OPEN: “YouTube” is a site where people can post videos they’ve either made or like, and some of those videos are grouped into “channels” (like a TV channel). I have my own channel where I’ve put songs I’ve sung by myself or with the SonShine Boys.
Now some of these channels are more popular than others (mine has 20 subscribers and has only had about 200 or 300 views), but one of the more popular channels that I like is called “Answers With Joe” hosted by Joe Scott. Joe is fun to listen to and he explains complex scientific issues that I’d like to know about, in simple terms that even I can understand. I like this guy! And I’ve watched as he’s explained things like “Quantum theory”; Artificial gravity; the International Space Station. And he’s talked about how batteries work. And he’s focused on Solar Flares, and how we have explored the Moon, and Mars and Jupiter and other celestial bodies.
What’s appealing is that he’s gentle, humble and he admits when he’s not sure about things… and that brings us to one of his videos that we’re going to use for sermons series: “Is There A God?” PLAY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3_0O-gpeYo - beginning at 2:05 through 4:21 timestamps (The transcript will be at the end of the sermon).
When I first watched that video, I hurt for this guy. Here was Joe Scott baring his soul to his audience and gently explaining why he’s struggled with his faith. I realized that this man was asking honest questions that deserved to be answered. So, for the next 4 weeks we’re going to try to give “Answers FOR Joe” attempting to answer the questions he posed in his YouTube video.
And we’re going to start with his comment: “If God is all-powerful and all-knowing, why does He need my help? And my money?” Now, that’s a legitimate question. Why would an all-powerful and all-knowing God need my money? And the answer to that question is right here in Psalm 50
God declares: “Every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?” Psalm 50:10-13
In other words: NO! God doesn’t NEED our offerings! I mean, what do you get for the God who owns everything? He doesn’t need anything. It’s all His.
But, of course, that raises another question: If God doesn’t NEED my offerings why does He ask for them?
And He DOES ask for them.
In Proverbs 3:9-10 God said “Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.”
And in Malachi 3 God tells the JEWS “you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.” Malachi 3:8-10
So, what’s going on here? Why does the God - Who doesn’t need my offerings get so hot and bothered if I don’t give them to Him? Well, the answer to that question is actually in Joe’s monologue. He said: “I saw people from church acting very unChristian. You know, wearing a cross necklace and then judging other people, and being rude. I worked in a restaurant where I saw first-hand that the church crowd are THE WORST TIPPERS IN THE WHOLE WORLD.”
And – too often – church goers are exactly like that!
Now, just an aside here… don’t be a bad tipper. Waitresses and waiters often know you’re a church-goer (especially on Sunday afternoon) and if your tips are small, that’s a bad witness for Jesus. When they’ve served you and you’re not appreciative that’s a black mark on you, AND on your faith. So it’s worth asking: is giving an extra dollar or 2 as a tip worth it to make Jesus look good? Think about it!
Now, that said, I want you to notice something here: Joe Scott talked about Christians being judgmental and rude (and too often they are judgmental and rude), but notice, he gives us one big illustration of how he can tell that Christians are acting unChristian. And what is his big complaint? What is that he says “Christians” have done that has made him upset? It’s when they’re stingy in their tipping of waitresses. That’s his measuring rod.
He’s saying he can tell they’re not very Christian by how they handle their money. AND HE’S RIGHT! You can tell a lot about a person by how they spend their money. And THAT lies at the heart of what the Bible is teaching us about our offerings.
Now, part of the problem here is that Joe has misunderstood what the Bible says about Christians. Like a lot of people, Joe’s been MISled to believe that when a person becomes a Christian - presto chango – they’re all sweetness and light. They’re never going be rude or judgmental; they never lose their temper; they’re never going to think or say or do anything wrong; they’re never going to be selfish and greedy… and you could go on and on and on.
But that’s basically NOT true! People never come out of the baptistry and do everything right. Granted, that’s our objective, but it doesn’t happen overnight. Becoming a Christian is NOT where we magically transform into sinless people. Becoming a Christian is the place we begin to allow God to begin to transform us. When we rise from the waters of baptism, the Holy Spirit sets up house inside of us and begins to tinker with our thinking.
I saw this meme on the Internet that says it best: “Yes, I am a Christian. Yes, I love Jesus. No, I’m not a perfect person. Jesus is still working on me.”
Jesus is still working on me - and He continually “works on me” to change me in various ways. And one of the ways Jesus works on changing me is in how I think about money, and how I use it. And there are at least 3 things He uses money to teach me.
1st – He expects an offering from to teach me to remember that “God is God… and I’m not.”
Notice what Psalm 50 tells us: For every beast of the forest IS MINE, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field IS MINE. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness ARE MINE. Psalm 50:10-12
Now, what does God own? (Everything!) It’s ALL His. (It’s ALL “MINE” God says). So, all the money in my wallet belongs to God; all the money in the bank/ and in my 401K is His; all the possessions that I have belong to Him. In fact, as a Christian, I’ve turned everything over to Him. I don’t own anything – it’s all His, and all He’s asking for is for us to give a portion of it back to acknowledge what He’s done for me.
ILLUS: A man told of the time he took his kids to eat at a local fast-food restaurant. As he and his kids sat down to eat, he smelled the fries in front of his youngest son and reached over to get one. To his surprise, the boy pushed his hand away, “Dad, don’t take my fries!”
He was stunned, and he thought to himself: “My son doesn’t know where those fries came from. He doesn’t realize that about five minutes ago I went to the counter, put my hand in my pocket, pulled out the money and bought those fries for him. I AM THE SOURCE of those fries. My son doesn’t understand that, if I wanted to, I could take those fries away from him. He doesn’t realize that, if I wanted to, I could go over to the counter and buy a dozen orders and cover him with fries. He doesn’t know that I DON’T EVEN NEED his fries; if I wanted to, I could go over to the counter and buy my own. What I really wanted from my son was his willingness to share with me what I had already given him.” (John Maxwell, "Proven Principles of Successful Stewardship" INJOY)
So, the first reason God asks His people for an offering is because He wants us give back a portion of what we’ve received from Him and thus to acknowledge that He’s God and we’re not. (Incidentally, that why too many Christians are rude and judgmental – they’ve forgotten they’re not God).
The 2nd reason God required an offering was so we’d understand the concept that “God is God… and Money is not.” Money is not our god.
Jesus said “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” Matthew 6:24
Or, as Hebrews puts it: “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5
You see, the giving of our offerings is designed to help us to free us from our love of money. It’s designed to help us to depend upon God rather than depending on our money. He’ll never leave us or forsake us… but money will. The reason so many people don’t tithe is because they don’t TRUST God. They look to their bank account and they say "I can’t part with this money. I NEED IT!" Why would they think like that? Because that money has become their God. And when that happens, people who serve their bank account, tend to give less to charities.
ILLUS: According to the Washington Times (June 27, 2002), Americans who helped religious congregations gave more time and money to secular charities than people did who worked with secular causes. The study found that “religion-giving households” in 2000 gave 87.5% of ALL charitable contributions in the nation.
In other words, when these folks gave their offerings at church, that taught them to use their money for other good causes. They don’t love their money… they love their God.
The last reason God wants us to give Him offerings is to help us understand “God is God… and He can supply all our needs.”
Notice what God declared in Psalm 50 “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I WILL DELIVER YOU, and you shall glorify me.” Psalm 50:14-15
After God got done telling the Israelites He didn’t NEED their offerings in Psalm 50, He basically declared: DO IT ANYWAY and see if I can’t supply for your needs.
That’s the same kind of promise God has always made in Proverbs 3:10 God declared: give me your FIRSTFRUITS and THEN “your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.”
In Malachi 3:10 (where God accused the Jews of stealing His tithes) He said “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”
Jesus said it this way “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33
Notice what Jesus said there: Seek the Kingdom Of God. When? (first). THEN God will add things unto me. In other words: If you’ll trust me, I’ll supply!!!
CLOSE: Now, the whole point here is this: God uses our offerings to change us. Because otherwise… money will eventually run our lives, and ruin our lives.
Allow me to introduce you to very first person to reach the status of billionaire. At the age of 23, he had become a millionaire, by the age of 50 a billionaire. Every decision, attitude, and relationship was tailored to create his personal power and wealth. But three years later… at the age of 53 he became ill. His entire body became racked with pain and he lost all the hair on his head. In complete agony, the world's only billionaire could buy anything he wanted, but he could only digest milk and crackers. An associate wrote, "He could not sleep, would not smile and nothing in life meant anything to him." His personal, highly skilled physicians predicted he wouldn’t live to be 54.
The year passed agonizingly slow. As he approached death, he awoke one morning with the vague remembrance of a dream. He could barely recall the dream but knew it had something to do with not being able to take any of his successes with him into the next world. The man who could control the business world suddenly realized he was NOT in control of his own life. And he was left with a choice.
He called his attorneys, accountants, and managers and announced that he wanted to channel his assets to hospitals, research, and mission work. On that day John D. Rockefeller established his foundation. His financial assistance led to the discovery of penicillin, cures for malaria, tuberculosis and diphtheria, etc.
From the day Rockefeller began to give back a portion of all that he had earned, his body's chemistry was changed so significantly that he got better. He also made a profession of faith and was baptized into Christ. And he attended church every Sunday, even teaching a Sunday school class until he died.
And - by the way - after having been told he would never see his 54th birthday, John D. Rockefeller lived to be 97 years old.
INVITATION
Transcript of Joe Scott's questions about faith: (Joe grew up in a very religious family and it never occurred to him that there wasn’t a God who loved him and cared what happened to him). "The older I got, the more complex the issue of religion became to me. I saw people from church acting very unChristian. You know, wearing a cross necklace and then judging other people, and being rude. I worked in a restaurants where I saw first-hand that the church crowd are the worst tippers in the whole world. And a lot of the just little idiosyncrasies of the dogma, just didn’t add up for me anymore. Like, if God is all-powerful and all-knowing, then why does He need my help? And my money? Why did God have to kill His Son in order to forgive my sins? Why couldn’t He just forgive me? For that matter, why did He make sin in the first place? If God is all love then why would He send me to hell for eternity because I didn’t honor my father and mother correctly? For that matter, why did He make hell in the first place?
It just became harder and harder for me to just believe… I mean, couldn’t it be possible that all religion is just a way for us to deal with the fact that we are mortal – that we have an end date? Is it just our way of dealing with the seemingly pointless nature of it all? I didn’t want that to be true." (He described himself as a seeker… constantly seeking for an answer).
