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I don’t know about you but I feel
like I’m on everybody’s mailing list, especially here at Christmas when
we get stacks of catalogs about this high, but also people asking for
money or getting calls from everybody from whatever group that needs
it. You feel kind of guilty when you refuse and so it is really hard.
It’s one of the reasons I have over the years been reluctant to talk
about money or even ask for it in the life of the church. But today is
different. It is stewardship Sunday; and often in my career over the
years, borrowing from a senior pastor I worked with a long, long time
ago, on this day I’ve often titled my sermon “The Money Sermon”, because
I like to be upfront with people about we’re going to do. We are going
to ask for a pledge a little later, but I’m going in a little bit
different direction this morning. We are going to talk about how giving
abundantly lives to living abundantly. Along with that, in the strain
of what we’re talking about, I also want you to see that our church and
our lives are part of a bigger thing, bigger than we are. We
participate in that in our worship and our giving to the Lord. Part of
what we are going to do is simply celebrate who we are. We have been
doing that; you know the music got better and better as we went along.
Music is God’s elixir to the soul and it has been wonderful to hear the
various levels of choirs that we have and things that are going on.
Part of that celebration we are going to watch a video. Dean Halverson
has put that together and it is a collage of what our church is about in
pictures. I hope you enjoy it.
(video presentation)
Would you pray with me?
Lord we come as your people seeking
to hear your word once more. We ask your blessing in it as we gather
and hear. We pray that your word would enter our minds and hearts, fill
us with joy and send us forth to do your will. We pray in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
Why does God want us to give? Well
one reason God wants us to give is that He wants us to be like Him. God
is a giver. The word “give” appears about one thousand five hundred
times in the scriptures and we see that God is mostly a giver and not a
taker. God so loved the world that gave His only Son. Then we
read that Jesus himself says “I came not to be served but to serve” or
to give. God is a giver and He wants us to be like Him. As we learn
how to be givers, we learn how to enter into His abundant life which He
wants to give us. There are many reasons to give, basically, many; but
I want to talk about three very briefly this morning.
First and foremost God wants us to
give because it helps us remember to be thankful for what He has given
to us in the past. Thanksgiving may be one of the biggest reasons we
give. Notice what Paul says “Each one is to give what he has decided in
his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, not for guilt,
but God loves a cheerful giver.” The service that you perform is not
only supplying the needs of God’s people but it also overflows or is
also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. You know, it’s
amazing if we think about it, how all our lives and all that we are owes
so much to people in the past. I was traveling this week and as I was
coming back I got on the elevator to go up to the parking lot at the
airport and preachers think about strange things you know; and I was
sitting there thinking about the elevator. How somebody had to think
this up. How somebody made the glass; how somebody made the metal; that
made the carpet; produced the power. It is kind of like that movie, I
didn’t know the name of it last service, and I said it had Meg Ryan in
it and it was a chick flick, which it is. It is “Kate and Leopold”.
The story is about this fellow who is in like the seventeenth century or
eighteenth century and he’s transported into the future and falls in
love with Meg Ryan, of course, and they get transported back. When he
gets transported into the future, there are no elevators because he
invented them after he got transported. That’s exactly right. If there
weren’t people to do these things, we wouldn’t have them. So much of
our lives are so dependent on what other people have done, particularly
what our parents have done and our grandparents and our church. I have
had the privilege of being the pastor of several churches with
significant history. My first church was founded in 1756. My second
church was founded in 1745 much to the chagrin of the people who were
founded in 1756. But that’s a different story. This church, 1887; next
year we celebrate one hundred twenty years and then we also celebrate
another congregation when we joined together with the Glen Lake church.
So much history. When I first got here a little old lady came up to me
and said “I was baptized in this church. I was married in this
church.” She was probably eighty-five and I went “Wonderful!” It’s
what it’s all about. We just baptized a child. It’s all part of the
community and the history that we have. We give thanks to God for that,
what our parents have done, what the people in the past have done; but
most of all we give thanks for what God has done for us in the past.
Now you might be saying to me “Well, preacher my life hasn’t been that
good. I don’t know how to give thanks.” I would challenge you to think
even though you might have many negatives, and we all do, think of the
positives. Even the negative things God uses to make positive. When we
give thanks to God we say “God I love you. I care for you. I want to
give you praise.” It fills us with joy, which leads to the second
reason we give.
First is thanksgiving………. We are a
little late so I am moving ahead a little bit….. Paul says about the
Macedonians, “They did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves
first to the Lord and then to us.” When Paul writes his letter, he’s
writing to the Corinthians and the Corinthians were a tough bunchy.
They really were; very secular, very self-centered, very proud of who
they were. In order for Paul to reach them he actually went as a
missionary and didn’t ask them for any offerings so they couldn’t have
the excuse of saying “Oh we’re paying your salary. We’re not going to
listen to you.” So he had offerings given from other churches but he
also took up an offering among the churches to send to Jerusalem and a
lot of different things. He says to the Corinthians “These Macedonians,
those people up there in Macedonia, are an example to you in their
giving.” But notice what he says about them: “They did not do as we
expected, but gave themselves first to the Lord.” The second reason to
give is that we might put on a check of our own selfishness. We are
selfish because we are sinners. You know, it’s funny; we see it in the
little things. You know what I always want to do when someone is
telling me a story? Not always, but a lot of times. Somebody tells me
about something, what they did; my first inclination being self-centered
is to go “Golly, guess what I did? I did the same thing.” “You caught
that fish? Well I caught a bigger one a couple years ago.” “You did
that? Well let me tell you about what I did.” It’s always
autobiographical. That’s little ways it shows up; but we see it in big
ways, don’t we? James says “Why do we have hate among us or fights or
wars? Because one person wants something and he doesn’t have it and
wants to take it from another.” So we are called to give, to put a
check on our selfishness. We are not called just to give stuff. You
see God doesn’t want your money. You might say “Well good! I’m not
going to give it!” God wants something more than that. He wants you.
It is almost as though God is saying “If you can’t give me yourself, I’d
rather not have your money.” You see, God doesn’t really need our
money. God could shower this church or anybody with all the money in
the world if He wanted to. It is all His anyway. We give because we
need to; because we need to give thanksgiving and we need to remind
ourselves who is in charge and who gives us everything; and to put a
check on our own inclinations. But most of all to have joy because
giving brings joy. The priority is to give ourselves to the Lord in
keeping with God’s Will.
The third reason is that we proclaim
our expectation of what God will do for us in the future. In the Old
Testament God told the Israelites to bring the first fruits of their
harvest. In other words, when the harvest began to come in, what was
brought in first was to go to the Lord and His work. That took a lot of
faith. After all they brought in the first parts of their harvest,
tomorrow there may be a hail storm or a fire or something could go
wrong, a flood; and the rest of their harvest wouldn’t come in. God was
saying, “In trusting me, bring the first fruits of the harvest in and
give it to me.” He says the same thing to us. The first checks we
write should be to the Lord’s work. Give to the Lord first and, in
faith, we believe that God will take care of us and help us to live with
the rest. We remember this, “Whoever sows sparingly also reaps
sparingly.” You know, the images of a farmer in those days when a
farmer took seed out, he had a big basket of seed. It wasn’t like what
we have today and the automation that we have. They basically took a
handful of seed and did this kind of motion. Well the idea is that if
you only put down a few seeds you are only going to get a few crops.
What is being said here is that if you give, God will give to you. Now
this isn’t the T.V. preacher sort of thing that if you give a lot of
money God is going to make you rich and all that kind of thing; but God
does make us rich, spiritually, and takes care of us and draws near to
us.
A question for all of us is what do
you expect God to do in your life? It is tied to how much you are a
giver. It’s not that God won’t love you or bless you if you don’t
give. He does, He really does. He is a giver. But how much more
abundance can be ours if we are abundant givers. So I simply want to
encourage you this morning, and challenge you. As you think about your
pledge and what you will give to the Lord in this place think about how
much you are giving in your life. I’m the first to say that God’s
kingdom is much bigger than Faith Presbyterian Church. I really do
encourage people to give to other things as well. But think about how
much you’re giving. I encourage people to think systematically as they
give. A lot of times people ask me “Well how much?” The biblical
standard really is ten percent. That’s ten percent of your income. A
lot of people say to me “Oh my goodness, I can’t do that.” Well God
does understand. I encourage you to strive toward ten percent. But
start somewhere. Choose a percentage and give to God first. Sometimes
people only start with one percent of their income; but do it
systematically, do it as a plan. Make up your mind and do it. You will
find that God will bless that. Then next year, choose two percent or
three. Respond to the way God has blessed you. If you already are
doing this I would just simply ask you to choose another percentage
point higher, wherever you happen to be. Do it systematically. You
will find that if you do it systematically you will be blessed. A lot
of people just kind of come when they’re asked or something “Oh I’ll
give you a dollar, five dollars, twenty-five… it’s O.K. That’s great.
But that isn’t what we’re talking about. We’re talking about systematic
planned giving. Not necessarily doing so by guilt or emotion, but
deciding ahead of time this is what God wants me to do; and this is what
I’m going to do and taking that percentage and giving part of it to your
church, maybe part of it to a missionary, part of it to this... I know
I’m a pastor and I’m paid to say it. “I believe most of your tithes
should go to your church.” I would say that to you whether I worked
here or not. But that’s what I do in my own life. That’s what I
believe God wants us to do. It is actually fun to take this amount of
money that you’ve decided ahead of time, whatever comes into your bank
account, I’m going to give to the Lord; and have joy in saying “I can
help this and this and this and do these things.” Is that a part of
it? That’s why I would like to challenge you, to encourage you to do.
Do it out of thanksgiving. To put a
check on your own inclinations which, like mine, are not always the
best; but along with that, the joy of giving in the presence and having
great expectations of what God is going to do in your life and do in
this church. We have had one hundred twenty years of history and we
will have another one hundred twenty years. Part of that is what we do
now. What we do now will affect just like people have done in the past
for us. What we do now will affect folks in the future. It’ll affect
Jack. It will affect all those kids that were just up here. It’ll
affect many, many people that haven’t shown up yet, but will. But
will. We are part of a community that’s much bigger than we are; the
community of the saints which are in heaven now and are on the earth.
Be a part of that, and give.
As you come forward and place your
card in, I would just ask you to do that. If you don’t have your card
with you or you physically can’t come, nobody’s going to worry about it
if you just sit there, that’s no problem. If you’d like to come as an
act of worship but don’t have your card, do that as well. Whatever you
do, either today or the next few weeks, make a commitment of some kind
to this church and act on it and send in your card; because we want to
be faithful stewards of what you do and part of what you do will help us
make our budget for the coming year.
Let us pray.
Father in heaven thank you for all
you have done here for so many decades and what you will do in the
coming decades in years to come. We thank you that we are a part of
something that you are doing in this place and all over the world. We
ask you for each of us personally that you would give us abundant
generous hearts and that we would do it out of thanksgiving and not out
of compulsion; that we would do it for you and for your kingdom and for
one another. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen
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