It’s a story of startling generosity.

The apostle Paul had been traveling around what is modern-day Greece and Turkey, visiting the Christian churches there and presenting an opportunity for them to be generous. You see, the Christian churches back in Jerusalem were suffering, and these gifts were being gathered to help them in their physical needs.

The apostle Paul wrote a letter to the Christians in Corinth to encourage them to put their faith into practice and to practice the spiritual gift of giving. He wrote this: “And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us” (2 Corinthians 8:1-5).

How were these Christians able to be so generous, when by all human standards they were so poor?

Well, because they had put their trust in a heavenly Father who promises to provide daily bread. They put their trust in their Savior, Jesus, who promises that when his children seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, that all the things they need will be given to them as well.

So it is true for you and me that we have received generosity from God—startling generosity. God, who is so gracious as to forgive us for our stinginess and greed and selfishness. So we are people who know that we have been set free from these sinful attitudes of our heart. We’ve been set free to be generous to others.

I’ve witnessed this startling generosity in you, our active duty service members and their families, and in our veterans and their families, and in civilians who support ministry to the military.

Years ago when I served a church in Kentucky, I traveled once a month to Evansville, Indiana. I was the closest WELS pastor to a man who was a World War II veteran. Once a month, I brought him the Lord’s Supper and had a devotion and prayer. And every month, he slipped me a $100 bill and said, “Use this to pay for your rental car and for gas.”

I did this once a month for a year and a half. Then God called him home to heaven. About six months later, I received a letter in the mail with a check for several thousand dollars. It was from a church in Wisconsin. This man had officially been a member of this church in Wisconsin, and the letter said, “You probably don’t know this, but the man that you had been serving was very wealthy, and he left quite a substantial amount of money to our church and school. We’re actually going to be able to build a gymnasium for our grade school children. But we wanted to send a portion to you and your church to thank you for your generosity to this man.”

I recently traveled to the East Coast and spent some time with some members of a congregation there that’s full of veterans and active duty service members. Many of them are leaders in the congregation. One of them shared with me that they’ve been blessed with the gift of giving in that congregation—so much so that at the end of the year, they have extra money from offerings. And they don’t keep it for themselves. They look for a need in the churches in their area, and they give it to them. Or they’ve given to our WELS Christian Aid and Relief organization that is assisting with flooding relief efforts in the Carolinas.

Or I heard that the Organization of WELS Lutheran Seniors, or OWLS, has recently given $58,000 to support the European chaplain ministry, through which my counterpart, my brother in the ministry Chaplain Rob Weiss, travels to the military bases in Germany and Italy and Spain, serving our warfighters and their families with God’s Word and sacrament.

It’s through stories like the Lutheran Military Support Group. It was started nine years ago by veterans who saw a need to serve veterans and active duty members and their dependents. And one of the ways they raise funds for this is through their Ammo Can Campaign. If you reach out to them on their website, they’ll ship you an ammo can for free, and they ask that you put it out at Veterans Day weekend or Memorial Day weekend. The funds that they raise through that Ammo Can Campaign are used to host events like a spiritual retreat for Christian warriors and their battle buddies.

They also use that money to support my ministry, so I can travel around the United States and build up our pastors and our congregations as they seek to serve our military members and their families. They use those generous gifts to support the training of Lutheran pastors who serve near military installations.

How has God been generous to you? How might he use you to be generous to others to support their physical needs? And how might he use you to be generous to them so that their spiritual needs might also be met?

My encouragement to you today is this. Spend some time in God’s Word this weekend and read 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9. And through prayer and prayerful consideration, ask God how he might use you to give with startling generosity.

Prayer:
Almighty and ever-living God, you have given exceedingly great and precious promises to those who trust in you. Grant us so firmly to believe in your Son, Jesus, that our faith may never be found wanting.

This coming week, the United States Marine Corps will celebrate its 249th birthday. Lord Jesus, the Marine Corps has served to fight our country’s battles in the air, on land, and sea. Continue to raise up faithful men and women to serve in the Corps, so that we might enjoy the freedoms of our great nation and live our lives in peace and safety.

As our nation pauses this week on November 11th to honor our veterans, we thank you for raising up brave men and women who were willing to engage our enemies, who have provided humanitarian aid for those who suffer, who attentively protected our borders.

Bring healing to those veterans who still carry unseen scars of trauma through your lifegiving promises. Use us to show the love of Christ to them when days are difficult. I pray this all in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.