Delight to Give
Pastor Glenn Newton
Oct. 17, 2004
Text: Psalm 37:1-7
Psalm 37:4
Delight yourself in the Lord
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Introduction
While reading the newspaper recently, I discovered there is a new field of scientific research. In an attempt to locate “a formula for lasting joy,” researchers are now studying the “science of happiness.”
It certainly sounds more fun than studying clinical depression, doesn’t it? One professor and pioneer in the field says he gets a hundred E-mails a day from people who want to talk about happiness.
Author Martin Seligman has even written a book called Authentic Happiness, in which he discusses “how to increase the total tonnage of happiness in the world.”
You might ask how researchers can be objective with such a fuzzy, subjective topic. It’s much simpler than it used to be. They just give their subjects PDAs and beep them randomly to ask how happy they are at that moment.
Some of the results fall into the “obvious” category—for example, optimistic people are happier—but others come as a surprise. For instance, a study of lottery winners and people with spinal cord injuries found that neither group was affected by their circumstances as much as one would expect.
What they have also found is that what we think will make us happy is not a good indicator at all. Our predictions are not very accurate. What we think will bring us pleasure—a new car, the Razorbacks winning the NCAA championship, or a move to the location of our choice—usually doesn’t bring as much joy as we might expect, and the impact certainly doesn’t last as long as we would like.
One pioneer in the field discovered “Getting more stuff” doesn’t seem to work either. He says, “People don’t realize their aspirations always escalate.” As income rises, they simply want more. For example, a new Toyota might give some happiness, but after adapting to it, the person will want to make more money to buy a Lexus. The result—“The good life ends up always being just out of reach” (Elizabeth Large of the The Baltimore Sun in The Kansas City Star, May 4, 2004).
Our scripture for today offers wisdom for finding happiness. The psalmist tells us if we “delight in the Lord,” then God will give us our “heart’s desires.” That sounds like a good formula for happiness to me. And it’s a formula that works just as well in the area of Christian stewardship. This is the third step in the cycle of victorious giving—we delight to give. Do you remember Step One—Trust to Live and Step Two—Commit to Grow? We now arrive at Step Three—Delight to Give.
When Jesus taught the principle, “Give, and it will be given to you,” (Luke 6:38). He was saying giving can and should be “more blessing than burden.” I doubt you’ll find anyone who will express regret, instead of joy for having obeyed the principles of God’s Word in giving (Toler, p. 41).
Steve Weber, a former missionary who now serves in the field of Christian stewardship, says, “If you want to change what you are getting, change what you are giving.”
We Are on the receiving end of God’s Goodness
Jesus himself set the pattern for giving, and we are the benefactors of His goodness. Paul wrote to the Corinthian Church, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich (2 Cor. 8:9).
No one has ever given as the Lord gave. He stepped out of heaven to live among us—to be tempted; to be ridiculed; to be spit upon; to be persecuted; to be tried, beaten, and dragged through the streets only to end up hanging on a cross. He gave His very life that you and I might experience life; and not just average life, but as the Gospel of John describes it—abundant life. Though our redemption was expensive and the result of painful sacrifice, Christ laid down His life and gave it with joy. The writer to the Hebrews said Jesus endured the cross “for the joy set before Him” and then “sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (12:2).
“Christ’s gift of salvation tells us joyful giving involves more than a smile on the face and a skip in the step. Real joy is deeper than that. It involves the pleasure of doing God’s will, and it delights in the success of another. Real joy can accompany any circumstance, no matter how difficult” (Charles R. Swindoll, in the Bible study guide, Hilarious Generosity, 1996, p. 6).
We acknowledge God’s generosity to us when we give back to Him. Paul instructed the Corinthian Church, “I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him” (2 Cor. 2:8). How do we show our love for God, and what can we give back to Him?
First, we can give Him our worship. Through John the Revelator, Jesus said, “Fear God and give him glory. . . . Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water” (Rev. 14:7).
Note how the Macedonian churches Paul commended in 2 Corinthians 8, “gave themselves first to the Lord” (v. 5). “The apostle was simply hoping for a monetary offering, but the Macedonian churches gave everything they had, in an act of total dedication. This demonstrated their first priority was to make all they owned completely available and dispensable to the Lord.
So then our worship includes not only our gratitude and thanksgiving, but it also includes the gift of ourselves. You and I can give Him our bodies. “Therefore, I urge you,” Paul wrote the church in Rome, “in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this,” he said, “is your spiritual act of worship” (Rom. 12:1).
And of course, we can give Him our service. We perform acts of kindness, not out of fear or duty, but out of love. Whatever we do, we are to “do it all for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Our acts of service are a natural response to God’s abundant gifts and an expression of our love for Him.
From helping in a homeless shelter to serving on a local church ministry team to participating in the music ministry to teaching a Sunday School class, our service becomes an act of worship and an avenue of expressing our thankfulness to God
We Are Blessed to Bless Others
God does not give us His benefits to be stored away for our own use in some Swiss bank account. They are distributed to us as a part of His great cycle of giving.
The apostle Paul said, “Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need” (2 Cor. 8:13-14).
We are “blessed to be a blessing.” God gives so that we might give. It all starts with Him. For God is the giver of wealth.
James said, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (1:17). God is the eternal Wellspring from which all our blessings flow. From His heart of love, He gives unceasingly. And those who love Him in return will reflect that same spirit (Toler, p. 45).
God also wants His wealth circulated. He is grieved when we act like selfish children who refuse to share their candy. The wisdom writer said sadly, “I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner” (Eccles. 5:13).
Only in God’s economy can we be guaranteed a return on our investment. What we give comes back to us, because God openly rewards giving. When God’s wealth flows into the lives of believers, He intends it to be shared with the needy.
As God’s people follow His plans, the Church becomes a distribution center. The Early Church was so focused on this that Luke tells us in Acts, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need” (2:44-45).
We see again in Acts 4:34-35, the believers in the Early Church brought their goods and laid them at the apostles’ feet. Instead of everybody doing their own thing, they pooled their resources. More resources result in more potential to make an impact.
One of our new General Superintendents, Talmadge Johnson says, “The greatness of a church is determined not by what it takes in but by what it sends out.”
Our Giving Has a Positive Impact on Our Lost World
When we respond in obedience to God’s giving plan, we have the opportunity to make a positive impact on our lost world. The apostle John told the Early Church they would be known by their love.
The world is still watching today. What do they see? Do they see us caring for the needs of our congregation? Do they see us loving and supporting those who need our assistance? *This last Saturday, we were able to help, and we want to continue to be able to help our own.... were obligated by love... we can do better as we work together.
Working as a young reporter for the Chicago Tribune, Lee Strobel was given an assignment of writing a 30-part series on the poor of Chicago. What he stumbled onto was the discovery of a vast, informal network of Christians who were sacrificially serving the poor.
As an atheist, he was puzzled by the Christian volunteers who gave of their time, energy, and money. He noted how they served without reluctance or compulsion, but with excitement and contentment. It appeared to flow naturally from within and seemed to be woven into the very fabric of who they were.
To him, their impact was mind-boggling—they founded hospitals, ran schools, provided food, donated clothing, performed counseling, rehabilitated buildings, cared for the elderly, served unwed mothers, weaned addicts off drugs, trained the unemployed, built homes, offered encouragement, and even gave huge amounts of their money.
He discovered they were primarily motivated, not by self-interest, but by gratitude for what Christ had done for them, and that a supernatural by-product of their giving was God’s tendency to pour satisfaction into their lives. And it caused him to wonder, even as a skeptic, what the source of their fulfillment—their delight in giving—was (Lee Strobel, God’s Outrageous Claims, Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 1997, pp. 91-92).
Christian giving is proactive and moves quickly to meet the needs of others, just as Jesus did. He made it very clear when He said, “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you” (Matt. 5:42). One by-product of giving is that it protects us from selfishness.
One author has said, “We’re all selfish. Selfish to the core. God sometimes chooses to deal with our selfishness by giving us someone to care for who is infinitely more selfish than you. Babies are not only the cutest creatures on the face of the earth, they are by far the most selfish. . . .
The way God deals with my own selfishness is to give me someone to serve who has zero interest in serving me. You can’t tell me that God doesn’t have a sense of humor. Not too many people in the world could out-selfish me one-on-one. But every time we’ve had a baby, I’ve met my match. Each of my kids resembled me. I don’t mean they looked like me, I mean they were as selfish as me. This meant that somebody in the family was going to have to grow up. Guess who was nominated?” (Steve Farrar in Point Man).
The cycle of giving, getting, and giving again is an ideal way to break the shackles of selfishness and a great way to give yourself a spiritual “workout” that will strengthen your faith.
But the ideal gift is your self. In Matthew 10:8, Jesus tells his disciples to “heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” One of the best gifts we can offer is the gift of ourselves.
Mark Mittelberg of Willow Creek Church tells the story of how a single act of kindness can affect a person. He had ducked inside a grocery store one afternoon to pick up a few things and decided to pick up a bouquet of flowers for his wife. While in line at the cash register, he encountered an elderly woman ahead of him who noticed his flowers.
She asked if they were for his wife’s birthday, and he responded they were just a surprise. With a sigh, the woman said, “My late husband used to do that for me. It was his way of saying, ‘I love you.’ But that was many, many years ago.” And with a weak smile she repeated, “Many years.” With that she checked out, paid for her groceries, said good-bye, and walked away.
Suddenly, an idea struck Mark. Quickly paying for his flowers, he dashed into the parking lot to find the woman. He held out the bouquet and said, “Here. Your husband isn’t here to do this, so I’d like to give you these.” So moved was she by Mark’s gesture, she invited him to her apartment, where over a cup of tea, she brought out old pictures of her husband and reminisced about the past.
The woman’s spirits were lifted that day. So much so that ten years later she tracked Mark’s family down so she could mail them a box full of antique toys for Christmas. Mark’s touch had brought the woman joy. Though it was years later, she gave back to him and touched the life of his family in the same way he had touched hers. This is the cycle of victorious giving in action (Strobel, God’s Outrageous Claims, pp. 163-4).
Delight to give “and it will be given to you.”
Our Giving Sets the Benchmark for the Encouragement of Other Believers
Though we can never give as much as God has given, we can set our standard for giving by His standard. The writer of Hebrews gives us a reminder of what brings pleasure to God,
“Do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased” (13:16). Sharing is God’s standard, and He has given sacrificially, purposefully, lovingly, and gladly. If we give by these principles, then we will be an encouragement to other believers in their giving.
Essentially, there are three kinds of giving: Grudge giving. This is where a person gives, but inside they say, “I don’t want to!” Then, there’s obligatory giving. This is giving done because a person thinks “I should or have to do it.” But the only real reason for giving should be grace giving—giving because “I want to.”
What a difference between “have to” and “want to” giving! Obligation giving is crushing to our spirit. But grace giving results in a deep sense of satisfaction.
Grace giving is on a level all by itself. It’s giving that feels good and warms the heart as it relieves the burden of another. It wells up inside like a spiritual fountain, refreshing the soul, encouraging the spirit, and strengthening the faith (Toler, p. 50).
In one of his evangelistic crusades, Billy Graham said, “God has given us two hands—one to receive with and the other to give with. We are not cisterns made for hoarding; we are channels made for sharing.”
As one philanthropist who has blessed many Christian organizations with his grace giving, said, “I learned that I was not to be a reservoir or a bucket. I was to be a pipeline. God would pour His blessings into my life as long as I was willing to pour them out to a lost world.”
“Pipeline” giving is delightful giving. It’s expressed in Christian community and looks up to God. It’s giving out of a heart of gratitude for God’s faithfulness. It loves to give because God lovingly gave (Toler, p. 51).
Conclusion
So if we were taking a survey today and you were asked to determine which kind of giver you are, what would it be:
1. Are you a grudge giver? Does God hear your crying as you grudgingly drop your offerings into the plate?
2. Are you one who gives out of obligation? Do you give only because of what others will think or because it’s what your parents taught you to do?
3. Or are you a grace giver? Have you come to experience the delight that comes from giving out of a heart of gratefulness to the One who gave so much for you?
