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"The
Giving Nature of God" October
26, 2003 The Rev. Dr. John Ward I invite you to turn to page 72 in the New Testament Bible.
In the pew Bibles there, you'll find the passage that we'll be looking at
this morning having to do with relationship-building with God.
It is quite often called "prayer," but, again, as we have been
learning, prayer is much more than asking, much more than ritual.
It is, indeed, relationship. That
is my favorite phrase. It came from
Nicky Gumbel out of the "Alpha" material.
If you've been to Alpha, or have taught Alpha, you've heard it. And, again, if you've heard me talk on prayer here, you've
heard it, because I love it: "Prayer
is relationship, not ritual." When
you understand the relationship with God, you are in prayer with God in many
forms. And so comes Jesus talking to the disciples on prayer.
This is as it is recorded in Luke's gospel.
If you look at the beginning of His teaching on prayer, right at chapter
11--that's down on the bottom left-hand corner.
You'll see that He's teaching on the Lord's Prayer, as the disciples were
asking to be taught how to pray. Well,
right after Jesus teaches the disciples that prayer, He begins to talk to them
about prayer. And, again, not just
giving them--in fact, this was never to be a ritualized prayer.
This is supposed to be "pray in this manner"--in a sense, as an
outline for prayer, as the Lord's Prayer was originally intended.
We always need to remember that. That
it's not about memorizing the Lord's Prayer that we give to God and give it to
Him over and over again, as though God likes to hear repeated messages from us
all the time, as if we have somehow to bug God enough to try to get His
attention. In fact, that's what
we'll be reading about in just a second. No,
it's an outline for prayer. In all
the ways in which we pray, we acknowledge God in ways that Jesus taught the
disciples to acknowledge Him. Now,
we do this every week in worship. It's
appropriate for us to use it as a ritual of worship.
But remember, friends, it's about relationship with God. And here is the proof as Jesus--right after He teaches the
disciples this prayer, perhaps thinking that they, too, would like to make it
into a ritual, He talks about the relationship. So we're going to look now at verse 5 of chapter 11, again on
page 72 in the pew Bibles there. And he said to them [and that's Jesus, of course], "Suppose
one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend,
lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have
nothing to set before him.' And he
answers from within, 'Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my
children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.'
I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because
he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give
him whatever he needs. [verse 9:] "So I
say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock,
and the door will be opened for you. For
everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone
who knocks, the door will be opened. Is
there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give him a snake
instead of a fish? Or if the child
asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask
him!" This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Indeed, we're in a stewardship season now and we're beginning to
hear about that even more formally. Dave
and Marilyn, thank you so much for coming up and giving us a bit of why you are
grateful and how the Lord has made stewardship understood to you with regard to
God's graciousness to you and to all of us.
That is appropriate for what we're doing today.
As Will said, we're defining this as a thematic approach, and the overall
theme is "What's next, God?" The
good news is it's "What's next, God?"
Now, you can change it a little bit and it can turn around to, "What
now, God?" I want you to know
that's not what it is! We feel as
though in the life of Faith Presbyterian Church as we're on the bubble here as
the Pastor Nominating Committee is getting very close to finding the person that
God has chosen for us. And soon we
will be hearing from them in their search process on our behalf. And it won't be long before they present to us someone who
will be the next Pastor for Faith Church. We want to have an attitude of readiness for that, and that's the
reason why our Stewardship Committee has said, "What's next?" or
"What next, God?" We're
ready to go. And in that, then,
we've defined this as "grateful," "ready,"
"willing" and "able." And
the "ready," "willing" and "able" three Sundays
are really the heart of the stewardship piece.
But we need to start with gratefulness.
Then we're also going to finish with "thankfulness," because
the Sunday that we receive our pledge cards, we will ask you to fill those out
and to bring them to church with you at the Thanksgiving service, just like we
did last year. We really
appreciated the opportunity to do that. As
many of you fill out those pledge forms, if you would bring them to church on
that Thanksgiving Sunday, our Sunday before Thanksgiving, where we all come
together as a church in the activity center.
We will bring those forward, we will lay hands on those as we did last
year, and ask God's blessing for those. So,
again, "What's next, God?" (not
"Now what, God?") is our theme and we begin today with
"gratefulness." Especially for the legacy of those who have helped us grow in
Christ, specifically those who have been the members of Faith Church, many of
whom (as we know) have gone on to be with the Lord. We have, I don't know if you
can say "suffered through." I
think what we've done is we've "ministered through" a time of losing
some of our great pillars recently. Again,
many funerals have happened, with many long-time members, pillars of the church.
But, again, we can grieve through it--we do grieve through it, but we
also grow through it as well as God, in His plan for life, brings us to a
beginning and an ending here. For
those who believe in Jesus Christ, we have an eternity with the Lord, and so we
do not grieve as those who have no hope, for we have the hope of Christ to come
and to bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
That's right out of Scripture. We
say that at almost every one of our memorial services to remember people. Now, it's important for us not only to know that as God takes those
away who were such great pillars to us, He calls us as well to be pillars for
others. So if you think of the
person, perhaps one of those--gosh, since January I think we have had 17 or 18
memorial services. Almost every one
of those have been long-lived members of our church. If you think of those who have passed away since January or
many more before that, that you really thought of as a pillar of the church who
is now gone, I want you to understand that perhaps God has you remembering that
person not just to create a memory, but to take that person's legacy and move
that along yourself. To realize
that God is now calling upon you and me to be the pillars of the church.
For us, at some time in our life, to be thinking realistically about the
life of green bananas. But
beforehand, to be pillars, to be people we have looked to who have provided us
great leadership, great service, and great accountability as well.
So the gratefulness begins right now, not only for those who have served
us and gone with the Lord. But many
who are present today are present-day disciples, those who help us to grow, who
teach us God's Word, who live by it alongside of us, who hold us accountable to
God's teaching as well. Why? Because they love us. We
are grateful for the giving nature of our Faith Church member and we are
grateful in giving because God is grateful in giving as well.
And this is what Jesus says about the relationship we're to have with our
Lord. We're not to think of God as one that we have to bother in order to
get Him to help us, like the first part of the story.
You see, quite often too many people will misinterpret this as saying,
"Well, if I bug God enough, for sure I'll get Him out of bed to help
me." That's not what Jesus
says at all. In fact, He qualifies
that by giving us the next section--the one with which I think we're most
familiar. "How many of you, if
you have a child who asks you for a fish would give your child a stone?
Or if your child asks for an egg, would you give your child a scorpion?
If you know how to give good gifts to your child, how much more will the
Lord give," as according to Luke's gospel, "the Holy Spirit to those
who ask of God?" That's the
relationship God wishes us to have. And
as I think about stewardship and I think about giving, I think it's important
for us to understand the giving nature of God, because it is the giving nature
of God that we must begin with, because we just begin with God with regard to
stewardship. Because stewardship is
not about fundraising. It begins
with understanding faith-raising. And
it's important for us, then, to begin with understanding who God is for us and
who we can be for God. Let's look at this passage again.
I already gave you the first half. Really
what that first half has to do with is Jesus giving qualifications to the
disciples about what it means to receive and to ask.
That God is not far away. God
is not locked up in His house. And
you will never have to bug God for something.
He's not like the person in the first section who, locked up tight, ready
to go to sleep, has a friend who knocks on the door, says, "Hey, it's
midnight, but I got a friend who just came in.
Can you help me out?" And
the person saying, "Nope. I'm
in bed. That's it.
Sorry." But by the
persistence of the person knocking, certainly then the person will get out of
bed. And, again, as Jesus said, not
because he was a friend, just because he was persistent.
Well, persistence is not what Jesus is saying you need to do in
order to hear from God. He's saying
that's what happens to those who seek on their own to get what they want in life
today. But it's not so with God.
And then He presents to us the second section--the one that tells us if
we seek for God, we will find him. If
we ask for God, He will give Himself to us.
If we knock on the door to receive the truth of who God is for us, God
promises to give that to us as a loving Father, as a Heavenly Parent, as the one
who indeed cares for us and intends to be known in relationship--nothing less
than the wonderful relationship between a parent and a child.
You have to understand how important that is.
That was not something understood in Jesus' day.
God was far off. The only
relationship you could have with God was a formal one, one that you could only
have through your own sacrifices, through your own offerings to God.
It was possible to begin to know God through the Word of God, but all you
could have was knowledge and a relationship based on your sacrifices.
And here comes God in the flesh, God incarnate, Jesus Christ, who begins
the new relationship for us, who offers us the opportunity to be reconciled to
God and to actually have the ability to call God "Abba," which in
Aramaic means "Daddy." To
have that new relationship that's offered to us uniquely through Jesus Christ in
His death, in His resurrection, and in the coming of the Holy Spirit.
And Luke alludes to that here because what Luke is talking about with
regard to the gift that we ought to be asking for is nothing less than the Holy
Spirit. Let's look at that again.
That's down in verse 13: If you then, who are evil, know how to give good
gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy
Spirit to those who ask Him! Now, if you're more familiar with the Matthew passage, the passage
in Matthew talks about "good gifts."
In Matthew chapter 7, verses 11 through 13, the same passage is given,
and what Matthew does is he uses the doublet of "bread and
stone"--"How many if your child asked for bread would give a
stone?" And then Matthew also
uses, "How many of you if you had a child who asked for a fish would give
him a snake?" You wouldn't do
that, would you? And then Luke adds
this one: "How many if a child
asked for an egg would give him a scorpion?" If you put these three together, you have a triplet here:
"bread and stone," "fish and snake," "egg and
scorpion." It's a little different in Matthew's rendition of this.
For the curious among you--of which we pastors are as we try to exegete
the passages in the original language, and look at our commentators to see what
is said about this, and try to pull all this together for a good sermon that is
proper and appropriate--in asking and researching why the difference, there
really is no specific understanding as to why Matthew and Luke differ just a
little bit on this story. The
speculation amongst the Bible scholars are Matthew, of course, was an
eyewitness. He was one of the
twelve. His name, of course, was
Levi, the tax gatherer. He was also
known as Levi. You remember that.
Matthew was an eyewitness who wrote his gospel based on his eyewitness
account. Luke was not an
eyewitness. Luke was the next
generation following. He was an
eyewitness of the eyewitnesses. He
was most likely considered to be one of the followers of Paul, so as he heard
Paul's preaching and Paul's telling of the account of Jesus' life, he was
writing all this down. And if you
read in the beginning of Luke and the beginning of Acts, you know that he was
writing to a particular person named Theophilus.
And what Luke was doing was taking all that he had heard and all that he
had read and some scholars even believe that Mark's gospel had already been
written at this time, so when Matthew and Luke were writing that, they were
writing a lot of what Mark was saying, but then there's still some independent
accounts. You have to remember that
most of this was oral history at the time and there were still many eyewitnesses
around so there wasn't a need for writing until the later days as the
eyewitnesses began to pass on. So there are some differences here. We're not exactly sure.
It leads us to some speculation--although speculation you can't put
concrete theology to--but one of the things that I liked reading was this.
Matthew, being an eyewitness, heard indeed what Jesus said and so he
probably may have quoted Jesus most appropriately technically saying, as Jesus
did, "How many of you if your child asks for a loaf will give him a stone?
And if you being evil know how to give good gifts, how much more will our
Heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask of Him?" That could be actually the technical quote.
And then I want you to think about Luke if that's certainly true.
Because what Luke then does is identify the primary gift by whom, indeed,
we understand God to be giving: the
Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit
promised by Jesus as the one who is the author of truth who gives us the
understanding to know who God is for us. Indeed,
you can know about the Bible and you can know about God, but without the Spirit,
there is no understanding of a relationship.
We don't get this until we get the Holy Spirit.
We cannot get to God on our own. We
need God to come to us. And He did
so in Jesus Christ and He does so right now in the Holy Spirit for you and me.
The revealer of the truth, the one who, as it says in Scripture, comes
alongside of us, the Paraclete, the one who comes alongside, who protects us,
who guides us, who reveals to us. And there is no other way for this to be revealed to us but through
the Spirit, that Jesus is indeed Lord and Savior.
And God does call us, indeed, to be in relationship, and that we can be
freed up to be for God as much as God is for us.
That we can be free from our sin and reconciled to God once and for all.
And to understand and to freely raise our arms up to God and say,
"Abba" as a child to a Heavenly Parent who loves us more than any
other earthly parent ever has. No
matter what kind of relationship you have had with your parents, if you've had a
relationship with your parents at all, you can understand inside innately what
kind of relationship you should have. Many
of you can tell wonderful stories about the relationship that you've had with
your Mother or Father. Others of
you may not be able to do the same thing. But
inside everyone of us know what we ought to have been treated like by our
parents and how we would like to treat others.
Well, that's the relationship that God has built into us.
We strive for that. We long
for that. And God offers us that in
Jesus Christ. When we talk about giving in the life of the church, when we talk
about stewardship during stewardship season, my sense and my hope for 2004 is
providing a budget that is solid enough that when the new pastor comes, we're
moving forward and we're able truly to say, "What next, Lord?"
But before we start talking about giving, we have to understand the Giver
Himself, and that is God, who frees us up and gives us the power of the Holy
Spirit in ways that are much greater than we could ever have expected.
I think of the woman at the well. Jesus
came to speak to her. Here she was,
thirsty, and Jesus promised her thirst-quenching life, more than she ever could
have expected. I think of Peter.
And recently I preached with regard to Peter, looking for a good catch of
fish, yet Jesus promised that he would catch thousands, yet it wouldn't be fish
any longer because He brought Peter up to be a chief witness who would win men
and women to Christ. And so we, looking for good things from God, as Matthew promised,
we will receive them from God. And
as Luke reminds us, it is the Holy Spirit which is the chief gift that we
receive from God Himself. Whatever
we ask of God, He will give us what we need.
Quite often it's much more than we ever expected.
I pray that we understand this: That
the gracious Giver is God. That
stewardship does not begin with fundraising, but as I said earlier, with
faith-raising. And remembering the
giving nature of God and of those who follow Him.
We give because God does. So
as we begin our stewardship time, I'd like for us to ask of God. Two things I'd like for us to ask this morning.
Why don't we ask God to help us give good gifts to our church and trust
Him to do so through us? Why don't we trust God to give to this church through us?
And then, secondly, why don't we ask God to give us the gift of the Holy
Spirit to empower us to live in His truth, no matter what?
This is the promise of God for us. Why
don't we take God up on these promises? And
let us do so now in prayer. Would
you pray with me? Lord, we thank you so much for giving us your Word, which teaches
us the reality of the relationship you offer us, one where we do not beg.
We do not beg; we merely ask as a child asks.
Help us to remember that, Lord God, and that you allow us to be in
relationship with you, not just to know you in our head, but to have experienced
your love in our hearts, which frees us up then as well to be loving toward you
and loving toward others. And,
Lord, when it comes to supporting the life of the church in financial ways, the
reality of budget forecasting--what we do every year because we receive no funds
anywhere else, but from our own giving--I ask Lord God that you help us to give
appropriately. Lord, help us to
give good gifts as we ask them for you. We
ask this corporately as Faith Church. Help
us to give good gifts to our church, that the ministry may be accomplished.
And, Lord, let us trust you in answering this to do so graciously through
us. And, Lord, I do believe that
ultimately we cannot understand you. We
can't even understand what giving is unless we have received your Holy Spirit
who allows us to understand the truth of who you are in us.
There is no other way by which you can be known, and this is what you say
in Scripture. So we, Lord, ask that
your Holy Spirit come upon us, to empower us to understand your truth and once
again to empower us to live your truth no matter what.
In Christ's name we pray. And
all God's people said, "Amen." Rev. Dr. John Ward Associate Pastor for Discipleship Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota [Transcribed from an audiotape of the
worship service on October 26, 2003.] |
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