Open Doors

A common statistic that is thrown around by pastors is that Jesus spoke about or mentioned money in 25% of his teachings.

Now, I have to be honest and tell you that it’s not really that Jesus is teaching on financial stewardship in all of those teachings. But just hear me out. 25% of the time is a lot of time to talk about one of the most sensitive subjects that exists right? By that statistic, if Jesus was your pastor — he would preach about money 13 times a year. So that’s just to put things into perspective. Because me — I’m like a once maybe two times a year if there’s a big investment we need to make kind of money asking preacher. So… you’re welcome.

But no, really, the truth of the matter is that money is an inevitable subject that we need to talk about as Christians… and not just because Jesus talked about it, and not just because the church is an organization that runs on it. It’s an important subject for Christians for the very reasons behind why Jesus used money to illustrate so many of his teachings about the relationship between humans and God and the kingdom of God. That reason is mostly because a relationship to money is the thing that every single human has in common.

Whether you are poor, rich, live in a 3rd world country or in the wealthiest place in the world — you have a relationship with money. For some it’s a relationship based on abundance, and for others it is a relationship based on scarcity. Regardless, it is the common human language. We are programmed to strive after wealth, because it doesn’t take long to realize that money is what makes the world go ‘round.

And so what I want you to do right now is to just take a deep breath. Can you do that with me? Breathe in................ and exhale. Let your guard down. Hear me out. Remember… 1 time a year. If you’re new with us or visiting for the first time, take what you can from this sermon, and leave whatever it is that you just can’t quite commit to yet.

If this is your home though, if this is your home then listen up. No free passes. ;) 1 time a year.

We are in the end now of our stewardship series called “Invited” where we are looking at how God wants to transform our hearts and our minds through a life of generosity. So we’ve talked about the stewardship of our prayers, our presence, our service, and our witness. Which leaves us with one final area of stewardship: our gifts. Particularly we are considering financial gifts today, but financial gifts are just a portion of a larger idea.

That idea is the subject of one of Jesus’s final invitations to his disciples. In the Gospel of John, Jesus makes this appeal to his disciples

John 15:1–5 NRSV

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

Ok so you might be thinking… wait that’s not about money! And you’re right. It’s not about money. Jesus’s invitation is to abide, or remain in him — and the promise that comes from that is that by abiding in him we will bear fruit.

So here’s the deal — abiding in Jesus… remaining connected to him as if he is the vine and we are the branches means that every single part of our being, from the base of the branch all the way to the leaves and the fruit, every part of us mind body and spirit— is connected to Jesus.

And friends part of who we are is our attitude and our relationship to money.

Jesus’s invitation is to allow our attitude and relationship to money to flow from and be influenced by who he is, and what his attitude and relationship to money was.

So here’s the deal. Let’s do a brief overview of some of Jesus’s greatest hits when it comes to money.

Matthew 6:19–21 NRSV

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

and just a few verses later:

Matthew 6:24 NRSV

“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

and just one more for now:

Mark 12:41–44 NRSV

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Here’s the point: Jesus’s attitude towards and relationship to money is this -- It is a tool that we use to worship God.

He says “store up your treasure in heaven… and where your money is — that’s where your heart is also.” What he’s saying is “use your money for good.” And sometimes that requires us to take a look at things — mainly our priorities.

The example of the widow who gave out of her poverty is meant to show us how Jesus expects us to prioritize our lives. He’s not saying give money to the church rather than to your grocery or electricity budget. He saying “look, she could have used that money on herself — and probably had every right to do so — but she chose to give to God, even though it was a sacrifice.”

So these facts are meant to give us a bit of a roadmap for discovering what our own attitude and relationship to money really is. And this is what I mean.

Sometimes we don’t really know what our relationship and attitude to money is because in a culture where we use plastic cards in some form or another to pay for everything rather than cash and checks its easy to spend without really understanding where we spend our money.

Without donning a financial coach’s hat (which i’m certainly not), what I can tell you is that looking at where you spend — through a budget — will tell you what’s most important to you in this world.

For me it’s in this order: Childcare, Food, this Church and some missionaries that I support.

And I’d say those three things all are what Jesus would qualify as using money for good. God has given me 2 really main tasks in life: to care for a family and to care for the church.

And listen — this is not me tooting my own horn before you. This is me telling you that I practice what I preach — at LEAST 1 time a year.

It’s also to show you that giving to the church is not supposed to be the largest expense item on your budget. You’re supposed to take care of yourself and your house first.

It’s when we get into some of the self-serving ways that we use the tool of wealth that we need to take a look under the hood and decide whether or not our heart is in the wrong places.

When we are using our wealth to serve ourselves — our desires, our comfort, our way of life — over and above using it to do good in the world outside of ourselves — then we are in danger.

And we are in danger because we are using the gift that God has given to us to worship ourselves — or money itself. And Jesus is quite clear that we can’t worship God and money. Something has to give.

I’m not here to guilt you into anything, because God doesn’t want you to give because I said you should. God wants you to give because you want to worship him through the good that can be done and is done through the local church and where ever else you choose to give your money. God wants you to give because it brings you great joy. God wants you to give because your attitude and relationship to money is deeply influenced by your relationship to Jesus. God wants you to give as an act of acknowledging that God can and will use your gifts to bear the fruit of the kingdom of God in this world.

Friends we have been invited into a life of investment in what God is doing in the world. Through the giving of our prayers, presence, service, and witness we have seen how we can truly be a community with open hearts and open minds — a community that embraces, welcomes, and serves the world around us.

And today, We are also invited to be a community with open doors — Figuratively and literally. Literally, because the electricity and water don’t flow through this place only sheer prayer power. They flow because the bills get paid. Figuratively because the ministries that open the door for people to encounter Christ are funded through your giving.

So on your commitment pamphlet, in the third pane under the open doors you’ll see a place where you can tell us how much you can reasonably expect to financially support the operating budget of the church in 2024. This isn’t a contract. We aren’t debt collectors. But what happens when you commit is that we can figure out how we are going to budget for the year coming up.

But that’s not the only thing here on this page. There are other ways for you to give your gifts. We really really need to start a children’s ministry here… will you be on the launch team? Do you have secret musical gifts that you want to use? And it’s so important that I put it on here twice apparently — Will you use your gifts to maintain and beautify our campus?

When you are ready to return this invitation with your RSVP, you can mail it, drop it in an offering plate, or to the office. I believe that all of us can find something here to commit to. I believe that all of us can give something.

When we commit to the giving of our prayers, presence, service, witness, and gifts we are making a commitment to worship God with more and more of who we are. We are making a commitment to abide in the source of love, life, and salvation that is Christ Jesus. When we abide in him and invest ourselves in his mission we will see fruit beyond measure. He will use us in ways that we could never have imagined. We will truly find the joy and peace that we have been seeking for all of the years of our lives.