Series: Christianity Uncensored
Message #7: Generosity Uncensored
By: Jud Wilhite
It’s a great time for shopping, lots and lots of shopping. One of the things that can get really frustrating about shopping in the Christmas season is when you are trying to go out for the hot Christmas gift of the year. Sometimes it’s really hard to find it. Remember back in the 1980’s the hot Christmas gift was the Cabbage Patch Doll? Do you remember that? Have you ever had one? You didn’t buy a Cabbage Patch Doll; you “adopted” the Cabbage Patch doll. You got the certificate that came with it. When these dolls were delivered to stores during the Christmas craze it would be mayhem at the stores as the trucks were unloading. Then in the 1990’s Rosie O’Donnell gave this furry red creature out to her different studio guests. It was called Tickle Me Elmo. Tickle Me Elmo went nuts - to the point classified ads were listing Tickle Me Elmo’s at two- thousand bucks a pop. We have lots of Elmo’s at our house. My son has Tickle Me Elmo. He also has Hokey Pokey Elmo. You push a button and he does the hokey pokey. Except he never really lets him do the hokey pokey. After two steps, he likes to kick him over. Elmo stops. Then he pushes the button again and kicks him over. It’s a boy thing, I guess.
Then after Elmo it was the beanie babies. Do you remember them? Here is the original seven right there. Lest we forget in 1999 we had Pokeman. The hot Christmas gift this year is this: the XBox 360. Just looking at it right now, all the guys’ pulses in the room went up a few notches. Palms are starting to get moist. There are teenagers in here that are thinking, “Oh, the XBox. I wonder if they are going to give it away?” This is a huge gift this year. In fact, when the XBox was first released a couple weeks ago, you had to stand in a really long line and then get a ticket so you could stand in another really long line just in case you could actually buy one. There was a report of a National Guard member who was called out for crowd control. They called the National Guard out over the XBox 360?! The National Guard member was seen going up to the front of the line to get onto some guy, took a ticket, and then went over and got in the other line to get himself an XBox! This isn’t about great gaming – this is also about making some quick cash. What people do is take their XBox’s and put them on eBay. Then they sell them for a significant profit. Right when these things started to sell, there was an XBox listed on eBay that actually sold for $15,099! We have a slide right here. This thing retails, depending on the bundle package that you get, for five hundred dollars or less. That’s unbelievable! People were that into it. One of our members here at Central went and stood in line and got his ticket and then stood in another line to get his XBox 360. His original intent was to sell it on eBay but generosity got the better of him. He gave it to his older thirty-year-old brother. Listen, when he gave it to his thirty-year-old brother, his brother cried tears. They were rolling down his face. That is brotherly love right there. Just so you know, this XBox is just a box. There is nothing in it. We got this from a store that had a display. This is as close as many of us will get to the XBox 360 until next year. After the service, if you’d like, I’ll set it right down front and you can come and touch it.
In all this craziness about the hot Christmas item and the different things we stand in line to get; and all the kids saying, “Dad, can I get this? Mom, can I have that?” - all this wanting and wanting and wanting - if we are not careful, sometimes generosity – what Christmas is supposed to be about – can get lost in it all. We begin to get focused on having and getting and buying. All of those things can take the joy out of it. We’ve been going through the book of James in the New Testament, which is a letter written by Jesus’ half brother. He lays out for us what it means to be an authentic follower of Jesus Christ. We’ve called the series, Christianity Uncensored. James is you’re no bull, no spin, just lay it out there sort of guy.
We’re going to pick it up in James chapter two and look at this particular question that he asks us. In James 2:14 he says this: “My brothers and sisters, what good does it do if someone claims to have faith but doesn’t do any good things?” If someone is claiming to have God in their life but they don’t do anything with it, what good does it do? Can this kind of faith save them? That’s the question that James is looking at in this section. Just because we say we believe, just because we say we have faith, is it enough to say we believe? Can that faith save us? All through the Bible, particularly through the New Testament, we are taught that we are saved by grace. We’re saved. Salvation, forgiveness, the goodness and the love of God comes into our life, not because of how great we are, not because how many hoops we jump through, not because we do all the right religious things. We’re saved because of the grace of God through Jesus Christ. Because of what Jesus did on the cross two thousand years ago, we can experience salvation, goodness, joy, and forgiveness in our lives.
Paul writes it this way in Ephesians 2:8, “For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith, this not from our selves, it is the gift of God not by works so that no one can boast.” You can’t walk around going, “I’m good. I gave my XBox 360 to my brother. I am good. I’m going to get into Heaven because of that.” Nope, you can’t do it based on your works. “For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. There are three little prepositions here. First you have by grace, then through faith, then to do good works.” Does that make sense? By grace, through faith, to do good works and the order is important. We’re saved by grace, that’s first. Through faith, that’s second, to do good works.
In many of Paul’s letters in the New Testament emphasizes the first two; we are saved by grace through faith. James is going to come along and in chapter two he’s focusing more on the third area; the good works that we are supposed to do. Here is how the reformers used to say it, “We’re saved by faith alone.” But faith is never alone. Faith always produces something in our lives. It produces good works. James is going to unpack all this. The first thing he says is, “Show your faith by your actions.” He gives us a little example to help us do this. He says in James 2:15, “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes or daily food.” This person is completely poor. They don’t have clothes and they don’t have daily food. They are on the verge of starvation. They are in a really bad place. “If one of you says to him, ‘Go I wish you well. Keep warm and well fed,’ and doesn’t do anything about his physical needs, what good is it?” What’s the point of that? What good is your faith if it doesn’t produce anything in your life?
This isn’t the only way we show our faith. James is pulling one illustration out because James particularly has a heart for the poor. James is saying when you see someone that is absolutely destitute and you just say, “God bless you. I wish you well,” then what’s the point in that? If after church today you walked out to your car, you accidentally shut your car door on all four fingers and it locked. Then I walk into the parking lot a few minutes later and you’re just screaming in pain. I walk over and say, “Man, bummer. Look at your hand. That’s going to hurt a long, long time. Man, God bless you friend. God be with you.” Then I got in my car, rolled the windows down and drove off. What good is that? That’s what James is saying. If someone is destitute, what good is it in your life if your faith doesn’t produce any kind of good works?
That’s one of the reasons why I am proud of the ministry at Central. I love the fact that we reach out to the homeless in our community. We serve over twelve thousand meals to the homeless. We’ve had over four thousand gift boxes that we handed out to people who have come to our door and need food. Because of your generosity to our food bank, we’re able to give food to them in boxes to help meet their basic physical needs. Friends, it really can change lives.
One of the people that I just love around this church is a friend of mine who you will often see at the doors. He’s often greeting. He works in our homeless ministry. He really pours his life into other people. If you looked at this person, you would think that he had always been this way or that he always had it all together. His story is pretty fascinating. You rewind the clock back two years and he was homeless living on the street. For twenty years he worked in OutPatient Care in the nursing realm. He held a good job. He had a house. In fact, he was a professional bass fisherman - to the point that he competed in the U.S. Open. He was featured on ESPN. He would go down the west coast and fish in all these competitions. He would interact with millionaires and celebrities who were into the whole fishing world. Yet, he always wrestled with drugs and alcohol. At one point when a caregiver, who was like a mother figure to him, died, he pulled back and began to turn to crack cocaine to find comfort. He said he began to smoke – three hundred thousand dollars in cash. He said he smoked his boat, his brand new Harley Davidson - he put all his possessions out in the yard to have a yard sale. He smoked all that. He smoked everything away until he was living on the street with nothing.
He said eight months had gone by with him living on the street. He was at the absolute end of himself. He said he had no self-esteem and no self-respect. He said that all he really wanted to do was take a gun, put it in his mouth, and pull the trigger. “I knew what it was to eat at fine restaurants and to interact with very well-to-do people and now I’m eating out of garbage cans.” He was at the lowest point of his life. A friend in the park told him about Central. He told him if he came here he could get a shower, some food, and some basic things. He said he came to Central, for one reason only, to get a shower. When he walked in our door he weighed 130 pounds. He had a long beard and he hadn’t had a bath in over three months. When the door at Central opened he said he knew he was home. He said he couldn’t explain it. He just knew he was home.
He walked in and one of our volunteers said, “You look like you need a hug.” He said, “You have to understand I was at the lowest I had been. My self-esteem was shot. I looked up at her and said, ‘You don’t want to be near me.’ She said, ‘No, you look like you need a hug.’” So she gave him one. He said in that moment his heart just melted. He got cleaned up and over the next couple weeks he checked a Bible out of our library. He started to read the Bible. He got on his knees and he asked God to come into his heart and his life. He was baptized. He’ll tell you that in those weeks after his conversion he was the happiest homeless guy you would ever meet on the streets of this city. He said he was smiling everywhere he went. He has nothing, but everything had changed. People would come up to him and say, “Why are you so happy and what are you reading all the time?” He’d say, “I’m reading the Bible.” “Whoooa the Bible.” But God had done this transformational work in his life. If you saw him today you would never know that he went through all of that. He’s clean-cut, he has a great job, and he’s gotten married since then. He’s got a wonderful life and he’s pouring into people through the ministry of Central. He goes back to the same park that he used to live at and he knows many of those people. He goes there on a regular basis to talk with them and share good news with them. He brings them food and gives back.
This guy’s life has been transformed by the grace of God. What my friend would tell you is, having lived on the street not too long ago, the best thing you can do for the homeless in our community is not give them money. “If you would have come up to me and given me twenty dollars, I would have smoked it - even if I hadn’t eaten in weeks.” He said he would have smoked it in ten minutes. He said the best thing you can do is to get them food. You may want to get them some McDonald’s and take it back to them. You may want to get some fruit at the grocery store. This is just what he says, having lived it and knowing the people that are there right now. The best thing you can do is provide for them in that way.
James isn’t saying this is the only way we can show our faith. James is saying this is one way. There are lots of ways we can show our faith. It can be the way you speak to your spouse. It can be the way you treat your kids. It can be the kind things that you do around the house on a given Saturday- all kinds of ways to show our faith. But when we show our faith it reflects on who God is and it makes the world a brighter place. In fact, I want to do something with you this morning. I’m going to say something that you will probably never hear me say again. I’m going to ask you to take your cell phones out and turn them on. Of course, I’m assuming that they are all in the off-position right now anyway - which they should be…because when you come into church you turn your phone off, right? Hit your button so your LCD light comes on. Then hold it up and wave it around. Let’s bring the lights down. Look at that. Listen, keep them up – Jesus says this, “You are the light of the world. Let your light shine before men. Let your good deeds shine before men so they will praise your father in heaven.” The world can be a very dark place. Let’s lower our lights for a minute. Look around. The world can be a very dark place. There is pain, brokenness, violence - there is evil, there is hate. This is what the world is like when the people who love God no longer shine their lights. But what happens - let’s do it one more time - when we shine our lights? It makes a difference, doesn’t it? It makes a huge difference. So shine your light. Show your faith by your actions everyday and God will use that in huge ways.
Leave your phones on but let’s bring the house lights up. Well, we want to help you do that. We want to motivate at least one of you to do something for someone else. In just a moment I’m going to put a phone number up on the screen to this cell phone. It’s not my cell phone but it is Michael Murphy’s. I’m going to ask you to call this number and the first caller who calls this number that I get I’m going to give fifty dollars cash to. But there is a catch. Jesus says, “It’s better to give than to receive.” I’m going to give you fifty dollars and the opportunity to do whatever you want with it for someone else this holiday season. I don’t care how you do it; no strings attached. But it will be better for you to take that money and have the joy of helping someone else than just taking it for yourself. Are you ready? Here’s the number. First caller. Hello? Virginia where are you at? Come on up! She said she has a sister who just came out of the hospital who is really going through a difficult time. She knows she can help with that. The point is to show our faith through action. Now, I want to ask all of you to turn your cell phones off. Please, when you come in turn them off. This is an actual conversation we heard in the bleachers seats before. Someone answered their phone in the middle of church when I was talking and said, “Yeah, I’m at church. He’s onto the fourth story by now. It can’t be too long. Yeah, I’d love to meet you at the restaurant.” Please turn them off. It’s respectful to others when you do.
We show our faith by our actions. The second thing James says is that we should live like God owns everything. It’s another way we show our faith. He uses an example in the Old Testament in the book of Genesis. He talks about Abraham. Abraham is considered the father of faith, the father of the Jewish people. He says this in chapter two, verse twenty-one: “Was not our ancestor, Abraham, considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son, Isaac, on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together and his faith was made complete by what he did.” Now Abraham, who is in the Old Testament, God gives him a son. He and Sarah had been barren for many years. God had given him a promise for twenty-four years that he would have a child and would be the father of many nations, but there was no child. When Abraham is ninety-nine years old God comes to him and says, “You are going to have a child.” The Bible says that Abraham laughs at him. Then when Sarah hears about it, she’s ninety at this time, she laughs as well. But God had the last laugh. At ninety-one Sarah gives birth to a boy they name Isaac. In Hebrew it means, he laughs. This was the child that Abraham loved.
Think about your children and how much you love them – even with all their quirkiness. I think about my son. He’s gotten into this thing where he acts like a kitty a lot now. He goes around, “meow, meow.” He licks and crawls around on the floor. Well, he’s in the bathtub a week or so ago. I have to get him out. We’re in a hurry. It’s early in the morning. I can’t get him out. He’s pulling away from me and saying, “No.” It’s drama. “Ethan, we have to get out of the tub. Let’s go.” Lori says, “Talk to him like a kitty.” “What?!” She said, “That’s what I do. I just call him kitty and he’ll do whatever you want.” “No way!” She says, “Try it.” I turn around and say, “Would the kitty like to get out of the bathtub?” No lie, he holds up his arms and says, “Meow.” I’m picking him up and thinking, “This isn’t right. Something is just not right about this.” I’m calling him kitty all the time now. “Would kitty stop jumping up and down on the coffee table?” I’m going to work it.
You love your kids with their quirks as they grow and develop. You love them. Can you imagine what it was like for Abraham when this promise child that God had given him, this son that he loved, when God told him, “Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your son to Me.” God has never asked anyone in history to do that, either before or after. This is not His practice. But He was putting a test before Abraham because this was the promise child. Would Abraham put God above everything? Would Abraham live like God owned it all? Really, God owns it all doesn’t He? He owns our money, He owns our homes, He owns our stuff, our cars, the XBox, and He owns it all. It’s all His, even our children. They are His. Abraham makes the journey to Mount Moriah. He literally lays his son down on the altar and raises the knife. The text in the original language implies that it’s a completed action that was already done. In other words, he raised the knife but the tenses used to describe it points to the fact that he already completed the action mentally. He had already done it. He was really going to do it.
Hebrews tells us that he reckoned that God could raise the dead. He knew that God could do an incredible miracle if this is what God asked him to do. In that moment, just before he did it, it says the angel of the Lord said, “Abraham, Abraham, don’t do it. Do not lay a hand on the boy.” God basically says to him, now I know that you love Me above everything else. I will provide for you in every way. Abraham becomes the father of the Jewish people. He becomes the father of faith. He had to learn to live like God owns everything.
Friends: parents and grandparents who have been around awhile will tell you; it’s the hardest lesson of life. It’s to realize that our kids, while they are ours, they are really God’s. We have to give them to Him. Corey Tenboom was a holocaust survivor. Her and her sister, Betsy, hid Jews in the midst of that horrible period of history. They were caught doing it and therefore they were sent to a concentration camp. Her sister, Betsy, died. But she experienced starvation and the horrid of holocaust and those camps. They were horrid conditions. She said coming out of that God taught her so much in that experience. God used her all around the world after that. Chuck Swindoll, a pastor here in America, talks about a time years ago when she spoke at his church. Afterwards they were out in the lobby. These little kids were running around. This one kid was grabbing onto Corey’s dress. Another one was pulling on her hose. She said, “Are these yours?” He said, “Yes, these are my kids.” He was a little embarrassed. After the kids ran off she came up to him and said, “Hold your hands out.” She put her little hands on his hands and looked him in the eyes and said, “Hold everything loosely. Then it won’t hurt as bad when the Father pries your fingers apart and takes it away from you.” Chuck Swindoll said he’s lived long enough to have the Father pry his fingers open and take things away from him that he wanted so desperately.
I was talking to a family in the lobby after the last service. They just moved here from New Orleans. They said, “God has blessed us in so many ways but we’ve learned to hold it all loosely. It really is all His. It can be gone in a moment but He remains. We remain His.” Hold it loosely and then you’ll experience the joy, the freedom, and the goodness that flows from a life lived as if God owns everything. It’s all His anyway.
Some of you are here this morning. God is pulling on your heart. It’s time to surrender back to Him what is rightfully His, which is our lives. Say to Him, “God I want to believe in You. I want to place my faith and trust in You.” For some of you, you know that God has been pulling on your heartstrings. You are here this morning not by accident. You know who you are. Friends, I want to challenge you to take a step of faith this morning and reach out to the God who loves you. If you have faith then lets put some action to it. Let’s say, “Jesus, I believe in You and I want to accept You into my life. I want to follow You.” You’ve heard stories all morning of people who have done just that with no regrets and no looking back. Friends, sometimes the first step is the hardest. Do you know what? After that it’s all down hill. God will do an amazing work in your life. I want to challenge you if you have never received Christ in your life you can settle the question today as to whether you are saved or not. You can settle the question of where you are going to spend eternity. You can settle all of it. If you are a believer and you say, “I have faith but how does it all work together?” You can settle it today by asking Jesus to come into your life and by telling Him that you believe in Him and you trust Him. Open you heart to Him. Let’s settle it today. Would you bow your heads and close your eyes?
