Every Wednesday
Just Try to Outgive Your God
By David Mathis in Desiring God
Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you. (Luke 6:38)
We have an ice cream shop in town that is known for its laughable generosity. Order a “child size,” and you get more than enough for two adults. First-time visitors are not just pleased but stunned to see the teenage workers pile scoop after scoop on the base of a tiny cone, press it down, and keep adding — until the tower topples into an accompanying cup.
It’s a good shock, the kind that starts with a smile and then leads to laughter. I am getting so much more than I expected!
God Does the Scooping
Jesus serves up just such a picture of over-the-top generosity in Luke 6:38. And the surprise isn’t that his followers are asked to go around behind the counter and do the dishing, but that Jesus puts the scoop in the hand of his Father. He promises that “the Most High” rejoices to give lavishly to his lowly children until they smile and laugh with joy in return.
Delighting in Jesus’s picture, J.C. Ryle comments,
No one will ever be a loser, in the long run, by deeds of self-denying charity and patient longsuffering love. At times they may seem to get nothing by their conduct. They may appear to reap nothing but ridicule, contempt, and injury. Their kindness may sometimes tempt others to impose on them. Their patience and forbearance may be abused. But at the last they will always be found a gainer — often, very often, a gainer in this life and most certainly a gainer in the life to come. (Luke, 1:144)
To see how Jesus’s followers will be such gainers in the end, and even now, we need to take a few cues from the context. When we do, we’re ready not to mistake this teaching as an exacting demand but receive it (in the words of C.S. Lewis) as one of Jesus’s “unblushing promises of reward.”
Give to Get
In Luke 6, Jesus instructs his disciples how to treat others — with a clear eye toward how we will be treated in return by our Father in heaven.
Jesus’s pattern is this: Treat others well, with an explicit view toward the benefit that comes from God. Christ’s ethic is plainly not the natural human ethic that says, “Treat others well, and they will treat you well in return.” He expressly denies this in verse 34:
If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount.
Jesus is not a teacher of human wisdom. He’s not giving strategies for how to get other humans to give back to you. Rather, Jesus says, “Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great” (verse 35). The reward for your love and good deeds will not come from fellow humans. The reward will come from God.
“The Most High rejoices to give lavishly to his lowly children until they smile and laugh with joy in return.”
The “credit” or “benefit” (Greek charis, usually translated “grace” throughout the New Testament) to which Jesus makes explicit appeal is not what others will do for you in return but what your heavenly Father will be and do for you. You give to others, seeking nothing in return from them, because you are looking to the reward you will receive from God.
So, get this straight: Christians are not people who seek no return. Rather, Christians emphatically seek return, but not from mere man. We are not so easily pleased. We seek return from God. And when God gives, he does not hold back. He does not pinch pennies. He doesn’t cut corners. He doesn’t ration from limited resources like man does. He lavishes from his infinite riches as God.
Who Forgives?
Next comes verse 37, which immediately precedes our text:
Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.
The key is to remember who’s the actor in the second half of these three pairs. The context makes it plain: God. Judge not, and you will not be judged by God. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned by God. Forgive, and you will be forgiven by God.
So, then — seamlessly into verse 38 — “Give, and it will be given to you” by God. “With the measure you use it will be measured back to you” not by fellow humans but by God himself.
And when your heavenly Father measures back, he covers every ounce you gave and lavishes his grace over the top: “Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.”
Our Father in heaven is not like a worker at the typical ice cream shop, setting just one scoop atop an obviously empty cone. He heaps on his grace. He presses it down to make room for even more. He piles it high and we smile. And he keeps piling on till the tower topples into our lap and we laugh with joy.
Happier to Give
The clear message of Luke 6:38, nestled securely in its context, is this: God always will outgive you. And knowing that, you’re freed to give and freed to love. With this surprising and wonderful promise of reward from Jesus in view, Ryle comments,
Never was there a greater mistake than to suppose that real Christianity interferes with human happiness. It is not having too much Christianity but too little that makes people gloomy, wretched, and miserable. Wherever Christ is best known and obeyed there will always be found most real joy and peace. (145)
Jesus doesn’t promise reward like this that we might ignore it, grit our teeth, and do our joyless duty. He teaches like this that we might remember his words, bring them to mind, and have them motivate us. Hear his unblushing promises of reward, rehearse them, live in light of them as you make regular choices to be generous, rather than miserly. “Remember the words of the Lord Jesus,” Paul says, “how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’” (Acts 20:35).