There is more joy in giving than receiving
Notes
Transcript
point ahead to the ‘how’ we trust GOd - we will hit this in small group material
I’m sure I’m not the only one, but I’ve noticed that the mood around Wellington has shifted recently. Every week there seems to be news of more jobs being cut. The cost of everything is increasing - while often income isn’t. I’m noticing more people at the supermarket checkout having to return items to keep the bill down - and people seem to be driving slower on the motorway to keep fuel costs down. So many of us are having to do a careful balancing act with our finances. Maybe that’s you too. Maybe it keeps you awake at night.
In small groups, and during some of our Sunday services, we’re going to be working through a series looking at generosity - specifically relating to money. Generosity of time and talents is important - but given how much Jesus talked about money I think it’s important that we do too. As Jesus said,
Show me your treasure, and I’ll show you where your heart is.
Before I go any further - I want to name the elephant in the room. The intention behind this series is not a plea for you to give more money to church. This is not a way for us to increase our income as a parish - instead our hope is that it will help you take stock of your attitude towards money in a challenging season, and to dig in to what Jesus had to say about money.
You may well be thinking “read the room, Richard”. And I get it - but honestly, when money is feeling tight, it’s exactly the right time to examine our attitude towards it. Because when money is tight it can so easily do something to us - it makes us want to grip on and take control of what we have. Our hands clench tight - we hold on, batten down the hatches, and look after ourselves. This feels sensible, and logical, and very human - but the temptation, when money becomes tight, is to believe that our security rests entirely on our ability to control every outcome. We begin carrying a weight that was never ours to carry. We can so easily let money rule our lives, rather than God. You cannot serve two masters.
Money is not in itself a bad thing - but our attitude towards it can be. A tight budget, as scary as it is, does not need to equal a tight heart. Tight money is a circumstance - a fact of this season, and there's no shame in it. But a tight heart - that braced, hold-on-for-dear-life grip - that's the heart quietly deciding that money is the thing keeping me safe. And the moment money becomes my safety, it has quietly become my god.
Feels like it is time for a pop quiz - I know how much you’ve been missing them. In James we read:
Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.
So your question - and just shout out your answers - in Scripture, what are the good gifts God has given us?
Life
Creation
Food and daily provision
Family and relationships
Wisdom
Peace and joy
God’s Word
The Holy Spirit
Spiritual gifts
Jesus Christ
Salvation
Eternal life
His only son (his hands were nailed OPEN for us)
In our Deuteronomy reading Moses is speaking to the Israelites on the plains of Moab, before they enter the Promised Land. Just to drive the point home - who gave the Israelites the promised land? God.
God, through Moses, gives a whole raft of instructions for how they should behave - but in this passage we see that they are called to be generous to the poor - and here we see the hard-hearted and tightfisted language again - it’s a call for soft hearts and open hands in the land they have been GIVEN so freely. A few verses earlier they were given the instructions that every seven years they had to cancel the debts of everyone who owes money. Yet here in this passage we see that God can see the shadow side of the relationship with money - warning the Israelites not to be strategic by refusing to loan money because the debt would be wiped off soon. Also note the posture of the giving - Give generously to the poor, not grudgingly - like we read in 2 Corinthians 9:7 - God loves a cheerful giver.
Each one of you should give just as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, because God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace overflow to you so that because you have enough of everything in every way at all times, you will overflow in every good work. Just as it is written, “He has scattered widely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness remains forever.” Now God who provides seed for the sower and bread for food will provide and multiply your supply of seed and will cause the harvest of your righteousness to grow.
God looks at the heart of the giving, not the amount given. Bruce is preaching on this passage a bit later, so I won’t go into much depth - but I do just want to point out some languaging here - this can easily read like a transactional thing - that we will be blessed IF we give. That is not the case. It doesn’t say THEN God is able to make all grace overflow. It’s just AND God is able to make. God is a generous and good giver - it’s not something we have to earn.
At the end of those verses we’re reminder that it is GOD who provides seed for the sower and bread for food - which takes us back nicely to our gospel reading. I say nicely, but I also find that this is some of Jesus’ teaching that makes me feel most anxious. Which is ironic, because it is where Jesus is telling us NOT to worry.
“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?
This is where the rubber hits the road. Where we are called to open our hands when every fibre of our being is telling us to grip on for dear life. It is genuinely scary - but it is the call to every disciple - to trust in God’s provision - in the daily bread. It doesn’t mean that we will have an abundance - but we can trust that there will be enough. This is something we’ll be unpacking in a later session in small group.
I think the real challenge for us is coming to terms with what enough is, because society has wired us to feel that we NEVER have enough. It is all too easy to look at other people and feel jealous that they’re taking yet another overseas holiday to escape Wellington winter, or feel you’re failing because you can’t afford to pay for your child to go through university like other parents, or look longingly as the person at the supermarket checkout before you is buying flash toilet paper, while you can only afford cheap 2 ply. There’s something in our nature that makes us think ‘if only I had enough money to buy the 3ply toilet paper, then I’d be happy’. However much money you have, it always feels like you need just that little bit more, and not realise how much you already ACTUALLY have.
I came across a fascinating website the other day that lets you plug in your post tax salary, and it compares you to all income earners across the globe, adjusted to the cost of living. I’m not going to name how much Rebecca and I earn between us - but safe to say that we neither consider ourselves needy or wealthy. But it’s staggering to see that we are richer than 84% of people in the world. The website also features snapshots of other people less fortunate than ourselves - like the family in Myanmar who earn the NZ equivalent of $3,073 a year - but we’re told they like their house because of its central location, but are disturbed with the noisy environment and mosquito infestation. Their favourite item is their sewing machine.
Looking at that family didn’t make me think, “Well, I have no right to be worried.” Their struggles don’t make ours any less real - but it does make me realise how quickly I define enough by comparing myself to people who have more than me, rather than noticing how much I have already been given.
The challenge as followers of Jesus though isn’t just learning to say “I have enough” - the real challenge is learning to trust that God is enough.
There will be seasons when money feels plentiful, and when it feels painfully tight - and with it seasons where generosity feels easy, and when it feels deeply costly. In every season though, the call is to give as generously as you can with a joyful heart.
It’s not because we’re trying to earn God’s favour - but because as disciples of Jesus we constantly work to be with Jesus, to become like Jesus, and to do as He did.
My prayer for each of us is that we would have enough, that we would have soft hearts and open hands, that we keep learning to trust God more than our bank accounts, and that we are people who are joyfully generous with the things that God himself has given us.
Amen.
