OPEN: The minister was preoccupied with thoughts of how he was going to, after the worship service, ask the congregation to come up with more money than they were expecting for repairs to the church building. Therefore, he was annoyed to find that the regular organist was sick and a substitute had been brought in at the last minute.
The substitute wanted to know what to play. "Here’s a copy of the service," he said impatiently.
"But you’ll have to think of something to play after I make the announcement about the finances."
During the service, the minister paused and said,
"Brothers and Sisters, we are in great difficulty; the roof repairs cost twice as much as expected, and we need $4,000 more. Any of you who believes they can give $100 or more, please stand up
At that moment, the substitute organist began to play a hymn... "The Star-Spangled Banner."
And that is how the substitute organist - became the regular organist!
APPLY: God has always watched to see if His people are willing to stand up
To stand up and prove that the believe He IS God.
To stand up and declare they trust Him.
To stand up and say… I believe
ILLUS: Bob Perks: “It’s one thing to say you believe in something, but so much more to prove it”
Or in other words – it’s ease to say you believe… it’s another to stand up and prove it.
God waits to see if we’re WILLING to stand up and prove we believe, but there are many times in life when it gets difficult to stand up for God
ILLUS: Bruce Larson in his book: “What God Wants You To Know” wrote:
Oh, God-
The bumper sticker says smile if you love Jesus;
So I smiled all day long… And the people thought I worked for Jimmy Carter.
The bumper sticker said honk if you love Jesus;
So I honked… and a policeman arrested me for disturbing the peace in a hospital zone.
The bumper sticker said wave if you love Jesus;
So I waved with both hands… but lost control of the car and crashed into the back of a Baptist bus.
Oh, God -
If I cannot smile… or honk… or wave…
How will Jesus know that I love Him?
If you love Jesus tithe… honking is too easy.
You see, there will be times in our lives when we will be hard to stand up for God. There are going to be times in our lives when standing up for God is going to make others uncomfortable. There may even come a time when standing up for God may bring sanctions against the church or cause us to be arrested for our faith. But perhaps the most difficult time for a Christian to stand up is when it comes to the question of their giving.
ILLUS: According to Kiplinger’s Personal Finance Magazine back in 2000
The average evangelical Christian today gives only 3.5% of his income.
According to the Barna Research Group,
8% of American households tithed in 2001,
and only 3% tithed in 2002.
The percentage isn’t much better for those claiming to be born-again Christians.
In 2001 14% claimed to tithe
while only 6% made the same claim in 2002.
The only explanations the research group could give for the decline was the priest scandals, terrorist attacks and the soft economy. Leadership Journal, Fall 2003, p. 7
What that tells me is that there are many times in a Christian’s life when the issue of what we give to God is going to be a difficult one.
I. As I was studying this story in I King 17 I saw something that intrigued me.
Look with me to verse 4 of our Scripture: “You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there." (1Kgs 17:4)
Why did those ravens bring the food to Elijah? – God ordered them to
Now look at verse 9: "Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food." (1 Kings 17:9)
Why was the widow of Zarephath going to feed Elijah? – God commanded her to
Elijah was being fed at the Ravine at Kerith because God ORDERED the ravens to feed him
Elijah was fed in the land of Sidon because God COMMANDED a widow to supply him/food
Hmmmm
Now look at verses 10-15
So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, "Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?"
As she was going to get it, he called, "And bring me, please, a piece of bread."
"As surely as the LORD your God lives," she replied, "I don’t have any bread— only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it— and die."
Elijah said to her, "Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.’"
She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family.
Now… did I miss something here?
God tells Elijah that He has COMMANDED a widow to supply food for him to eat… but when he gets to Zarephath does it look to you like this widow has a clue that she’s supposed to feed Elijah?
No….
Elijah asks for bread and she responds that she only has enough to feed her son and herself and then they’re going to die!
So there were a couple of things I noticed here:
1st – God commanded that Elijah was to be supplied for
2nd – The widow that was supposed to supply for Elijah’s needs didn’t seem to realize that it was up to her to feed him.
ILLUS: An elderly country preacher was earnestly exhorting his congregation to give more liberally. Afterwards a deacon took him aside and complained:
"Parson, you told us salvation is free -- as free as the air we breathe and the water in the river. If that’s true, why are you always asking us for money?"
The old preacher smiled and said "Brother Jones, you’re right. Salvation is free - as free as the water you drink. But if you want that water in the kitchen, somebody has to PAY for the pump!"
Remember those statistics on people’s tithing? Those statistics tell me that some people don’t realize that God wants them to pay for the pump!
When Jesus created His church, he designed it in such a way that we who are believers would pay for the pump. The money that makes things run in the church comes from our gifts to the God that we love.
God has commanded that his church be supplied for
But there are times when His people don’t realize it’s up to them to do the supplying. They think that’s somebody else’s job
ILLUS: A youth minister once told me about a teen in his group that had recently been baptized into Christ. Shortly afterward, their group had a lesson on “tithing” from their income to God. The boy hadn’t come from a Christian family and so when he heard the youth minister talk about it he didn’t hear the word “tithing” – he heard “tie-bing”.
One youth meeting, the boy came up to the youth leader and was eager to share something he’d seen the week before. Apparently, he’d gone to church with his girl friend and her family in another town. The offering plate was passed and the boy watched as the girl’s father pulled out his wallet and put a $50 bill in the plate.
And he told the youth minister how excited and impressed he was by that. This father took his tie-bing seriously. And the boy said that when he observed that father doing that, he suddenly realized that - in order for the church to do its ministry - it depended upon people like that dad… and himself… to make it happen.
So, what intrigued me about I King 17 was to discover God had commanded a widow to supply Elijah’s need, but she hadn’t realized it.
II. But then there was something else I noticed in I Kings 17…something that really bothered me
The Bible tells us that God sent Elijah into hiding and supplied for his needs. First, ravens feed him in the Ravine of Kerith. And then, having a widow from Zarephath supply his needs
Now, Ravens are described in Scripture as being an “unclean” bird. They are scavenger birds. Have you ever seen a dead possum in the road? They’re the type of bird that eats the meat off those dead animals. They’re scavengers. Now, I’m not real keen on eating food dropped in my lap by any bird. So you can be sure I wouldn’t be excited about this particular kind of meal.
But now, that’s not really what bothers me about this text. I mean, as long as it’s Elijah that has to eat the food and not me – why should I be upset?
I don’t have a problem with Elijah’s accommodations at the Ravine of Kerith… but when we get to Zarephath I have a problem. In Zarephath we find Elijah begging for food from a woman who has barely enough to feed herself and her son.
ILLUS: Just imagine going to one of the poorer parts of our town, knocking on the door of the home of a poor widow woman and her son - they’re barely getting by, living on food stamps - and telling them God wants them to feed you for a couple of years.
Now… I’m sorry… but that bothers me. Why would God do it that way? Why would God ORDER Elijah to go beg food from a poverty stricken widow? I mean – God could have sent Elijah to the home of a rich merchant or the castle of a King. Why impose upon a woman who has so little she expects to starve to death in couple of days? That doesn’t make any sense. Unless… unless God wanted to teach us something here.
The Apostle Paul had a very difficult time in his ministry and he wrote that God told Him:
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. II Corinthians 12:9-10
You see, rich men and Kings have food to spare. If Elijah had gone to one of their homes for food God wouldn’t have been necessary. Elijah would have been fed by the power and strength of rich people. There’d have been no need for God to show His power.
It’s only when God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves that we really recognize how much God loves us.
ILLUS: Years ago, there was a famous entertainer by the name of Danny Thomas. But before he became famous, times were hard. At one point he lost his life savings of $600.00.
He was out of work.
He and his wife, Rosie, had a baby on the way, and they needed money.
He borrowed money from friends & worked part-time jobs just so they could buy groceries.
A week before the baby was born, he had a grand total of $7 and 85 cents to his name. What was he to do? Danny later recalled: "My despair led me to my first exposure to the powers of faith,"
On that Sunday morning Danny went to church. When the offering plate was passed he put in his "usual one dollar." But something unexpected happened that day. A special missions offering was taken. When it was explained where the mission offering would go, Danny felt he had to give something. "I got carried away, and ended up giving my seven dollars."
He had given away all his money that Sunday. He remembered thinking: “What in the world have I done?
He got on his knees and prayed to God. "Look, I’ve given my last seven bucks, and I need it back tenfold because I’ve got a kid on the way, and I have to pay the hospital bill." He went home with a mere eighty-five cents in his pocket—all the money he had in the world.
Danny Thomas later wrote "You won’t believe this, but the next morning the phone rang in the rooming house hall." It was a job offer. He was offered a part in a commercial. The job wasn’t much but the pay was good--seventy-five dollars. "I literally dropped the telephone receiver. First I whooped with joy; then an eerie feeling came over me."
He remembered what he had prayed at church the day before. "The seventy-five dollar fee," he said, "unheard of for me at that time was almost exactly ten times the amount of money I had donated to the church."
Now tell me… was that a coincidence? (I don’t think so!)
Jesus said, "What is impossible with men is possible with God." Luke 18:27
III. So now, what does this story of the widow at Zarephath tell me?
It tells me that God can supply all my needs. And I can SAY I believe that. But saying I believe it and actually acting upon that statement of faith are two different things.
ILLUS: (I showed two glass jars at this point – ½ filled with flour, another ¼ full of cooking oil) This is about as much food and oil as that woman had. The prophet of God told her to go home and prepare food for him and then God would never allow her jars to be empty.
She had the promise… but she still to make a decision.
The decision was this: she could focus on how little she had in her jars… or she could focus on how much God had promised.
That’s the same choice many of us face. Many Christians look at their giving in the same way. They can look at how little they have in their jar (or their wallets, or their bank accounts, etc.) or they can look at the promises God has given.
ILLUS: One person has observed that we can always find a reason not to give God His tithe
In January because of Christmas bills due.
In February because of fuel bills and car upkeep.
In March because of income taxes.
In April because of clothes for Easter.
In May because too much rain threatens the crops.
In June because too little rain threatens the crops.
In July because of vacation expenses coming up.
In August because of vacation expenses to be paid.
In September because of the children’s school needs.
In October because of winter clothes and doctor bills.
In November because of the Thanksgiving trip.
In December because of the Christmas shopping.
As long as those worries keep us from giving to God – as long as we keep our focus on how little we have in our jars - we’re never going to be able to receive much from God.
But God promised us this:
“Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” II Corinthians 9:6-8
CLOSING ILLUSTRATION: Recently, a man shared with me an experience his son had had. The boy was 19 at the time and had been raised by his father to love God and understand things that were important to Christians… like tithing. The father recalled that he’d always told his kids that he didn’t know exactly why it worked, but that he knew that when we gave to God, God would give back to us.
The boy had worked that summer at a Christian camp and had saved back what little he earned. At the end of the summer he had accumulated $2000. The boy then told his dad that he intended to tithe back to God from what he had earned. A couple of months later – at a youth gathering – the boy gave the money to a mission that was being promoted there. The father was so proud that his son had learned this important lesson… but what happened next only confirmed their faith in God’s providence. When the boy received a large bill that he had been expecting to pay, he found that someone had paid $250 toward that debt.
SERMONS IN THIS SERIES
· God of the Box = Mark 6:30-44
· More Than Enough Faith = II Kings 5:1-20
· Standing Up For God = I Kings 17:1-16
· More Than Enough Church = Isaiah 54:1-5
