Giving To God

Giving to God

Got some goodies here for the kids

• Everyone gets one each – no opening or eating them yet

• Now I’m going to ask you to do something very strange

• I’m going to ask you to give them back to me

• Is everyone happy with that?

• How about if I say to you, If you give it back, I will give you two in return

• How’s that for a bargain?

• Okay, let’s see if it works, who wants to give me their Milkyway back?

Why did all of you give me the Milkyway back?

• Because you would rather have two than one right!

• But it also means that you trust me to give you two in exchange for the one

• If I was untrustworthy, I could have just taken it back and not given you anything at all

• Well that’s nice to know that you trust me

Now let me ask you if you trust God like you trust me

• Remember last time we played the game of falling backwards and you had to pick someone to catch you

• And we talked about how God is always there ready to catch you

• Well this is another situation where God asks us to trust Him

• He says, I want you to give me some of the money you earn as an offering, and if you do, I will give you back more than you give Me

• It the same sort of bargain I made with you with the Milkyways except this time God is saying it and He’s got a lot more money than me

• Luke 6:38 If you give, you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full measure, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, and running over. Whatever measure you use in giving—large or small—it will be used to measure what is given back to you.”

• You all know what a trash compactor is right – its allows the garbage truck to carry way more trash than if it wasn’t compacted

• That’s what God says he’s going to do for you if you trust Him

• Is that a good bargain? Do you believe that’s going to happen?

• Just in the same way you trusted me to be honest and give you two milkyways in exchange for one, you can trust God to be faithful to his bargain

• Malachi 3:10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do,” says the Lord Almighty, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Let me prove it to you!

• Does anyone know what a tithe is? It 10% of the money you earn

• God gives us everything we have, yet he only asks us to give back 10%, and if we do He says He will give us back much more than the 10% we gave back to Him

• Once there was a little boy who was smarter than 5000 people, you know why? He took his lunch with him and nobody else did

• All these people had gone out to listen to Jesus preach. It was a very exciting sermon, but also very long

• It went past lunchtime and late into the day. Everyone was very hungry

• Jesus’ disciples wanted to send the people away, but Jesus said, “No we will feed them!”

• There were no MacDonald’s around so the disciples thought Jesus was nuts

• He told them to go see if anyone had any food

• They found the little boy with his lunch box with two fishburgers and five orders of chips

• Jesus said to him, If you will give me your lunch today, I will use it to feed these 5000 people and there will be enough left over for you to eat for a month

• Would you believe someone if they told you that story

• You know what, the little boy did believe Jesus and a mighty miracle happened

• John 6:5-13 Jesus soon saw a great crowd of people climbing the hill, looking for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Philip, where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” …….7 Philip replied, “It would take a small fortune to feed them!”8 Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. 9 “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?”10 “Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus ordered. So all of them—the men alone numbered five thousand—sat down on the grassy slopes. 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and passed them out to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate until they were full. 12 “Now gather the leftovers,” Jesus told his disciples, “so that nothing is wasted.” 13 There were only five barley loaves to start with, but twelve baskets were filled with the pieces of bread the people did not eat!