INTRODUCTION
The world’s stingiest man went Christmas shopping, but everything he saw was too expensive except a $50 vase that was on sale for $2 because the handle had been broken off. He bought it and had the salesman ship it by mail so that his friend would think he had paid $50 for it and that it had been broken in shipment. A week after Christmas he received a thank you note from his friend. "Thank you for the lovely vase," his letter said. "It was so nice of you to wrap each piece separately."
That guy was a pretty stingy giver.
Did you know that one of the attributes of our awesome God is that He is a generous giver?
When you look at what people around the world worship, you will notice that what they worship continually takes from them with little to no return.
The pagan gods required child sacrifices, and what did the worshipper get in return for tossing their child to this false God? NOTHING!
When you think about all those who pray to the false gods of today: what do they get from them? Does the false god answer their prayer? Does the false god give them anything?
What about the other things that people worship? What does a drug addict receive from the god of drugs? NOTHING but heart ache.
What about the person enslaved to alcohol? What does the god of alcohol give to its’ worshipper? Nothing but heart ache.
What about the god of money? It gives you a never satisfied hunger for more and more.
When you give your life over to these things will these things give you something-worthwhile back?
It is sad when you go around the world and see how people are enslaved to the false gods of the world. Look in India, you have people starving and the cows run rampant through their countryside.
Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, New Age Movement, Scientology, drugs, materialism, alcohol and the list goes on, offer you nothing of eternal value. These things just take and take from you.
Many people have the impression that all God does is take, but that is not true. God gives more than you can ever offer Him.
God wants you to give your life to Him through Jesus, when you do this you will receive a great gift from God.
Today I want us to see that our God is a giving God. I want us to see that no matter what we do we cannot out-give God. Finally I will show you that God has given us the best He had. He did not wrap us some broken vase and try to pass it off as something of value.
SERMON
I. OUR GOD IS A GIVING GOD! MATTHEW 7:7-11
1. Matthew 7:7-11
Verse seven can be memorized by the acronym A-S-K. (READ v 7)
A-sk-and you will receive
S-eek- and you will find
K-nock- and it will be opened to you
In verse 8, Jesus reiterates what He said in verse 7. (READ V. 8) He tells us that if we ask, we will receive, if we seek, we will find and if we knock, it shall be opened to us.
This does not mean that God will answer the we always want Him to because He knows what it best for us and God will only want to give you what is best.
Paul asked God to remove his thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, but God told Paul that the thorn served a greater purpose in his life and therefore would not remove it.
God knew that the thorn, what ever it was, was something that Paul needed to keep himself grounded.
How many of you would like to give your children what ever they asked for? There are times when you withhold things from them because you know that what they want is not good for them. God is the same. God want to give us what we need, but not to the detriment of our spiritual growth.
In James 4:3, James says, You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. This is another reason that God does not just give us everything we want.
Jesus explains that God is a giving God in verses 9-11. (READ 9-11)
Jesus uses the example of an earthly father who loves his son. We want to give to our children. Notice in verse 11 that God wants to give what is GOOD to those who ask Him.
God wants to give to us. JAMES 1:5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. This verse says that God wants to give us wisdom. It says that God is not going to think ill of you for asking or give you wisdom begrudgingly. God wants you to have wisdom because it is good for you!
1 JOHN 5:14 says, “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” One of the reasons some of our prayers do not get an answer is because we ask for the wrong things.
If I go out and mess things up and ask God to clean it up, I will not learn any lesson except that if I mess up, God will clean it up for me.
1 JOHN 3:21-22 says, “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.”
It was William Carey, the founder of modern missions, who said, "Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God."
Many times we do not ask for or do great things for God because we do not really expect anything. William Carey went out in the mission field when that was something that just was not done. The Calvinistic teachings that was prevalent in his day as well as today basically said that only those who God chooses are saved, therefore why go to the mission field?
Carey prayed to God and challenged the false teaching about salvation that kept God’s people from reaching out across the world.
II. YOU CANNOT OUT GIVE GOD! LUKE 6:38, MALACHI 3:10
Turn with me to Luke 6:38 with me. In the context of the passage, Jesus is preaching the beatitudes (these were teaching about how to receive blessings from God).
Jesus is talking about how we are to treat other people, He talks about turning the other cheek when struck, praying for those who mistreat you, loving you enemies, and being merciful.
Now this would beg the question from those listening. “Why would I want to do these things? What is in it for me?” Lets look at verse 38. "Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure -- pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return."
Jesus is saying that when do what God wants you to do, and it ends up costing you something, that God will give back to you plus! Has anyone here bought a bag of potato chips that was full? You get this mega-bag of chips and when you open the bag it is over half empty. When you sacrifice for God, He will not give you back a half-filled bag of chips; He will give you a bag that is pressed down shaken together and overflowing! By the way, they will not be broken like the vase in the opening.
Jesus just told the people some things that were tough to do, but Jesus says that God will repay you. He also says that if we are not giving, then neither will He be toward us.
J.L. Kraft, head of the Kraft Cheese Corporation, who had given approximately 25% of his enormous income to Christian causes for many years, said, "The only investment I ever made which has paid consistently increasing dividends is the money I have given to the Lord."
In Malachi 3:10 we are told, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this," says the Lord of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.
God is challenging the people if Israel to test Him as far as their giving was concerned. God says if you are stingy with Him or toward others, He will be the same to you.
Do you think that J.L. Craft missed 25% of his income? NO, because God blessed Him.
If you are pouring your money, time and efforts into a false god, or into alcohol, drugs, materialism, then you will get nothing worthwhile in return.
Had Mr. Craft dumped 25% of his income into booze, drugs, or false religions, he would have missed the 25% because he would not have gotten anything in return.
I wish everyone would understand that if you invest yourself in Jesus, that you will be better off for doing it.
In each area that I have surrendered my life to Jesus, Jesus has given to me pressed down, shaken together and overflowing.
III. GOD GAVE US HIS BEST. JOHN 3:16
God proves His love for us by the fact that He sent us the greatest gift one could give. God did not give us a $2 broken vase; He gave us His Son.
READ JOHN 3:16-18!
It is easy for us to give something that we do not want, or something that is not worth anything, but God gave up His best for us. 1 CORINTHIANS 6:20 say, “For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” 1 PETER 1:18-19 tells us, “knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.
God sent His son so that we could have eternal life. That what John tells us in verse 17!
In John 4:10, Jesus is speaking with the woman at the well and He tells her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ’Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water."
This woman needed something in her life and Jesus said that God wanted to give it to her.
If you are without Jesus, you are missing something in life and God wants to give it to you, eternal life through Jesus!
You are valuable to God, you are loved by God, that is why He sent His best, Jesus, so that you can have the gift of eternal life!
CONCLUSION
Many times in life we want to know if we are going to get something for our efforts.
Who wants to work a job where they do not pay you? Who wants to diet for nothing or who wants to work out for nothing?
We diet and give up because we do not get the reward we want as quickly as we want it. We quit jobs because we do not get paid enough.
With God, you need to understand that He is a giving God. If you give Him your life, He will give you more than you could ever dream of.
Give your life to drugs, alcohol, materialism, and money and you get nothing of value in return.
You will get more in return from God because you cannot out-give God. LUKE 9:24 says, "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.
God has given you the ultimate gift, His Son Jesus. In Romans 8:32, Paul says, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?”
What are you giving your life over to today? What are you getting out of it?
Is what you are giving your life over to something that when you are ready to die and reflect on your life that you will say the pursuit was worth it? If you give your life to God, you will receive eternal life and all the blessings that God wants you to have.
When the race is finished, you will know that the effort was worth it!
