Spiritual Angioplasty: Eliminating Obstacles to Giving
Matthew 19:16-24; I Timothy 6:17-19; Mark 12:41-44
A man on vacation was strolling along outside his hotel in Acapulco, enjoying the sunny Mexican weather. Suddenly, he was attracted by the screams of a woman kneeling in front of a child. The man knew enough Spanish to determine that the boy had swallowed a coin. Seizing the child by the heels, the man held him up, gave him a few shakes, and an American quarter dropped to the sidewalk. “Oh, thank you sir!” cried the woman. “You seemed to know just how to get it out of him. Are you a doctor?” “No, ma’am,” replied the man. “I’m with the United States Internal Revenue Service.”
None of us like to part with our money, and at this time of the year we are especially conscientious of our duty to the Internal Revenue Service. There are many jokes about the IRS but the reality is that each of us has a responsibility as a citizen of the United States of America to support our government. We don’t get a choice in the matter. If you want to live here you’ll pay your taxes. And if you don’t there will be consequences to face.
Did you know that the church used to function like that? In the early days of our country members of local congregations in various denominations, including our own, were assessed a fee each year to allow the church to meet its financial obligations. One of the ways in which this was handled was through pew rental, a practice that was still being perpetuated up until the 1950’s in some places. There was a fee set for the rental of a pew depending upon the location of the pew. The pews in the front were the most expense, as they were the most desirable. Imagine that! There was one denomination who formed during the late nineteenth century and advertised that they had “free pews”. They called themselves the “Free Methodists.”
Times have changed. I can assure you that we haven’t sent out any bills for pews lately. And contrary to our behavior no one actually owns a pew. We also don’t force you to give any certain amount in the collection. It certainly would be easier to run the church that way. But while giving is an option and is not forced upon us what we’ve got to remember is that in the same way as it is our responsibility to support our government, so too is it our responsibility as citizens of the Kingdom of God to support the work of that Kingdom.
That’s why we’re spending time in this series on giving. But our sole purpose in examining this topic has not been to drum up more financial support. My primary aim in this series is to help you understand how important giving is to your spiritual lives.
Let’s take a moment and review where we’ve been.
If you’ll follow along in your outlines the first point is this: faith and finances are inseparable. We talked about this two weeks ago. One out of every six verses in Matthew, Mark, and Luke deal with the topic of money. Jesus took it very seriously, and when someone’s salvation was on the line, the determining factor as to whether they had actually surrendered themselves was often their financial condition. You can’t separate your faith and finances. That’s why Jesus said, “Where your treasure is there your heart will be also.”
The second point is that healthy living requires healthy giving. It’s impossible for you to be a spiritually healthy Christian unless you develop spiritually healthy giving patterns. When you and I learn to give in the way the Word of God instructs, our relationship with God becomes strengthened. Healthy giving promotes spiritually healthy living.
And the third point of review that we discussed last week is that we are “stewards” not owners of ourselves and possessions. I had you place a sticker on your wallets and purses last week that said “property of Jesus Christ.” I hope it you made you think every time you spent your money as it did me. As Christians we are not our own, we were bought with a price and we’re simply managers of God’s resources.
I’ve got a hunch that most of us have been convicted by what we’ve been learning. I know I have. And I also know that some of you are in fact fulfilling your obligation of giving 10% and some of you haven’t yet made it to that level. What I want to do today is I want each and everyone of us to leave this place this morning having been afforded the opportunity of eliminating any obstacles that are in the way of giving as we’re being convicted we should give.
Maybe you’ve heard these messages, and you know this is an area of your life where you’re spiritually out of shape, you want to give, but you just don’t know how. Or maybe you just can’t seem to make that step. You know you should be doing it but you just can’t seem to do it.
Today I want to help you get over that hurdle in your life. I want to do so by once again looking at our hearts. I shared with you two weeks ago that just as the human heart is the center of our physical lives and provides life to the rest of the body, so to is our spiritual heart the center of our spiritual lives. We talked about a physical procedure called Cardiac Catheterization which is a test to determine if the heart if functioning properly. We visited the Spiritual Cardiac Catheterization Lab where we discovered that the our hearts are evil and the only cure is a transplant where by we are given a new clean heart from Jesus Christ.
We also discovered that even after that transplant, as Christians, we are still susceptible to the same heart diseases as anyone else and we discovered that the leading heart disease is the love of money which is contracted by many American Christians today because of the American mindset that the more I have the more I am.
So we know what the problem is. Our view of finances, the use of our money, is preventing our hearts from beating the way they should. Our love of money and the control that our possessions hold over us is preventing us from having the spiritually healthy, abundant life that Christ came to give us.
This morning I want to take a trip back to the cardiac center and together I want us to go through a procedure to help eliminate this obstacle to healthy living.
If your doctor were to discover problems with your heart one of the procedures that you may need is something called “Coronary Angioplasty.” It’s a procedure used to compress, burn away, or vaporize built up plaque inside the arteries in order for the heart to give life to the body. If there’s something that’s preventing the blood from flowing from the heart to the rest of the body one of several different types of angioplasty may be able to restore that flow again.
The procedure that you and I need to go through is similar; it’s spiritual angioplasty, a procedure to eliminate spiritual plaque allowing the heart to give abundant life to the body.
Let’s take a look at three types of plaque that we might find that are preventing our hearts from being able to give as they should give:
The first is what Randy Alcorn, in his book “The Treasure Principle” calls “Posession Obsession.” A PBS television program called Affluenze addresses the plague of materialism. The program claims:
- The average American shops six hours a week while spending forty minutes playing with his/her children.
- By age twenty, we’ve seen one million commercials.
- Recently, more Americans declared bankruptcy than graduated from college.
Jesus reminds us in Luke 12:15 that our lives do not “consist in the abundance of our possessions.” But that’s exactly the opposite of what the media and society are telling us. We all get trapped by this mentality that we need more. My wife and I have often wondered what it would be like to be Amish. We admire their simplicity and lack of materialism because it seems like the more we have the more difficult it is to give, because the more we have the more we want. We live in a culture that is obsessed with things.
The second kind of plaque that needs to be burned away is the illusion that earth is our home. I want to read two scripture passages for you this morning which illustrate this truth. The first is Hebrews 11:13-14. Here’s what the author says: “They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on this earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.” And then let’s look at Philippians 3:20. Paul says, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The Bible says that we’re pilgrims, strangers, aliens on earth, that we’re ambassadors representing our true country. Where we choose to store our treasures depends largely on where we think our home is.
Suppose you went to visit England for six months and lived in a hotel. You’ve been told that you can’t bring anything back to the States on your flight home, but you can earn money and mail deposits back to your bank here.
Would you fill your hotel room with expensive furniture? Of course not. You’d send your money home. You would only buy the necessities for life while you were away and you’d send your treasure on ahead of you so that it’d be waiting when you got home.
If we would live with this same sort of spiritual understanding it would forever change us. We wouldn’t be as concerned with treasures here and would instead take a vested interest in investing in our eternal home. We’re going to talk more about how to do that next week.
The third type of spiritual plaque which many of us have to get rid of is the lack of trust. Some of us simply have a hard time believing that if we were to give what we should give that God would provide as he’s promised to provide. Many of us simply need to trust that God will provide for our needs as he’s promised to provide for them.
Before we look at the alternative to each of these kinds of plaque I want to address three of the most common responses that I hear from Christians when it comes to giving. Each of us at one time or another has probably been tempted to use one of these lines. Let’s look at the temptation and then at the truth.
The first is that “I can’t afford to give.” A young man was listening to his retired father talk about the difficulties of living on a “fixed income.” His son spoke up and said, “Fixed income – I’d love for my income to be fixed. Lately I’ve been thinking it’s broken.” Isn’t amazing that no what stage of life we’re in we never seem to have enough money. Most Americans struggle to make ends meet, and what really surprises me is that income level is no indicator of financial stability. Why? Because we adjust our styles of living according to our income. The more we make, the more we spend. And the difficulty is very few of us are disciplined enough to spend less than we make.
As a result of this lifestyle, many people don’t believe they can afford to give what they should give. I’ve heard this from people of all income levels.
Here’s the truth: Giving isn’t a luxury of the rich, it’s a privilege of the poor. Does that mean the rich shouldn’t give? Absolutely not! But giving should not be out of our abundance. Sometimes giving has got to be a sacrifice. The only way that you’re ever going to be able to experience God’s provision is if you put him to the test.
In Paul’s second letter to the Church of Corinth he tells the story of the churches of Macedonia who were asked to take up a collection for the relief of the church of Jerusalem. Paul says that in spite of the fact that they were having a difficult time, in spite of their extreme poverty, they gave gernerously. They were giving so much that Paul and the other leaders asked them to reconsider but that church begged Paul to allow them to give in this way. Why? Because when you discover the joy of giving you realize that it’s not about abundance. It’s about sacrifice.
That’s why the story of the widow in Mark 12 jumps off the page at us. We’re probably going to spend sometime in this passage next week, so I don’t want to talk about it much but if you were to turn to that passage you would discover a widow who couldn’t afford to give, but gave a gift which in comparison to the gifts of others was small, but represented a huge sacrifice for her.
I discovered a powerful little passage in an Old Testament book called Haggai this week. Turn with me there. If you were to turn to the very beginning of your New Testament, Matthew and then flip a few pages pack you’ll find the book of Malachi, just a few pages behind that the book of Malachi you’ll find the book of Zechariah, and just a few pages behind that is this little book with only two chapters. Let’s look at Haggai 1:9-10. God says, “You have looked for much, and lo it came to little.” (Do you ever find yourself asking God for much but for some reason only getting little? He goes on to say, “And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? Says the Lord of hosts. Because my house lies in ruins, while all of you hurry off to your own houses. Therefore the heavens above have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce.” This passage says, “You are not being blessed because you’ve neglected the work of taking care of the temple. You’ve neglected giving your tithes, and then you wonder why you’re not getting what you’re praying for. You wonder why you’re struggling financially. It’s because you’ve stopped giving.”
Could it be that the reason that you can’t afford to give is because you’re not giving?
Here’s the second thing we’re tempted to say. Early in our marriage we fell into this trap. “I’ll work my way toward 10%.” It sounds good, doesn’t it? I’ll do a little bit better than I did last year. Certainly God will be happy with that.
Here’s the truth: The tithe is the floor not the ceiling. Do you remember that passage from Malachi we read last week? God again is speaking to the Israelites and says, you’ve robbed me by not bringing your full tithes into the temple.
The Old Testament clearly defines “Tithe” as a tenth of our first-fruits, our gross income if you will. We’re to give to God before we give to anyone else. And anything less than 10% is robbing God. That also means that offerings are really a love gift above and beyond that 10% responsibility.
Saying that you’ll give 5% instead of 2% is kind of like saying, “I used to rob six convenience stores a month, now I’ll only rob 3.” I know it’s difficult to hear, but that’s what the scripture teaches us.
The final thing that we’re tempted to believe is that Tithing was an Old Testament Law. Many Christians use this as an excuse not to give. There are a lot of things in the Old Testament that we no longer abide by. But here’s the truth: Jesus rose the spiritual bar, he never lowered it. If you’ve got your Bibles open look with me at Matthew 5:17 & 20: Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets…” Verse 20, “I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The scribes and Pharisees abided by the law. They paid their tithe and thought they were fulfilling their obligation by doing so. Jesus consistently rose the spiritual bar. You’ve got to go above and beyond what they do.
Where are you at today? I know this is a difficult topic. It’s very convicting because of each of us struggle to one extent or another. But I believe that our perspective on money and possessions is so vital to our faith that if we don’t take it seriously and get things in order we’ll be held accountable some day.
Put yourself on the operating table today and undergo spiritual angioplasty. Get rid of which ever type of plaque is preventing you from giving.
If it’s possession obsession then make this your prayer: “Lord, free me from materialism. I surrender my things to you.”
If it’s the illusion that earth is your home, that you’ve got to live it up now because you only get one chance then make this your prayer: “Lord, set my eyes on things above not on earthly things.”
And if it’s a lack of trust, if you think you can’t afford to give then pray: “Lord, help me to rely completely on you and not on myself.”
