The Discipline of Giving

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The video that you watched just a minute ago, I felt like made a really good point. And I did not know which video of the four was going to be shown this morning. But it makes a really good point in line with what the message is going to be about this morning.

That we have an opportunity to take the things that God has entrusted us with and to use those to make investments in eternity. our money, our resources, our energy, our time, all of these things, we have an opportunity to take those and put them to a real use, a lasting use. And yet I find myself, I don’t know about you, but I find myself trying very hard to hold on to things that cannot be held on to.

I spend a lot of time trying to keep things that cannot be kept. It’s hard to keep money, isn’t it? It wasn’t made to keep.

I try to save, and yet I get to the end of every month, especially after I pay the bills, and I think, where did it go? And there’s still some left, but it’s mostly gone. I think most of us are in that boat.

I get to the end of a week, and I think, where did all that time go to? I had all these plans of things that I needed to do or wanted to do, things I should have gotten done, and yet that time just slipped away from me. It was really depressing just recently when I realized I had been out of school as long as I was in school.

And I thought, where did those years go? Now for some of y’all, you’re thinking, oh, just wait. But seriously, I mean, I can remember being a freshman in college like it was yesterday.

And where has all that time gone? What have I done in the last 10 years? Time slips away so fast. Energy slips away so fast. I barely have any in the morning when I wake up, but what I have, I think Charlie hits me in her sleep.

I’m not sure now. I wake up exhausted and I get more exhausted as the day goes on. What energy I have goes like that.

Anybody else in that boat? Okay. So it’s not just me.

All the resources it seems like I have that I want desperately on to and to use for myself, they go so quickly. And when you realize that God has entrusted us with a finite amount of time and a finite amount of energy and a finite amount of money and resources, he’s entrusted us with it, but that it still belongs to him and it could go at any moment. We ought to change the way we look at those things.

And yet, I find myself like the child whose parents I knew, who told me the story about how they had adopted her, and they discovered that food would be missing from the house. She had grown up in abusive circumstances in foster homes and group homes and things like that. And after they adopted her, they realized that food would go missing from the house.

And then after a while, they started noticing, what is that smell coming from her room? And finally, they went in there and found that she had been hoarding food. Out of the fear that had come out of her circumstances as a young child, there’s fear that she had that she might not get to eat.

And so she would, whenever she found food, whenever there were leftovers from dinner, whenever there were things in the cabinets, and she would take it to her room and she would hoard it and try to hold on to it so she wouldn’t have to share, so she wouldn’t have to fight over more, so she could ensure for herself that she would have a supply of food, and yet it couldn’t, especially the refrigerated stuff, it could not be kept. And that’s a heartbreaking story, and I do the same thing. I don’t do it with food, or I might, some things that I don’t want to share, as we talked about last week.

But all the things that God has entrusted me with, I try to do that. I try to hoard them to myself. Because I think when you get right down to it, I’m afraid sometimes that if I let go of the money that God’s asking me to let go of, I’m not going to have enough left for what I need to do, which is completely ridiculous when you think about it, because there are times that I don’t know how I’ve gotten by and paid all the bills, and yet God has taken care of it.

There’s one time I had an insurance license and went into an interview with an insurance company about selling with them, and I was bad at sales. But I was new in ministry, tiny little church, And the guy that I was interviewing with said, what are your income needs? And I said, I really don’t know what the need is.

He said, well, what do you make right now? I said, about $900 a month. And he said, for how many?

I said, there are two of us. He said, that’s the whole thing? And I said, yeah.

And he just about did one of those spit takes you see on TV. He said, I don’t know how you live. I said, I don’t know how I live either, but God has always taken care of it.

So it’s ridiculous for me to think if God asks me to give to this need and I do it, then I’m not going to have enough for me. Because God has always taken care of me. It’s ridiculous for me to think that I’m somehow squandering my time.

If God tells me to go and do this, and then I think, but God, then I don’t have enough time to get. God has always seen to it that things fall into place where they need to be when I’m being obedient. And yet I’m here to tell you, I’m very often like that little girl who’s hoarding the food when it comes to my time, when it comes to my money, when it comes to my resources, my energy.

I think sometimes I’m afraid to give God what’s his in the first place. I’m afraid to let go of those things because I’m too busy trying to hold on to things that cannot be held on to and trying to keep things that can’t be kept. And this is not a new problem.

This is human nature. We want to make sure we’re well taken care of. We want to make sure that we have what we need.

I mean, most of us. The grasshopper and the ant story is more than just a story to me. It is a big flashing red light warning about how you live and make sure you’re prepared.

But the truth is no matter how much we prepare, it can all go like that. And the truth on the flip side of that is that no matter how much we give away, God can still provide what we need. And please don’t be mad at me because I’m preaching on giving.

I don’t think this is anybody’s first Sunday here because I came prepared to apologize and say, if you’re walking in and this is your first time and you think, great. I come to church and they always preach about money. I have maybe preached about money four times in my entire ministry.

Because we have that bad reputation about preaching so we can increase what comes in in the plate. Well, first of all, I’m preaching this after the plate has gone around. So, we’re good there.

And I will readily admit to you that I do not get a commission on what comes in. The church writes me the check. They’re going to write me and it has nothing to do with I don’t get a bonus if people give more.

So I’m telling you these things this morning because it’s what God’s Word says, and not because it’s good for me or because it lines my pocket. But we’re really talking about the ministry. We’re talking about the furtherance of the kingdom.

And it’s human nature and trying to overcome human nature when it tells us, no, no, hold on to that, hold on to that, when in reality we can’t. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth. If you’ll turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 9.

He wrote to the church at Corinth about this very problem. because there was a need that they had talked about meeting, but they hadn’t quite gotten around to it yet. And what has happened is that in the early days of Christianity, there was a time when Judea came under a huge drought and famine.

Those two things tend to go together. When there’s no rain, there’s no food. That’s just how it works.

And so the church at Jerusalem was in dire straits. People were hungry. We’ve had drought here in the last few years, but because of the system that has been set up, I’m a capitalist, and thank God for capitalism and food distribution, and we had access to Walmart even when there was no rain.

They didn’t have that. And so there came a time when the people in Jerusalem were hungry. There came a time when the church in Jerusalem was hungry, and where the church is supposed to help meet the needs of the members and the community at large.

We don’t want to get so inwardly focused where it’s just a country club and we take care of each other. But that is one of our responsibilities, is to take care of each other and the community at large. Galatians says not to, oh, I just lost the quote, not to overlook any opportunity to do good to each other, especially to those who are of the household of faith.

I’m paraphrasing a little bit there. So the church at Jerusalem was hungry. They couldn’t take care of their own members.

They couldn’t take care of the people in Jerusalem. And it was exactly at that point where the church, where the ministry of the church, as far as physical needs, where the ministry of the church was needed most. And they needed help. And so the Apostle Paul had contacted other churches in the Roman world.

And these other churches had said, yes, we will help. Yes, we will send relief. The church at Philippi was very quick to send their relief.

The church at Corinth had said, we’ll send help as well. We’ll send help as well. But they had been slow to provide it.

And so the Apostle Paul before this has written to them saying, we’re about to come your way, and this is just a friendly reminder. Can you go ahead and send the funds? Can you go ahead and take that collection?

Can you go ahead and prepare that and have that gift ready? He says, not for me, but for the church at Jerusalem. Can you have that gift ready so that when we come, you’re not embarrassed by the fact that you made this promise and there’s nothing to give and yet we’ve brought people with us?

If you read back in the previous chapters, I believe in chapter 8 of 2 Corinthians, and so he’s talked to them about this gift and can you have the gift prepared so we can take it back with us to help the church at Jerusalem because they really need it. This church was not going to be able to meet the needs of its people or the needs of others in its community. And so the other believers had stepped up not only to help the church at Jerusalem, not only to help its people, not only to feed its people, but also to sustain its ministry and to help it minister to the people in Jerusalem outside the church.

So they had agreed to contribute the funds and the help, and Paul has written this letter in part to encourage them to give generously. He’s told them, he’s made the point all throughout chapter 9 too, that they cannot, they cannot under any circumstances out give God. There seems to be a little bit of a reluctance here on the part of the church at Corinth to actually give.

I think otherwise they would have been, you know, they would have jumped at giving like the church at Philippine. That when they agreed to do it, that they would actually have run at the opportunity instead of just saying we’re going to do it and we’ll get to it by and by. So Paul’s writing to encourage them and he’s writing to challenge them, and he’s saying give generously, because you cannot give God.

These funds are needed, and whatever you part with is an investment. And so he says, starting in verse 6, but this I say, he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Okay, so he’s encouraging them there in verse 6 to give generously, Because he says whatever you give, God is going to reward in proportion to the gift.

Now please, please understand me on this before you think I’ve gone all TBN on you. This is not a name it, claim it, that if you give this, God has to do that. This is not a mathematical formula that if you give generously, then God is going to give generously to you.

When I was a kid, I came under this misunderstanding. We were at vacation Bible school at our little church in Norman. And I gave a little bit of money in the offering.

I mean, it was a big amount for me as a little kid, probably 50 cents or a dollar. But I gave my offering at Vacation Bible School. And then while we were outside playing, after Bible School that night, waiting for my parents to be done, we were outside playing, and I found a bag of money.

And somebody said, well, see, you gave and God blessed you. I thought, this is a lot more than 50 cents. So I thought, I came up with a great idea.

I’ll put this big bag of money in the offering tomorrow night. And then what’s God going to give me? Nothing.

Now, okay, he’s blessed me. He’s blessed me in other ways. But as far as money, I didn’t get another big bag of money.

It doesn’t work that way. Okay? Let me be clear that this passage is not teaching that when you give God a big bag of money, God is going to, in return, give you an even bigger bag of money.

Paul is not saying here, and neither is God, that if you so sparingly, if you give a little bit of money, then God is going to give you just a little bit of money back. And that if you give generously, that God is going to give generously financially. This is not a promise of financial gain to the church at Corinth.

This is talking about a return on their investment. This is talking about taking their resources. And by the way, he’s talking to them about money, but my message to you this morning is not just about money.

It’s about all the things that God has entrusted to us that we can possibly give. Money may be the easiest thing to give. Money may be the least challenging thing to give because in our society, we tend to have more money than we have time, which is not the case in other places of the world and has not always been the case.

But what he says here is that if they sow sparingly, that if they plant just a little bit, if they make just a little investment, then what they will reap is just a little investment. It’s just a little return. But if they invest generously, then the return is going to be proportional to that.

But folks, nowhere in there, nowhere in here, does he give a promise that the return is financial. That’s the important thing to see. He’s talking about supporting the work of the ministry and seeing the reward being the effectiveness of the work that’s done. So what he’s saying here is that if you sow sparingly, if you give just a little bit, and by the way, I’m not knocking just a little bit.

If you give a dollar to God’s work and that’s all you have, then that’s a generous gift. Okay? If you give a thousand dollars and you’re a billionaire, that’s not such a generous gift.

I think we probably all remember the story of the widow’s mite, where Jesus looked on her with her small gift and said she’d given more because she gave all she had. So we’re not talking about amounts here. But if We give sparingly to God’s work.

Now, God obviously can do whatever he wants. God can do a lot with a little. But if we support God’s work just a little bit, we’re probably going to see a little reward from it.

A little ministry was going to be done. He says here in contrast, if we give generously to God’s work, then a lot of ministry is going to be done. There’s going to be a lot of effect here.

Think about it this way. I mean, we understand this principle. There are ministries that talk about feeding the poor in other countries, and sometimes, I don’t know how they can do it, but sometimes they say they can provide a meal to somebody for something like 50 cents.

That’s amazing. We understand this concept. If you give 50 cents to that work, then you’re feeding one person one meal. If you give generously, as generously as you can say you give $100 to that ministry, you’re providing 200 meals.

Now, obviously, again, God can do whatever he, God can do, God can do a lot with a little. God can take care of the ministry with or without our help, but he chooses to use us. And he chooses to use the finances and the resources and the energy and the time and everything else that he’s entrusted to us to support the work.

And so they’re told that the benefits would be incredible if they would give generously. And by the way, the benefits weren’t even necessarily going to be to them either. Paul is reminding them, give generously to God’s work because the more you invest, the more you invest here, the more work is going to be done at Jerusalem.

The more people are going to be fed at Jerusalem. The more the gospel is going to go forth at Jerusalem. The more that church is going to be built up and encouraged.

He’s saying there is going to be a generous return on your investment. We can understand that, can’t we? But the more they supported the work of the ministry, the more ministry was going to be done.

And so he goes on in verse 7. Every man, according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give. Okay, this trips me up a little bit.

According as he purposeth in his heart. Because on first glance, it sounds like, yeah, just whatever you feel like. Just don’t give it a second thought.

Just flip a quarter in the box, and if you feel like that, and you’re good. You’ve done something. He’s not telling them that.

I looked at different translations. I looked at some that are fairly reliable translations that use a little bit more modern language. They said the same thing.

I said, that’s not getting me anywhere. What is he talking about? I looked at the Greek, and then I had to look up what that Greek word meant because I don’t speak Greek.

And it means the same thing. Whatever you’ve decided in your heart. If we’re looking at this as just whatever you feel like given, Corinthians, whatever you feel like, God will be happy with.

that goes against the entire purpose of what he’s written here. So to fit this together with everything that God through the Apostle Paul is conveying to them, when he says whatever a man purposeth in his heart, whatever a man decides in his heart to do, let him give that. It’s not saying just whatever you feel comfortable with, whatever you could part with without a thought.

This purposing in the heart is our decision, but it requires more thought. And it requires more care than just whatever you can spare without thinking about it. What he’s talking about is a prayerful and thoughtful accounting of how God has blessed me.

And what would God have me to do? And once we look at how God has blessed me and what he’s enabled me to do and what he’s called me to do, and where is the Lord leading? The knowledge that I know in my heart this is what I’m supposed to do.

And yes, I’ve made the decision, but I’ve made the decision based on the leading of God, and I’ve made the decision based on the generosity of God and the blessing of God and how He’s equipped and enabled me. And because of that, I’ve decided in my heart that this is what I’m supposed to do. And so he says, there’s no set.

There’s no set amount here. He says, I’m not going to tell you what to give. But he’s talking about prayerfully seeking God’s leadership.

And once you are convinced what you’re supposed to do, once that decision has been made within you, give that. And I’ve had people get mad at me in the past because I don’t teach that 10% is a binding rule today. I believe this is a much stricter standard where we look at what God has blessed us with and what God leads and we give it cheerfully.

That’s harder to do than just write a check for 10%. Nothing wrong with giving 10%, by the way. If you do that and you do that faithfully and you do that cheerfully, God bless you.

I just don’t believe it’s a rule in New Testament times. And that’s one of those things we can disagree about and still be friends. but he says here make the decision as God leads make the decision know where he’s leading you and commit to that that can be a hard thing to do I have disobeyed this I can’t tell you how many times when I was in college I’d be at church and we’d do our 50 days of prayer and giving in January and February where we’d pray for our missions program and at the end of that we’d take up a big offering at the end of February to give to our missions and you’re supposed to be praying each day for the missionaries and putting aside money to give at the end of it.

And I try to make my decision ahead of time. Do I feel like God’s calling me to give a dollar a day, two dollars a day? Keep in mind, I was in college, didn’t have a lot of money.

And I know on one occasion, at least, I felt like God was calling me to give $50. Give $50. I didn’t have much, but give $50.

I had purposed in my heart I was supposed to give $50, and yet I kept talking myself down. I think God would be okay with 50 cents a day, and I ended up giving $25, and I shouldn’t have done that. God didn’t need my money.

He desired my obedience in my heart. So what this is saying, don’t talk yourself out of it. When you know the way God is leading you, by the way, I’m not talking about just giving to the church.

Again, don’t get the idea I get a commission or a cut on whatever you send in. That’s not why I’m telling you this. Whatever we’ve purposed in our heart with God’s leadership, we need to be obedient once we know what he calls us to give.

God desires us to give cheerfully. He says, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver. Don’t come to God with your gifts in hand and say, here, take it.

Can I tell you this without getting in trouble with the rest of the church? Keep your money or your time or whatever else it is. If you’re looking at God’s service and saying, here, you want it, I guess I’ll give it to you.

Keep it. God doesn’t need it. God wants us to give as an outgrowth of our love and gratefulness to him.

Because He has blessed us so abundantly. Because He’s dealt so generously with us that He wants us to trust Him. That when He says, give this much.

When He says, give this much of your time. When He says, do this. That we can trust Him with these things that we’re trying so desperately to hold on to and that we can’t.

We should be taking those things and investing them cheerfully, joyfully. If we can’t give cheerfully and joyfully, then we shouldn’t. God doesn’t want us to give because we feel guilty about it.

There you go. There’s a message you won’t hear on TV. God doesn’t want you to give because you feel guilty.

God doesn’t want you to give because you feel like, well, I’m not doing my job if I don’t, or He’s not going to bless me if I don’t. God is not twisting your arm to get your money. It already belongs to Him.

God wants us to find joy in giving and in entrusting Him. You know what? That little girl didn’t have to hoard food, really, because she had parents who loved her now and would take care of her and would meet her needs.

We don’t have to hoard our money. We don’t have to hoard our time or our resources, whatever it is. We don’t have to hoard it because we have a Father who, when we give joyfully, when we entrust Him joyfully with the things that we try to hold on to, He can take better care of us than we can of ourselves.

So He tells us to give joyfully. As in all things, God’s real concern, His main concern, is that we be obedient out of a pure heart and that we find joy in serving Him and trusting Him. Then he says in verse 8, And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye always having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work.

God wants us to give sacrificially, and he wants us to know that when we do that, he’s willing and able to take care of us. Okay, it says here, he’s able to make all grace abound toward you. Grace begins at salvation.

Grace begins at the cross. That is the most important expression of God’s grace that we could ever receive. And quite frankly, if it’s the only thing that God ever did for us, that would be more than enough for us to praise Him and serve Him for the rest of eternity.

And yet God’s grace doesn’t stop there. God’s grace abounds to us. He makes all grace abound toward us.

That we, having all sufficiency, always, in all things, may abound to every good work. God’s grace abounds to us. God’s care for us is overwhelming.

And He provides us this sufficiency. He provides us with everything we need. With everything we need to live and to serve Him, He takes care of it.

So it’s foolish for us to try to grasp at these things and hold on to these things that we really can’t hold on to. Try to keep these things that we can’t really keep. And we don’t need them.

If God calls us to give them up, then He can always provide more. If God calls us to do without, He’ll give us the strength to do without. And yet sometimes we refuse.

We hold back these things because we don’t trust God to take care of us with less. And you know what? I’m talking about myself here.

I don’t always trust God to take care of me with less money. I don’t always trust God to take care of me with less time. That’s just a ridiculous thing to say out loud.

Because I know He can. Because His grace abounds. He’s going to equip us.

He’s going to enable us to serve. You think you won’t have anything left? Think you won’t have enough money?

Think you won’t have enough food? Think you won’t have enough time? He’s able to make all grace abound towards you.

That you always having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work so that you’ll be able to go forward serving Him. We need to learn to invest the things that cannot be kept in things that cannot be taken away. Instead of me worrying about holding on to my money, instead of me worrying about holding on to my time, instead of me worrying about holding on to my resources, instead of me worrying about holding on to people, I’ve got to entrust these things to God.

I mean, He’s entrusted them to me in the first place. They’re His. Instead of trying to hoard them, trying to hold on to these things that can’t be kept, we should invest the things that cannot be kept in things that cannot be taken away.

When we support God’s work, when we support God’s work, we’re advancing the gospel. We’re advancing the message of hope through Jesus Christ. We’re advancing the ability of the church and other ministries to care for the poor, to care for the sick, to care for the needy, to reach out, to support the work of teaching, to support the work of making disciples, to support all the things that churches do, to support all the things that ministries do to further the kingdom. I keep hearing a lot in this election season, a lot of talk about putting America first, about putting our country first. And I like that to an extent, but can I submit something different to you that may change the way we look at things?

Our thoughts should be for the kingdom first. And I’m not just talking about as opposed to politics. I’m talking about in life. Instead of my pocketbook first, instead of my calendar first, the kingdom first. All the stuff we have belongs to God anyway.

And he can give us more or he can take it all away. We are absolutely powerless. I’ve learned this time and time again, and yet I fear for the next time God has to teach me this lesson.

God can take it all away in a moment, and God can restore it all in a moment. I’ve got to stop hanging on to things that aren’t ours anyway, and we can’t hold on to. We need to invest what can’t be kept in things that can’t be taken away.

Lives that are changed. Eternities that are transformed. People’s hearts who are touched.

Folks, these are things that can’t be taken away. The difference that we make for the kingdom is something that can never be taken away. That’s why Jesus talked about putting our treasure in heaven instead of here on earth where moth and rust corrupt and where thieves break in and steal. All of our treasure here on earth can be taken away.

Whatever I treasure on earth, and I’m not just talking about money. There are lots of things I treasure on earth. They can all be going like that.

But the treasure we invest in in heaven, lives transformed by the gospel through the ministry of sharing Christ’s love with others, those are things that can never be taken away we need to invest the things that cannot be kept in things that cannot be taken away

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