Could a Recession Serve Our Joy?
00:00:00.000 | 2020, the year of the Great Lockdown, leading to what some are now calling the Great Coronavirus
00:00:11.400 | Recession. It was triggered by a strategic wager, sacrifice economic momentum in order
00:00:16.840 | to physically distance people, all with the goal of starving and killing off a spreading
00:00:21.480 | virus. It was a huge gamble, and it hurt. The Dow Jones flirting with 30,000 in February
00:00:27.960 | plummeted to under 19,000 a month later. As I record this, 22 million Americans have filed
00:00:34.480 | unemployment claims. The financial fallout of the Great Coronavirus Recession has been
00:00:39.480 | compared to the Great Recession of 2007-2009, even evoking comparisons to the Great Depression
00:00:46.200 | of 1929-1933. Looking ahead, some think the economy will bounce back to normal as soon
00:00:53.040 | as the virus is under control. Others are less optimistic. Recessions are killjoys.
00:00:59.440 | They destroy small businesses, they disrupt life, they take away our normalcy, and they
00:01:03.760 | cost us our happiness. In March, our president predicted America would lose more lives to
00:01:08.920 | the despair of recession than to the virus itself, saying, "People get tremendous anxiety
00:01:15.320 | and depression, and you have suicides over things like this when you have terrible economies
00:01:20.520 | in far greater numbers than the numbers that we're talking about with regard to the virus."
00:01:25.480 | Statistically, this statement is hotly contested, but just appreciate these words and what they
00:01:32.440 | say about the apparent threat of economic uncertainty on emotional well-being.
00:01:39.240 | This isn't the first recession, it won't be the last recession. So what is God up to in
00:01:43.760 | our recession? About a decade ago, John Piper preached a sermon under that exact title,
00:01:49.560 | "What is the Recession For?" It was preached on February 1st, 2009, in the middle of the
00:01:55.680 | Great Recession, at the time the Dow had been dropping but had not yet bottomed out. Recessions,
00:02:01.840 | he shows, are not meant to kill our joy, but to make our joy more stable. Here's Pastor
00:02:08.000 | John explaining from 2 Corinthians 8, verses 1-2.
00:02:11.720 | He intends to relocate the roots of our joy in his grace, not our goods, in his mercy,
00:02:19.680 | not our money, in his worth, not our wealth. God sends recessions to yank up the roots
00:02:32.560 | of our joy from the pleasures of the world and plant them in the glory of his grace.
00:02:44.660 | Now there's one text in the New Testament that is the clearest recession text in the
00:02:52.120 | Bible, and I'm going to take you there now. It's 2 Corinthians 8. We want you to know,
00:03:00.760 | there's about the grace of God that was given among the churches of Macedonia. So he's writing
00:03:06.160 | to Corinth about something that happened up in Macedonia, up around Philippi. "For in
00:03:11.880 | a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed
00:03:20.240 | in a wealth of generosity on their part." Now that's my dream for Bethlehem. I don't
00:03:28.840 | think we'll ever reach the poverty part, but it wouldn't hurt, perhaps. Verse 2 says, "These
00:03:36.000 | folks have a wealth of generosity." That's what I want for us. I mean every kind of generosity.
00:03:45.040 | I mean, after this service, somebody wants to talk to you, you're generous with your
00:03:48.520 | time. Somebody needs some money, you're generous with your money. Every kind. In other words,
00:03:56.040 | we're just the kind of people who are there. We're just ready to be spent for others. That's
00:04:02.480 | what I mean by generous. I want that for our people. So my question here is, where did
00:04:07.520 | that come from? Where did that come from in this text? And it's so clear. Sometimes I'm
00:04:13.920 | embarrassed to preach on this text to insult your intelligence. Prepare to be insulted.
00:04:23.360 | Did it come, you can help me, you can just tell me what the answers are to these questions.
00:04:27.860 | Did it come from their prosperity? What's the answer? No, because they don't have any.
00:04:34.340 | It says, verse 2, "Their extreme poverty overflowed in a wealth of liberality." So scratch that
00:04:41.240 | answer. It didn't come from prosperity. Do you know what state in the United States is
00:04:52.480 | per capita the poorest? Tell me, risk it. It'll be an insult, but say it anyway. Mississippi.
00:05:00.200 | Do you know what state per capita has the highest level of charitable giving? Now you
00:05:06.060 | know the answer. It's Mississippi. There's a correlation, folks, between poverty and
00:05:12.320 | giving, not wealth and giving. Wealthy people don't give much money proportionately. They
00:05:19.360 | give a lot of money, it just looks like they're giving a lot of money. But when somebody has
00:05:24.800 | almost nothing, and they get a plea, and they can't resist the giving, something's going
00:05:31.080 | on there really beautiful. And that's what's going on here. These people are poor, in verse
00:05:37.200 | 2, and they've got a wealth of generosity. Second question. Where did it come from? Did
00:05:44.440 | it come from being surrounded by approving people and culture? The answer to that one
00:05:52.840 | is no, because they're being harassed. It says in verse 2, look at it, "In a severe
00:06:00.680 | test of affliction." So now you've got poverty, and you've got people beating up on them.
00:06:06.440 | The reason I'm assuming affliction means that is because of Acts 17, verse 5. That's what
00:06:11.800 | happened in Thessalonica. That is up there around the Macedonians. Jason got arrested
00:06:19.320 | and beat up. The church, three weeks old, is being hurt. And they're given like crazy.
00:06:28.840 | I mean, this is recession over the top, and they're lavishly given. So, question third
00:06:37.320 | time, where'd this come from? It says in verse 2 where it came from. Their abundance of joy
00:06:46.440 | in that extreme poverty overflowed with a wealth of generosity. So, they were happy.
00:06:57.000 | The recession was abounding, they were poor, people were beating up on them, and they were
00:07:01.280 | so happy, they gave. Last question, where'd that joy come from? Verse 1, "We want you
00:07:11.520 | to know, brothers, about the..." Say those next three words. "That's the answer about
00:07:17.680 | the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia." And what does
00:07:20.560 | grace of God look like? It looks like abundant joy in the midst of poverty, overflowing in
00:07:26.880 | a wealth of liberality. That's what grace looks like when it comes down. The question
00:07:31.960 | for the church is, this church, your church, wherever you go to church, the question for
00:07:37.040 | the church is, "Have you experienced grace? Do you know your sediment of self-reliance
00:07:45.320 | so well, and you see it so clearly when it gets all murky after you get bumped by your
00:07:51.200 | wife or bumped by your kid or bumped by your broker, and you're looking at your glass,
00:07:57.120 | it's all murky, and you hate it, and you're stunned at the grace of God that He loves
00:08:03.600 | you, that He forgives you, that He stays by you, that He keeps holding on to you, that
00:08:08.040 | He brings you home to glory, and you can hardly imagine a God so kind that you're going to
00:08:13.960 | give and give and give to people who are in need.
00:08:17.280 | I just want to be like that. I want you to be like that because it's such a beautiful,
00:08:21.960 | beautiful thing. So the way recessions work is that they bump us, and then they reveal
00:08:27.760 | the sin, and then they jerk up, and they jerk up the roots of our joy, which were down there
00:08:34.160 | in our money, and in our security, and how everything was going, and we suddenly are
00:08:39.840 | rootless for a minute, and then He mercifully sinks them into the glory of the grace of
00:08:46.600 | God. And they're firm, and they're solid, and they're not shaken anymore. Be thankful
00:08:53.760 | in all circumstances. This is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Amen.
00:09:01.680 | Amen. This was taken from John Piper's sermon titled "What is the Recession for? Some of
00:09:06.680 | God's Purposes." He preached it on February 1st, 2009, and the full message is available
00:09:11.600 | online at DesiringGod.org.
00:09:14.520 | Thanks for listening. If you want new episodes of this podcast delivered to you, subscribe
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00:09:26.920 | do that online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:09:32.480 | How do I know if I'm living by faith or living in unbelief? Is there a more important question
00:09:37.800 | to the daily Christian life than this one? I don't think so. It's the next question up
00:09:42.160 | on the docket next time on Friday. I'm your host Tony Reinhke, and we'll see you then.
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