“The Path to Generosity”
2nd Corinthians 8:1-7
I started my first job when I was 12 or 13 years of age. In the area where I grew up we had a local mission and the helped families in the area with a variety of needs. They gave away food and clothing to needy families and they also provided lawn care to people in the community for a fee. And that’s who I worked for. Another thing the mission did was to take care of men who were homeless. They gave them a place to stay and 3 solid meals a day. The pastor who supervised all of this was named Paul. He was a pretty rough individual but had a great heart, a lot of wisdom and he was the right person for the job. He had several rules he functioned by for the older men who stayed there. (1) If you are going to stay there you had to attend church every Sunday. He would preach in a chapel located there and church was mandatory. (2) another rule he had and by the way, his wife was a great cook, was this ….if you didn’t work, you didn’t eat. That’s right out of the scripture, of course, from the apostle Paul.
So the men who stayed there would go out and do lawn work and other odd jobs and they could have 3 meals and a warm place to sleep. Then at the end of the week he would pay everyone in cash. He also hired a few young teenage boys like me and he would pay us all at the same time. Payday was very interesting. I still recall how he would do it. He would gather all of the men and the young guys together; we stood in a large circle and he would call us over to him and he would pay us in cash. And this is the way he paid me….Henderson, how many hours did you work this week?…..no time cards. I would tell him and this is what he would do. He pulled out this wad of cash and he would say this is what you made, this is for God and this is for you. He would hand me my money and he would stick God’s money in his pocket. Now as a kid I always wondered how God got His money out of his pocket. But he was a very hard -working, honest, man…. he had a big impact on my life and right there in that circle he gave me my first lesson on tithing. Now before we move any further I want to define what a tithe is. So let’s go to the dictionary. Webster defines a tithe as a 10th part, paid or given for the support of a church. I do not know how many of you give 10% of your income to this church. My family does and that is the one I am responsible for. But as your pastor I am also responsible for helping this church understand that God has commanded all of us to give our tithes and offerings.
Now I want to admit something to you. As a young boy I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not. Partly I suppose because no one asked me if I wanted to or not. He just chose to give my money away for me. Sort of like the government does. No seriously. You go to work for someone and let’s say that they pay you 10.00 an hour. You work for 40 hours and so you’re expecting a check for 400.00. But that’s not what it is. With S.S. and Federal tax your check will be about 312.00. Over 20% of your check will come out and go to the government. Without anyone asking you by the way. Now you’re probably like me in that. You don’t like someone telling you to give and you sure don’t like someone making you give and you certainly don’t like someone doing it without even asking you first. So why as your pastor should I think that I should stand up here and tell you that you need to give if I already know that people don’t like it? Well, first of all, no one is going to make you give to God’s work. No one is going to deduct it from your paycheck…federal tax, social security, tithe! But we do have to understand what the Bible teaches us about giving. In fact the Bible doesn’t just teach about giving it actually teaches about generosity. In our passage for today Paul was talking to the church in Corinth and he was telling them about the church in Macedonia and how they had learned to give. Now why did he do that? Because the church in Macedonia had discovered some basic principles for giving that the church in Corinth had not caught on to. And you know what? Some of us here today have missed these principles also. Some of us have not yet learned to give and we certainly haven’t learned to give generously. This morning I want to plead with you for a moment and do everything I can to convince you to just listen. Because this is what I believe deep down inside of me…I believe that everyone wants to be a giver. In fact I would say everyone here wants to be a generous giver. And that is what Paul shows us here….. 5 characteristics of a generous giver/believer.
1. You do not need to be wealthy to be generous. They were in poverty. V. 2. Many of us have this idea about giving that you have to be wealthy in order to give. If I had more money, if I made just this much more then I could give. John Rockefeller, who was a multi-millionaire said, “I never would have been able to give from my millions if I had not tithed off of my first job which (by the way) paid 1.50 a week.” Listen, when you give to God you will discover that God will give to you. Jesus said if you don’t judge people, YOU won’t be judged. If you forgive people you will be forgiven and if you give it will be given to you. We see several examples of this in scripture. The widow who gave at the entrance to the temple, Jesus saw her give two small, copper coins. Now she wasn’t the only one who was giving that day. The wealthy were giving and when they gave they tossed their money into the coffers and made a loud noise so everyone would notice. And Jesus noticed. But Jesus did not focus on the rich. He zeroed in on a poor widow. This widow gave two coins that were basically worthless, very little value didn’t commend the rich for giving. He commended this poor widow for giving. Giving isn’t based on how much you give. You do not need to be wealthy to be generous.
2. You can give even when you are broke. V. 3. Now how do you do that? How can I give beyond my own ability? It’s a faith thing. You see giving tests our faith. And that is where we have trouble. When we are about to give we only look at what we already have. We think about our upcoming bills and we think about some things we wish we had. Then we give. But these believers in Macedonia, they looked beyond that, beyond what they felt they could give and they made a decision; they decided to be generous. Now, again, how do you do that? Let’s look at a basic principle in giving and here it is. All of us give/spend money on the things that we love. We make space in our budget for the things that we really care about. So far this month you have probably paid your mortgage or your rent. You need a house. You have probably bought groceries; may have eaten out a time or two. Hopefully you paid your utility bills. In Florida we need AC. But if we are honest there are things that we have bought beyond these essentials that perhaps we really don’t need. Most of the material things that you have, you have because you love them and because you were willing to pay for them. And because you love them you didn’t really consider it to be a sacrifice to give your hard earned money away to purchase it. Some of the men have your grown up toys. Right? And some of the ladies you have your as well. Let me give you a few examples. I love guitars. I have 10 guitars in my house. And a banjo now. I love guitars. I admit it. I have friends who collect guns. Perhaps have dozens of them. When we need a get- away we pay for a vacation. We find the money. We pay cash or we max out the credit card, if necessary to do these things because they are important to us. But this is what I want you to hear today. Never spend money for things that life does not require until you meet God’s requirement for giving. Because when you do you are robbing God of what is rightfully His. Malachi 3:10. You see the reason you can give when you do not have it is because you learn to give from the things you honestly do not need.
3. Giving is a privilege. Don’t take it for granted. V. 4. Here they the leadership to allow them to give more. Please Pastor David pass the plate again…. In one instance in the OT the priest actually had to stop the offering because the people were giving so much. Can you imagine? In fact, here it is. Exodus 36:6 (on screen) “then Moses gave an order and they sent this word throughout the camp: ‘no man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.’ And so the people were restrained form bringing more, because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work.” LB This is how a generous believer gives. And it is a privilege to be able to do so. Here is how they did it.
4. They gave themselves first. V. 5. I have said before that all of the money we need to do God’s work right here is already right here. If we don’t give as individuals it is not because we have a giving problem. It’s actually much deeper than that. It’s a problem of the heart. Jesus said where your treasure is there will your heart be also. Our money and our giving follow our heart. You will never learn to be a generous giver until your heart is in the right place. Before you can give anything you have to learn to give yourself. Here I am Lord. When our hearts are right, we don’t have to think twice. We just give.
5. Generous givers are excellent givers. And that is what God encourages us to be. V. 7. When I was in grade school the grading system was less complicated. I was an excellent speller. So I would get an S+ in spelling. That means I made a 100 on every weekly spelling test. Then we could get an S if our work was satisfactory. Then an S minus if it wasn’t. Now we have A, B, C, D, and the dreaded F.
What if God graded your giving? A would be generous. F would be tightwad. How would your giving look? I’m glad He doesn’t and I am certainly glad I don’t have to.
This week I was thinking about the book written by Charles Dickens titled “A tale of two cities.” In the opening line it says it was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Both were present at the same time. It describes how I feel about things here at Eagle’s Landing sometimes. I just finished preaching 5 messages on the vision of our church. A vision to see people baptized…WATER, vision to see people in the WORD…vison to see the people WORK/DO MINISTRY…. vision to see each of us sharing our WITNESS…a vision of what WORSHIP TRULY IS. When I consider how God can use all of this to build His church, I am excited. It is the best of times. When I look at how we are doing with meeting our budget right now, not so good. God has given us the vision to reach this area for Christ…. And I will be honest…I am afraid if we don’t, no other church will. In other words it won’t get done. The lost will still be lost, the hurting will continue to hurt and the list goes on. We are here to make a difference in this city. The day we stop making a difference is the day we should just lock the doors and go home. But I’m not ready to do that. So I’m calling on every one of you to give.
I want to ask our ushers to come and be seated sit here on the front row. I’m going to ask our worship team to play. I want you to take a moment to pray, to write a check, to get your cash together. Maybe all you have is your debit card and you can’t give right now, but you can tomorrow…I will send a member of our counting team to wherever you are tomorrow to pick it up. Just put your name on your envelope and write the word tomorrow on your envelope with your phone number and someone will pick it up tomorrow. I want us to take care of this now…in the next 24 hours and too many of us will forget by next Sunday. Let’s give. Let’s give generously. Let’s give generously right now.
OFFERING
