Audit Your Approach
I. Introduction
It is right there in green and white. It is engraved into the silver, copper, and gold. It is a prominent feature on our currency. It is a statement of trust. It is a statement of reliance and dependence. However, I want to submit to you that most of us have trust issues and the way we handle what we seem to value most disputes whether we really trust God! In fact, I often wonder if we have removed Him from the statement and instead have filled His spot with a blank and a laundry list of items we trust more.
Recent surveys bare out the fact that we claim we trust but don't practice trust! Lip service to trust but no real expression of trust.
Christians are currently giving at 2.5% of income; but during the Great Depression it was 3.3%. 37% of regular church attendees and Evangelicals give money to church. Which means 63% are experiencing the benefits of being a part of the body with no investment to keep those benefits available.
I want to say a dirty word this morning! It isn't a four letter word but 5 audit. No one looks forward to or likes an audit. But audits are a necessary procedure to make an accurate assessment of the financial situation of an individual or a corporation. This can be a painful process. I will be honest and tell you that will be true this morning as well because I want to challenge you to "Audit Your Approach."
2 Corinthians 9:6-11 (NIV)
6 Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 7 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 9 As it is written:
“They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor; their righteousness endures forever.” 10 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
Paul is addressing the Corinthians regarding an offering they promised to send to the believers in Jerusalem. He reminds them that if you sow sparingly you reap sparingly. He goes on to say that God, in response to abundant and cheerful sowing, will increase the supply so that their generosity will continue to grow to the point that they have the ability to give on every occasion. That statement right there is the real intent of this entire series! I am trying to get something to you rather than from you!
How many of you would like to see God bless you to the degree that you can be generous on every occasion?
If that is true . . . We must learn that we will not see what we do not sow!
If I sparingly sow, then I will sparingly reap. What is sparingly? Give me a bare minimum that I must meet. What is the dollar amount that I can give that breaks out of the sparingly bracket? I would suggest to you that (SLIDE 8) sparingly has nothing to do with amount and everything to do with approach. Remember, Jesus praised the widow who gave the smallest offering - 2 mites. He marveled at the approach when the amount was laughable. Why? Because it was a generous gift that was sown out of need!
I want to drill down on our approach! My concern is that when it comes to giving and God we have a tendency, if unchallenged, to try to approach, operate or get by with the bare minimum.
I think I can make that assertion because so many people waffle and resist the concept of the tithe. The tithe first appears in the OT and is the concept of the first fruits. Or the very first thing we do, out of gratitude, is make an offering back to God in gratitude for His faithfulness. Signaling that we understand that what we have is from Him. This has translated into the modern church to 10%. Simply illustrated the concept is that if we have 10 dollars we give 1 to God and by doing so it redeems or blesses the other 9 that we live on.
But I want to back up a minute. I hear the resistance. I see the struggle. I hear people say tithing is an OT concept but we forget that . . .
1. Jesus clearly states we should tithe.
Matthew 23:23 - “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things.
He says there are more important things than the tithe but at the same time He doesn't dismiss the call to tithe. In fact, He says we ought to do this. We wholeheartedly agree that when Jesus says we are to love our neighbors that we should. When Jesus declares that we ought to forgive we say we should. When He says we are to love God we say we should. But then all of the sudden when He states clearly that we ought to tithe we want to dismiss it as OT principal. Here is the truth . . .
2. Jesus changes the bare minimum.
In the OT, the amount of tithing was actually 23% not 10%. It was to be given by those who owned land. However, we fast forward to the NT and people want to contend that as NT believers we are not bound by OT. I will buy that. I agree we are not bound by the Law but covered by grace. The only problem is that Jesus changes the bare minimum and calls us to an entirely different level of giving as His followers.
Matthew 19:29
And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or property, for my sake, will receive a hundred times as much in return and will inherit eternal life.
It wasn't if you give these things up. Jesus is assuming that it is a forgone conclusion that as one of His followers you will operate at a higher standard of giving. He is asserting that the standard in the New Testament really isn't 10% it is 100%.
So, the NT the standard is higher than the OT. If your contention is that you are a NT believer and under grace and not the law that's great, then I want to challenge you to actually abide by and live up to the NT standard. That is what we see the disciples do.
Acts 2:44-45
44 And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. 45 They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need.
So, if we want to be disciples why don't we abide by that same standard?
It is quite in here. Notice all needs were met because of the approach to sowing!
I want us to understand our problem isn't with 10% it is with obedience. It is with gratitude. It is with our love of money. It is with our selfishness. (SLIDE 11) Our struggle is with our approach! So, for too many of us we have adopted the mentality of "let's get by with as little as absolutely necessary." So, the result is tithe is treated like a tax rather than a testimony. It is treated as optional rather than an opportunity. It is treated like an penalty rather than a privilege. If our approach changes, then we realize we don't have to give . . . we get to give! And the incredible thing is that He blesses me when I do and He allows me to keep what is really all His and He could rightfully demand.
This struggle with approach isn't new. The earliest believers struggled too.
The account that shows us struggle immediately follows another assertion that 100% belongs to God. This assertion is stated in Acts 4:32: All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had.
And then comes Acts 5. Ananias and Sapphira are in the NT Church and they sell some land. Then they hold some of it back and come and present a huge offering - posing as if they have met the high standard of 100% - and the Holy Spirit puts them on public blast for their deceit and they are struck dead instantly. Was the amount too small? Did God need the small pot they kept for themselves? Was it because they had to not given 100%! NO!!! The problem wasn't the amount it was the approach!
So, the question I ask your in regards to your giving this morning is not how much! It isn't even about whether you are giving the bare minimum of 10% or reaching a higher standard of 100%. I want to challenge everyone in the room whether you fall in the 37% that give or the 63% that don’t . . . Let’s audit our approach! Why don’t we see how much we can do rather than trying to see how little we can get by with. Our approach determines if will reap sparingly. If our approach is marked by generosity and obedience, then we will discover that Scripture is true and as we give generously see if God will make it possible for us to be even more generous in the process.
In rural India, there lived a young man who was born into a poverty class and because of this was forced to beg for a living. The young man owned no land and had no means of support. His parents had died and left him alone and he was forced to live off the generosity of others. There was no currency to speak of, so the man carried a large cup with him and held it out to beg, hoping to receive grains of rice from his fellow villagers. On his best days, he might fill the cup half to three fourths full of rice to give him a meager meal for his supper.
One day as the man sat in his customary position on the dirt tracks leading to town, he noticed some activity at the far end of the road that came towards the village. As he strained to look, a huge procession of people and animals began to take shape in the distance. He could see soldiers and flag bearers in their bright uniforms leading the way, and what came behind the soldiers caused his heart to leap in his chest! A procession of elephants was coming and that could only mean one thing! The great king was coming to their village! All the villagers had heard rumors about him, but no one had ever seen him in person. It was almost unbelievable that their great king was actually here and coming to their town!
Quickly the beggar moved to a place in the road where they could not miss seeing him when the procession passed by. This was his once in a lifetime chance to actually receive something of value in his beggar’s cup. His quick actions put him at the front of the large crowd of people that had also spotted the procession and were gathering to witness the spectacle. Finally, the formation of soldiers reached the edge of the village and began passing by the beggar. Just as the lead elephant was approaching the man’s position, a command was shouted out for the elephants to stop. The man couldn’t believe his fortune! He was in the perfect spot! With another command the elephant went to his knees and the king dismounted. Surrounded by soldiers, the King moved toward the crowd. The beggar began to shout and frantically wave his cup, hoping to be noticed. The King spotted the beggar and walked directly toward him. Looking at the man’s cup, the king asked, “How much rice do you have?” This question was not at all what the man had expected and it caught him completely off guard. Why would the King want to know how much rice he had? He owned all the rice in the world!
“Only half a cup, your Majesty!”, the man replied.
Then the King asked another startling question, “May I have all of it?”
“What?”, the beggar thought, “I was hoping to get a huge reward from him and now he wants all that I have?”
“Well, your highness, this is all the rice I have to my name. I suppose you could have half of it”, the man dejectedly said.
The king then took the cup, turned his back and poured out half the rice into a servant’s pouch. He then handed the cup back to the beggar and without another word, got back on his elephant and the command was given to leave. As quickly as it happened, it was just as quickly over.
Utterly dejected, the man sat beside the road with his head in his hands. It had all happened so fast! His one chance for riches had come and gone so quickly! “What did I do wrong?”, he chastised himself. Finally, he forced himself to look into his cup to see how much rice was left and how much the King had actually taken. When he looked in the cup, his jaw dropped to his chest! For very grain of rice that the king had taken, he had left a golden nugget! In anguish, the beggar cried out, "If only I had given him everything!"
If we will approach what we have with the understanding that it is really all His, then we won't have any problem with giving more . . . much less the bare minimum!
