What’s In Your Wallet?
TEXT: II Corinthians 9:6-8
Sunday, October 6, 2002
Now I know that you know that next week is Consecration Sunday and this is kind of a primer for it. I know exactly how Christians feel about Consecration Sunday and all kinds of things like it. It is the service with the lowest attendance in the year. I don’t know why that is because giving what God has blessed us with is an act of Christian discipleship and an act of seeing Jesus as Lord. It really is an act of worship. I really hate stewardship campaigns because there is something worldly about them. It gives a person the impression that the church is going to try to talk them into giving more. My giving is between me and God and I resent that yearly thing during harvest season when the leaves are falling–it’s a Hallmark moment.
What I hope is that we discard this whole idea of a stewardship campaign because I don’t see anywhere in scripture where we are called to campaign at all. All that we are called to do is live out our faith consistently in every area including finances. I am not here trying to squeeze every nickel out of you that I can. What I hope to do this morning is simply open up the scriptures and look at what giving is from a Biblical perspective.
If we give the way the Lord teaches us, it’s like the Capital One Card commercial. It protects us from the pestilence and the problems and the heartaches that can come into our lives if we hold back from God. Left to our own devices, materialism has a way of eating us up or life doesn’t turn out the way we want, and we don’t maximize what we make to the best degree because we don’t have God’s blessings upon it. How do we have the divine protection of God? We do this by giving according to the scripture, and we will look at our text today which will instruct us in giving according to the scripture. We will look at the right perspective for giving, how much to give, the procedure for giving, and the focus for giving.
TEXT
What attitude should we have towards giving? I love the analogy Paul uses about the sower. To give is really to sow, and this comes in direct opposition with how we human beings perceive giving. We tend to see giving as losing. How many times have you given in the offering plate or thought about giving a certain sum, and your mind starts playing tricks on you–“That could be a car payment.” “That could be this week’s grocery bill.” “That could have been what I needed to pay for these tires that blew or these engine problems that I’m having.” “That could have been my insurance payment.” You feel that because you gave the money in the offering, you lost it, that it’s not coming back to you at all. This is how we tend to see giving–as something that’s lost.
Yet scripture is very clear–giving is sowing. We all know the farming terms. What happens when you sow? You reap. You take a whole ear of corn and strip all the kernels off it, put each of them into the ground, and what happens? From one ear of corn, how many rows of corn can you plant? Each of those kernels will grow a stalk, and how many ears of corn are on each stalk? This concept of sowing is amazing. It is not something that is lost and gone forever. It actually multiplies.
This is what God says about giving. Giving is like sowing seed or planting a zucchini plant. If you have one plant, you have enough zucchini to last a lifetime. One tomato plant can grow an amazing number of tomatoes. That’s like giving. Every time you give, you need to remember that you are sowing seeds and a harvest is coming. This whole concept of sowing and reaping is built into the very fabric of life. Unless people and things give, we will all die. Think of a hanging plant in a pot without holes. If you keep giving it water without holes to drain the water away, the plant becomes waterlogged and will rot. Any plant that is not producing is dying.
Look at the Dead Sea itself or any body of water. Healthy water is constantly flowing, giving and receiving. The only water that is bad for you is the water that only receives. It becomes stagnant and has no movement.
The same thing is true with people. The happiest people are not the takers but the givers. The happiest class in our society is the middle class, not the upper class. Why? Because they tend to be the people who both give and receive.
This is true of spirituality. What did Jesus say? “If you want to save your life, you must lose it”
In banking, even in a bad economy, those who invest will out-perform 10, 20 or 100 times over those who put their money in their mattress or save it in a bank.
If you keep your money, you will not do as well as if you give it. Proverbs 11: 24-25 tells us that one person gives freely and gains even more, and another withholds unduly and comes to poverty. In the third chapter of Malachi, God challenges his people to test him: “Will a person rob God, yet you have robbed me. You ask, How did we rob you? In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse, the whole nation of you, because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you don’t have room enough for it.”
How does God do this? Both through positive blessings, and also read what it says in verse 11: “I will prevent pests from devouring your crops and the vines in your field will not cast their fruit, says the Lord Almighty. Then all the nations will call you blessed.”
Put in modern terms, what does that mean? God can enable things to act in your favor. There are a thousand ways that can happen. Perhaps your car will go 150,000 miles and not 98,000 miles. God can cause your appliances to last longer or He can help you avoid costly accidents at home. God can bring people into your life whose kids are the same size as yours so that they can pass down clothing to you. That’s a wonderful savings. God can put you in the right place to get the right buys. God can provide you with a better job. God might provide you with an honest serviceman instead of a dishonest one who would cheat you. God will prosper us and bless us as we give. Galatians 6:7 says, “You reap what you sow.”
What are we sowing and are you satisfied with the harvest? What kind of harvest do you want or desire? Are you sowing in order to reap that type of harvest? John Calvin, who lived in the 1500’s, wrote a commentary on this verse:
“Whenever fleshly reason calls us back from doing good from fear of loss, we should immediately oppose it with this shield, “But the Lord declares that we are sowing.”
To give, then, is to sow, and how well are you sowing? Are you sowing sparingly? Then you will reap sparingly. If you are sowing generously, you will reap generously. Are you sowing, or are you eating your seed? No farmer would ever eat their seed because that means there will be no harvest.
If giving is sowing, how much do we give? Is the Biblical standard ten percent? The answer to that is yes and no. It is the Old Testament standard, but we live in New Testament times. What does the New Testament say about giving? The New Testament doesn’t mention a percentage. The reason is that because they felt ten percent was too limiting. People wanted to give more than ten percent, and they gave what God placed upon their heart.
The New Testament gives us four guides to giving: We are to give freely, we are to give generously, we are to give regularly, and we are to give cheerfully. I like how God does this. To give cheerfully is extremely helpful. On a practical level, it helps me gauge where my faith is at. How much can I give and still be grinning? Then it pushes you and causes you to consider if you can be happy giving more. Perhaps you are too entangled in the things of this world and God is trying to untangle the lusts of materialism. Can you trust him at a level to give a little bit more? This standard meets me where I am and what I can give at this point in my life. It also challenges me to go one step farther and to trust God for this.
God does this in every area of our lives. Little by little, God works on one area at a time. I was age 13 when I became a Christian and grew up in a construction family. The first area that God had to deal with me about was swearing. I had a bad mouth. In construction, if you hit your hand with a hammer it hurts and things fly out of your mouth. God began to work with me and it took me years to overcome this terrible habit. But God was gentle and eventually I got to the point in my Christian life where I was strong enough to give up swearing.
This is what God does with our finances. If we give one percent, God challenges us to try one more. If we give two-and-one-half percent, God challenges us to try three. If you already tithe, try eleven percent. Test God and try it. Stretch yourself and let yourself grow in this.
What’s the procedure for giving? I know there are a lot of people who don’t pledge for various reasons. One reason is that not all churches pledge, another reason is that church leaders should have faith that the finances will be there. I challenge this idea because when you look at the Old Testament, God did not tell the priests to have faith that the money would come it. He challenged everyone to give ten percent and the priests knew exactly what percentage the congregation would be giving. How did they then demonstrate faith? The priests were also challenged to tithe and were put on the same level as everyone else. I don’t think it is at all scriptural that church leaders have to blindly guess what people are giving in general. All of us are called to collectively demonstrate faith by looking within ourselves, deciding before God what we are going to give, writing it down and giving it. For all of us, it takes faith to do this.
In verse 7 it says, “Each person should give what he has decided in his heart to give.” The act of giving comes after the decision. We are to decide first, and then we are to give. It is not haphazard or circumstantial. It is not dependent upon whether I am in church or even what I have in my checking account this week. It is based on a prior commitment that I have made after a serious time of prayer and reflection. That sounds to me like pledging.
A practical way of living out the deliberate act of giving is to write it down. This is practical spirituality. Why is it helpful for us? Number one, is that we forget. Number two, is that we are weak. If things are running behind and it looks like you don’t have enough money and your hand starts to quiver when you are writing your check, if you have decided ahead of time how much to give, you will give it and act in faith. There is something about writing down your pledge that is more decisive and concrete. It is a real act of commitment and of faith.
How many of you have ever said, “I am going to read the Bible straight through in one year?” How many of you have ever said, “I am going to have a devotional life every day?” Did you do it? Did you accomplish it? Now, how many of you have signed up for a Bible study or a covenant group and were given an assignment where questions were going to be asked. Then how many of you were able to do the assignments or read the Bible?
How many of you have promised in your mind that you were going to pay cash for a car? You promised that you were going to put the price of a car payment into the bank each month, but it never happened. Then all of a sudden I need a car and I go get a loan with interest, and mysteriously, I can make the payments, not to myself, but to someone else who is making money off me. All of a sudden I have the money that I didn’t have before. Why? Because I am receiving a written note from someone who is holding me accountable.
Giving is voluntary. I know and you know that you do not have to pledge. We are not going to have a couple big guys standing up here waiting for you to fill out your card. This is a spiritual act of worship between you and God and at the end of next week’s service we are going to conclude by having you put your pledge on the altar and then you leave the sanctuary for dinner. This is voluntary between you and God. You may be thinking that this is just a gimmick. If so, don’t pledge. This doesn’t benefit me at all. This all has to do with your sowing and reaping. It benefits you, not us. It is between you and God and if you give to God generously, he already says in this scripture that you will reap generously.
It really is like salvation. When you think about salvation, God never forced you to receive salvation. He never did, and he never will. He gently prods you and calls you to himself. He has already provided the gift of salvation, but all of us at some time have to give ourselves to him and his leadership. It is for our benefit that we do it, but we ultimately have to decide voluntarily to do this. It is like giving. God will bless you, but you have to do this because you want to and because your heart is right about it. If you don’t want to pledge, your heart is not right. I am not going to force you and God isn’t going to force you. God loves you anyway.
The motivation for giving is because we are thankful for what God has done in our lives. If you are wondering whether you have things to be thankful for, consider this:
*If you have food in your refrigerator and clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of those who live in the world.
*If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.
*If you have money in the bank and in your wallet and spare change in a dish somewhere in your house, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthiest.
*If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment and arrest, torture or death, you are more blessed than 3 billion people in the world.
*If you never experience the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment or the pains of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people.
*If your parents are both alive and still married, you are very rare, even in the United States.
*If you can read, you are more blessed than 2 billion people on earth who cannot.
What is Christian giving? It is simply a challenge for us to look at what’s in our wallet and then set aside, according to God’s leading by prayer, a percentage for him because you are thankful for his blessing and you want to provide that blessing for others so that they may know this God.
What will God do in response? Look at verses 10 and 11: “Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion. Through us, your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.”
