time, and he said, "I do not pretend
00:01:47.120 | to give such a deed.
00:01:49.200 | I only lend it to you.
00:01:51.520 | When you meet with another honest man in similar distress as you, you must pay me by lending
00:01:58.640 | this sum to him."
00:02:00.960 | That's the meaning of pay it forward.
00:02:03.960 | So the gist of it then, pretty plain, and I would say in advance of my biblical reflection,
00:02:12.640 | that on the horizontal level, as a way of thinking about spreading kindness, it seems
00:02:17.000 | pretty harmless to me and could do much good.
00:02:21.720 | But we're Christians, and we don't live merely on the horizontal level ever.
00:02:27.680 | We're always dealing with two directions, the horizontal and the vertical.
00:02:32.920 | We live before the face of God.
00:02:34.660 | So what does this mean in Scripture?
00:02:39.760 | What does the Scripture have to say about this approach towards ethics?
00:02:45.920 | Discharging a debt from one person toward giving back not to that person, but giving
00:02:52.120 | forward to another person.
00:02:53.640 | What does the Bible say about that?
00:02:56.720 | And I think the best way to handle this is to just get a big picture of the biblical
00:03:03.960 | view of debt or obligation in its various forms.
00:03:09.920 | One of them is a pay it forward in the Bible, but others are not.
00:03:14.440 | So here's my definition of debt.
00:03:17.200 | Debt is an obligation or a sense of ought in me to do some good for someone which is
00:03:26.400 | created, the debt is created by someone doing a good for me.
00:03:30.480 | Okay, I said it very generally because that way it's going to cut across all kinds of
00:03:35.800 | lines and I've got what, I think five or four.
00:03:38.400 | Yeah, see, I think I have five ways that we legitimately come into debt.
00:03:44.320 | So number one, someone loans you something or invest something with you, you are indebted
00:03:50.040 | to pay them back.
00:03:51.920 | So parable of the talents, Jesus said, Matthew 25, to the fellow who didn't do anything
00:03:57.720 | with his talent that the master had loaned him, "Then you ought to have invested the
00:04:02.920 | money with bankers and at my coming I should have received back that which I gave you with
00:04:09.480 | interest."
00:04:10.480 | So that man was indebted to the investor.
00:04:13.640 | He gives you money to handle for his sake, it's his money.
00:04:17.240 | You owe him that money with interest or some kind of payoff because he gave it to you to
00:04:22.200 | handle.
00:04:23.520 | That's number one.
00:04:25.080 | Number two, you put in a day's work, your employer owes you a wage.
00:04:31.040 | First Timothy 5, 18, "Do not muzzle an ox when it's treading out the grain.
00:04:35.480 | The laborer deserves his wages."
00:04:38.400 | So it's right if you're an employer to feel indebted to pay a wage to your employees.
00:04:45.560 | Number three, we are debtors to others if they have given us spiritual blessings.
00:04:51.320 | Romans 15, 26, "Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for
00:04:58.480 | the poor, the saints in Jerusalem, for they were pleased to do it and indeed they owe,"
00:05:03.880 | there's the key word, "they owe it to them."
00:05:07.760 | Or if they, the Gentiles, the Macedonian Gentiles, have come to share in the spiritual blessings
00:05:15.560 | that came from Jerusalem, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings.
00:05:22.240 | They ought, you hear the word "ought"?
00:05:24.120 | So they owe it to them, they ought.
00:05:25.920 | So when spiritual blessings come to you from someone, there is a sense of oughtness that
00:05:31.360 | you should participate in meeting any needs they have, even physically.
00:05:37.040 | First Corinthians 9, 11, "If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much
00:05:42.560 | if we reap material things from you?"
00:05:45.520 | No, if we've sown, we should reap from you.
00:05:48.800 | Or Galatians 6, 6, "Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one
00:05:55.120 | who teaches."
00:05:56.120 | So teachers should be supported by the ones they're teaching.
00:05:59.920 | So there's that kind of oughtness created by the sharing of spiritual things.
00:06:05.420 | Number four, "We are debtors to all people."
00:06:10.320 | Here's the pay-forward part.
00:06:11.640 | "We are debtors to all people if God has given us a gift which he is willing to give to all
00:06:20.320 | who call upon him through you."
00:06:23.360 | So here's Paul in Romans 1, 14, "I am a debtor to Greeks and barbarians, both to the
00:06:30.640 | wise and to the foolish."
00:06:32.680 | In other words, I'm a debtor to everybody.
00:06:35.600 | "So I am eager to preach the gospel also to you who were in Rome."
00:06:40.440 | So what he means by that is, God has given me, has entrusted me with this spectacular
00:06:47.640 | treasure of the gospel, and therefore I am a debtor to everyone because the gospel is
00:06:55.440 | meant for everyone and I have it.
00:06:59.240 | Here's a picture of this.
00:07:01.520 | Back in 1975, Dan Fuller preached at my ordination, and he did it from this text, and he made
00:07:08.560 | this point.
00:07:10.000 | The text is 2 Kings 7, "The Syrians have surrounded Jerusalem.
00:07:15.740 | The embargo is such that they are starving in Jerusalem.
00:07:19.520 | Nobody can get any food.
00:07:22.220 | They're about to all perish from starvation, and God steps in and chases the Syrians away
00:07:29.140 | by causing them to hear something.
00:07:31.840 | There are four lepers standing at the gate who decide, 'Look, we're going to die anyway.
00:07:38.800 | Let's go ask for mercy from the Syrians.'
00:07:42.140 | So they go out to the Syrian camp, and it's empty, filled with food.
00:07:47.400 | This is like the gospel.
00:07:48.660 | This is like finding the gospel, the treasure hidden in a field.
00:07:53.400 | And what do they do?
00:07:54.400 | Well, they start eating, they pounce upon it and eat it and amass it, and then they
00:07:59.660 | stop and in verse 9 it says, "They said to one another, 'We're not doing right.'"
00:08:04.780 | In other words, we have a debt here.
00:08:08.540 | We have a debt.
00:08:10.140 | We're not doing right.
00:08:11.940 | This day is a day of good news.
00:08:14.580 | If we are silent and wait until morning, punishment will overtake us.
00:08:20.500 | Now therefore, come, let us go and tell the king's household.
00:08:24.920 | And within a day, everybody's need was met in Jerusalem.
00:08:29.580 | So the point there is, when you are made the beneficiary from God of something that is
00:08:37.740 | meant to benefit everyone, you are the debtor to everyone.
00:08:44.500 | That's biblical paying it forward.
00:08:47.400 | And the last one is, and this is the one he picked up on in "Future Grace," and it's
00:08:53.000 | really crucial, so we need to end on this.
00:08:55.380 | We have a debt to God for all his goodness to us.
00:08:59.600 | Yes, we do.
00:09:01.260 | We owe God.
00:09:03.320 | But this debt is absolutely unique.
00:09:07.060 | It can never be repaid.
00:09:08.780 | It should never be repaid.
00:09:11.260 | Any attempt to repay it is a contradiction of grace.
00:09:14.720 | We will go deeper and deeper into debt forever.
00:09:17.620 | We will never come out of debt to God, and grace means that.
00:09:22.480 | Grace would not be grace if you could pay it back.
00:09:26.700 | God would not be all-sufficient if his gift to us reduced his resources so that they needed
00:09:34.380 | replenishing by payback.
00:09:36.660 | They're not reduced.
00:09:37.660 | That's what it means to be infinite.
00:09:38.900 | That's what it means to be God.
00:09:41.100 | When God gives, he is the no less for it.
00:09:43.900 | When we give, we are the less for it in some way.
00:09:47.380 | He's not.
00:09:48.380 | We dishonor God by trying to pay God back for his good towards us.
00:09:54.020 | So when Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15.10, "By the grace of God, I am what I am, and
00:10:01.500 | his grace toward me was not in vain.
00:10:03.460 | On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them.
00:10:06.200 | It was not I, but the grace of God that was with me."
00:10:09.320 | What that verse means is any attempt we make, that is any good deed we perform, is performed
00:10:17.200 | by the grace of God so that our good deeds can never be a means of paying back for grace
00:10:23.680 | because they are expressions of grace and therefore take us in deeper into grace.
00:10:29.520 | So a person is profoundly confused if they think that good deeds, inobedience to God
00:10:36.320 | is a payback to God when Paul says those good deeds are a very work of grace, not the payback
00:10:41.600 | for grace.
00:10:42.800 | And the last thing would be Psalm 116.12, "What shall I render to the Lord for all
00:10:48.400 | of his benefits to me?"
00:10:49.800 | Okay, there is the key payback question in relation to God.
00:10:53.760 | What shall I render to the Lord for all of his benefits to me?
00:10:57.160 | And his answer is in verse 13, Psalm 116, "I will lift up the cup of salvation."
00:11:04.760 | Now at that point you wonder, "What does that mean?
00:11:07.420 | Is this a cup that is full and he's toasting God?"
00:11:11.480 | Like it's a toast, I lift it up and toast him, or is it a cup that is empty and he's
00:11:16.960 | asking for more?
00:11:18.640 | And the next phrase answers the question.
00:11:20.480 | "I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord."
00:11:25.960 | So the answer of payback to God is ask for more.
00:11:30.000 | If you want to honor God for yesterday's grace, ask him for today's grace.
00:11:35.840 | Because in doing that, you're showing your desperate need and you're showing God's
00:11:40.800 | infinite resourcefulness.
00:11:43.680 | So if you pay forward the way Paul pays forward in Romans 1.14, know this, you are not paying
00:11:57.880 | God back by paying forward to others.
00:12:02.880 | You are drawing down more and more and more grace and laying up more and more treasure
00:12:08.840 | in heaven.
00:12:09.840 | Amen.
00:12:10.840 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:12:12.640 | And you may have caught on that this episode is built off of Pastor John's book, Future
00:12:16.520 | Grace.
00:12:18.040 | And for more information about this title and for all of our titles, most of which you
00:12:20.960 | can download for free, go to DesiringGod.org/books.
00:12:26.720 | While it's time for us to break for the weekend, for everything you need to know about this
00:12:30.040 | podcast or to send Pastor John a question, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:12:37.760 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.
00:12:39.080 | Have a wonderful weekend.
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