In a church in the Deep South where the preaching style was a “talk back” sort of style, the pastor was getting the congregation exited about their prospective future.
The preacher said, “This church is like a crippled man who needs to get up and walk under the power of Jesus!”
The congregation replied, “Let it walk preacher, let it walk.”
Then the preacher said, “This church, like Elijah on Mount Carmel, has got to run.”
The congregation replied, “Let it run preacher, let it run.”
Then the preacher said, “This church has got to mount up on wings like eagles and fly.”
The congregation replied with enthusiasm, “Let it fly preacher, let it fly.”
Then the preacher added, “Now if this church is going to fly it’s going to take MONEY.”
The congregation replied with a lack of enthusiasm, “Let it walk preacher, let it walk.”
Most of you can probably echo that same lack of enthusiasm this morning because for the past three weeks have been dealing with money, a topic that no one wants to talk about but one which must be addressed if we are to become the spiritually healthy disciples that we want to be.
This morning I want to wrap up this series on Heart Healthy Giving but before we do let’s just quickly touch on where we’ve been over the past few weeks.
During our first week together we discovered that how we handle our money is indicative of our spiritual condition. The Bible indicates that faith and finances are inseparable. In the Gospels when a person’s spiritual condition was on the line the determining factor as to whether they were truly ready to give Christ their all was the condition of their finances. That’s why we’ve spent so much time on this topic, because it was so important to Jesus. And as a church whose vision is to make disciples of Jesus Christ we have to focus on those things which were important to Jesus Christ.
During the second week we discovered that as Christians we are not owners, but rather stewards of ourselves, our money, and our possessions. Our job is to manage those possessions wisely.
The Swiss watchmaker Patek Philppe, known for their luxury watches, has a clever advertising slogan: "You never actually own a Patek Philippe; you merely take care of it for the next generation."
That’s the same kind of attitude that we’re to have. We are merely caring for someone else’s resources. And when we realize that it changes the way we manage those resources.
Finally last we discovered that as citizens of the kingdom of God we have a responsibility to support the work of the kingdom. We discovered several forms of spiritual plaque which prevent our hearts from giving in the way that we should give. And we looked ways of eliminating some of the most common obstacles that prevent us from giving as we know we should give.
I heard about a little girl who experienced a major breakthrough in her life when she learned to tie her own shoes. Instead of excitement, she was overcome by tears.
Her father asked, "Why are you crying?"
"I have to tie my shoes," she said.
"You just learned how. It isn’t that hard, is it?"
"I know," she wailed, "but I’m going to have to do it for the rest of my life."
My hunch is that some of us feel the same way when it comes to giving. Now that we understand how important it is to give and we’ve been convicted that we need to be giving, we dread it because we know that we’re going to have to do it over and over again for the rest of our lives.
This morning I want to help you move beyond obligatory giving. While it’s important to be convicted to give in the way that we’re taught to give, it’s also crucial to realize that giving is to be a joyful thing, not something done out of obligation.
Around Thanksgiving a few years ago, radio commentator Paul Harvey shared a true story of a woman and her frozen Thanksgiving turkey.
The Butterball Turkey Company set up a telephone hotline to answer consumer questions about preparing holiday turkeys. One woman called to inquire about cooking a turkey that had been in the bottom of her freezer for 23 years! The Butterball representative told her the turkey would probably be safe to eat if the freezer had been kept below zero for the entire 23 years. But the representative warned her that even if the turkey was safe to eat, the flavor would probably have deteriorated to such a degree that she would not recommend eating it.
The caller replied, “That’s what I thought. We’ll give the turkey to our church.”
True Story! It’s unfortunate, but that’s the attitude that we frequently have taken toward giving to the church. We give out of obligation or when we don’t need something, and when we do give it’s often something that we don’t want or need.
In order to move beyond obligatory giving we need to understand this truth: God’s not looking for dispassionate donors for His kingdom. He wants your heart because our hearts always go where we put God’s money.
Giving to the church should not be an act of philanthropy. It shouldn’t be in order to get a tax write off.
Do you remember the principle we discussed a couple of weeks ago: our hearts move toward what we cherish. In other words, we give our hearts to those things that we invest our wealth in. Jesus told us this when he said in Matthew 6:21, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” He says, show me your checkbook, your VISA statement, and your receipts, and I’ll show you where your heart is.”
Suppose you buy shares of General Motors. What happens? Suddenly you develop an interest in GM. You check the financial pages. You see a magazine article about GM and you read every word, even though a month ago you would have passed right over it.
Or suppose you’re giving to help African children with AIDS. When you see an article on the subject, you’re hooked. If you’re sending money to plant churches in India and earthquake hits India, you watch the news and pray fervently.
Our hearts always go where we put God’s money.
And if that’s the case then giving will change us. Giving will make a difference not only in our own lives but in the lives of others.
If we’re going to move beyond obligatory giving then we’ve got to have some sense of what our giving will do. I believe that our giving will make a difference first of all in this life…
If you’re following along in your outlines the first way that you’ll see that giving will make a difference in this life is that Giving makes us more like Jesus.
The Apostle Paul in his second letter to the Church in Corinth deals with the topic of stewardship and in chapter 8 lifts as an example the generous giving of the church of Macedonia who couldn’t afford to give but gave generously anyhow. He goes on in verse 9 to say that the work of Jesus Christ for us was a generous gift and uses the same terminology to refer to the gift of the Macedonians. He says that giving is simply the response to the gift that was first given to us in Jesus Christ. Giving makes us like Jesus who gave everything for us.
The second way that giving makes a difference in this life is that when we give to others we give to God. You remember the story Jesus told in Matthew 25 about the king who called his subjects to him after his return and said to the first group, “Come and inherit the kingdom, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” When his subjects inquired as to when they had seen him hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, or in prison, this was his response: When you did it to one of the least of these you did it to me.”
By caring for those around us, by supplying for their needs, by touching the lives of those who are hurting we are not only ministering to fellow human beings, but we’re ministering to Jesus Christ himself.
Understanding those two truths: that giving makes us more like Jesus and when we give to others we give to God then we should not be giving out of obligation but cheerfully knowing that our gift can make a difference in this life.
But this life is only temporary. If we’re lucky we get seventy to eighty years here. In comparison to eternity this lifetime is nothing. That’s why it’s even more exciting to know that our giving makes a difference in eternity.
Randy Alcorn, in his book, The Treasure Principle, said this, “Giving is a giant lever positioned on the fulcrum of this world allowing us to move mountains in the next world. Because we give, eternity will be different for others and for us.”
And here’s how it will be different…
First Our friends in heaven will be those whose lives we’ve touched on earth. Listen to the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke 16:9: “Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth (or earthly resources) so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” This verse seems to say that our friends’ eternal dwellings are places where we stay and fellowship, perhaps as we move about the heavenly kingdom. The money we give to help others on earth will open doors of friendship with them in heaven.
The second point is that If you handle His money faithfully, Christ will reward you with true riches in eternity. Listen to Jesus words again in Luke 16:11-12: “If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust you to the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?”
If we handle the resources that we have been entrusted with here faithfully and use them to accomplish the work of God then we’re told that Christ will reward us with true riches in eternity. It’s almost as if this is a testing period for God to give us a chance in order to determine what we can be trusted with for the rest of eternity. Think of these brief 70-80 years in comparison to the billions of years in eternity. It’s seem to me that’s it’s very important to get things in line here and now. Because, the third way that our giving makes a difference in the next life is that…
Giving makes deposits in an eternal account. In the book of Philippians chapter 4 Paul commends the church of Philippi for their support of his ministry and reminds them that he’s not trying to solicit help for his own good, but in his words, “I seek the profit that accumulates to your account.” It would appear that God keeps an account open for us in heaven, and every gift given for his glory is a deposit in that account. So not only are God and others beneficiaries of our giving, but we are beneficiaries as well.
Ann Landers had an interesting letter in her column. It was from a girl who was writing about her uncle and aunt. She said, “My uncle was the tightest man I’ve ever known. All his life, every time he got paid he took $20 out of his paycheck and put it under his mattress.”
“Then he got sick and was about to die. As he was dying he said to his wife, ‘I want you to promise me one thing.’ ‘Promise what?’ she asked. ‘I want you to promise me that when I’m dead you’ll take my money from under the mattress and put it in my casket so that I can take it all with me.’”
The girl’s letter went on with this story: “He died and his wife kept her promise. She went in and got all the money the day he died and went to the bank and deposited it. She then wrote out a check and put it in his casket.”
There’s a little principle that we discovered three weeks ago called the Treasure Principle. You can’t take it with you but you can send it on ahead. When we live as this man in the story lived we have nothing to look forward to in the life to come. But when we spend our lives investing in the lives of others and in the work of the Kingdom of God we make investments in an account which will bring dividends in the life to come.
If you’ll flip over your outline with me this morning you’ll see a pie chart illustrating our church’s budget. I believe it’s important that you understand where your money is going. That’s why I’ve broken this chart down into four basic areas: salaries, operating expenses, apportionments, and local church ministries. What I want you to understand is that if we are going to accomplish the vision of making disciples for Jesus Christ by transforming this community then our budget for local church ministries has got to improve and the only way that that can happen is if you and I are convicted of the importance of giving in order to change lives. We’ve got take our giving to the next level and lead with our money because if we commit our resources to reaching people for Jesus Christ, to touching lives that are hurting, and to bringing hope to this community, then our hearts will follow and we’ll find ourselves being more than just dispassionate donors for His Kingdom.
There are four different kinds of hearts that we see in the Gospels when it comes to money and resources. As we prepare to close this series I want to ask you to consider which heart is yours.
First of all, there’s the heart that does much with little. The story was read early of the widow who went to the temple to give her offering. She pulls out two rather insignificant coins – mites, the smallest coins in circulation at that time. It took about 64 mites to equal a day’s wage for a laborer. In today’s US currency two mites total about $1.30. That widow tossed both of her coins into the box where the offerings were collected and Jesus pointed out that gift and said that it was more significant than the gifts of the wealthy, not because of the monetary amount but because of the sacrifice associated with it.
I know that there are those of you who are struggling financially and who barely have enough to get by from month to month. What Christ wants from you is sacrifice no matter what level you’re at. So if your gift is small in comparison to the gifts of others but represents a sacrifice for you then that gift can do great things.
The second kind of heart is the heart that does little with much. These were the gifts that Jesus compared to the gift of the widow. The gifts of the religious people of Jesus’ day who could give large amounts out of their surplus.
If you’re giving to God out of surplus and only after you’ve made sure that you have all your pleasures and comforts and luxuries, what good is that? If we have plenty and our giving comes easily, than it’s not healthy giving.
The third kind of heart is the heart that does little with little. This is just as dangerous as the heart that does little with much. One of our scripture readings for this morning was a parable told by Jesus about a man who went on a journey and entrusted his wealth to his slaves before he left. In verses 24-25 we find the response of the slave to whom only a little had been given. He hid what had been given to him and brought it back when he returned, not having done anything with it.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that you don’t have a responsibility to give because you struggle financially. God wants you to give no matter what you have.
And finally, there’s the heart that does much with much. In that same parable we find the account of the slave who had been given a great deal and who had doubled the investment and received the owners praise.
If you’ve been blessed financially than you have a responsibility to give accordingly.
Where do you fall in those four models? Are your eyes open to the possibilities of eternal investing, the kind of giving that will make a difference not only in this life time but in the life to come?
As we close this morning I want to give you the opportunity to make a commitment to God and to yourself. Randy Alcorn has a “Giving Covenant” in the end of his book “The Treasure Principle” which I’ve adopted and modified slightly for our use this morning. I want you to fill in these blanks and then I’m going to ask that today at some point you’ll share this commitment with another person and have them sign the covenant as well so that you have someone to whom you can be accountable.
Here’s #1: I affirm God’s full OWNERSHIP of me and everything entrusted to me. Remember you are not your own, the Apostle Paul wrote, you were bought with a price.
#2: I set aside the first fruits –at least 10% - of every wage and gift I receive as holy and belonging exclusively to the Lord. Remember the passage in Malachi we read that admonished us to stop robbing God. Don’t make excuses any more, instead determine to give God what belongs to God.
#3: Out of the remaining treasures God entrusts to me, I seek to make generous free-will gifts. In II Corinthians 9:11 the Apostle Paul commends the church in Corinth for their great generosity because of which they will be enriched. Commit to the principle that the tithe is the floor not the ceiling and determine here and now that you will live by that truth.
#4 Ask God to teach you to give sacrificially to His purposes, including helping the poor and reaching the lost, remembering Jesus words, “where your treasure is there your heart will be also.” If you want a heart for the lost, if you want a heart for people, then put your money into their lives. When you start investing in others, and in the work of the church your heart will be here.
Finally, #5 Recognize that you can’t take earthly treasures from this life, and determine to lay them up as heavenly treasures for Christ’s glory and the eternal good of others and myself remembering that by so doing you’re making deposits in an eternal account.
In 1815 Napoleon was defeated in the battle of Waterloo, and the hero of that battle was the Duke of Wellington. The duke’s most recent biographer claims to have an advantage over all the other previous biographers. His advantage was that he had found an old account ledger that showed how the duke had spent his money: that says the biographer, was a far better clue to what the duke thought was really important than reading his letters or speeches.
Can you imagine that? If someone wrote your biography on the basis of your checkbook or your income-tax return, what might it say about you, your loyalties, your focus, and about whom you serve?
Let us pray…
