Thanks Giving: Where to Start

If you watch some of the preachers on TV, you may think that is all pastors are interested in, and you are bracing yourself for the wild claim that many make.

If you just give us your seed money, God will give it back to you ten or a hundred times more, right?

Hopefully, I can put you at ease this morning by telling you that those men who promise health, wealth, and prosperity if you will simply give your money to them are preaching a false gospel that couldn’t be farther from God’s truth.

As we will see, God does honor our faithful giving, but he makes no promise of wealth or ease in this life.

Additionally, if you are new to our church, you need to know that this isn’t something we focus on every week. In fact, I looked back over my sermons for the last few years, and it looks like it has been at least two years since I have preached an entire sermon about giving, much less done a series.

Also, so you know if you aren’t familiar with

What is our aim, then, in talking about giving?

Our aim in talking about money and giving is the same aim we have in every message we preach: to help you see who Jesus is and help you honor him with joy.

Let me clearly state this for you: Yes, our church has financial needs. The monthly financial statements are available on the brown table in the Foyer if you are interested.

However, our aim is not to get you to fund this or that or to simply raise income to make it easier to meet expenses.

In fact, here is our main idea for this morning’s message: God wants your heart more than your money.

That’s why we have titled this series, “Thanks giving”. Our financial gifts, our time we give in service to God and others, and any other sacrifices we make should come out of the overflow of a heart that is grateful to God for the way he has lavishly given himself to us.

That’s why we want to turn to a somewhat unconventional passage about giving to start our series.

Turn over to

As you are turning, let me set the stage for this particular psalm.

It was written by King David, who was one of the greatest kings Israel ever had.

Even though David was a man after God’s own heart, this psalm is written out of his greatest sin. He had an affair with a married woman, and when she got pregnant, he essentially murdered her husband by having him abandoned in the middle of a battle and left to fight and die by himself.

Although David tried to hide his sin, God eventually brought him under conviction, and he wrote this psalm as a response.

In the first 15 verses, David has been crying out for forgiveness and restoration.

He is continuing to do that in verse 16, where we pick up...

Psalm 51:16–19 CSB

You do not want a sacrifice, or I would give it; you are not pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God. In your good pleasure, cause Zion to prosper; build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in righteous sacrifices, whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

So, what does this have to do with giving?

Let’s make three main observations about giving from this text.

First, notice with me that...

1) God doesn’t want empty gifts.

Look back at verse 16...

Psalm 51:16 CSB

You do not want a sacrifice, or I would give it; you are not pleased with a burnt offering.

God gave the Israelites a system of offerings and sacrifices they were to make when they had sinned.

We see that in the book of Leviticus.

It can be challenging to read through them all because there were different sacrifices for different situations and ceremonies and rituals that you had to go through.

It was possible to go all the way through those ceremonies and just be going through the motions.

That is like paying off a fine. You parked in the wrong place and got a ticket, but you would park there again if you thought you could get away with it.

Yeah, I sinned, so I am going to bring the required sacrifice of a bull or a goat or a sheep or whatever was required that time, but I am going to keep doing what I want instead of what God wants.

The Israelites had been doing that, and God was sick of it!

Flip back a couple pages in your Bible to , and you’ll see how God felt about it:

Psalm 50:7–15 CSB

“Listen, my people, and I will speak; I will testify against you, Israel. I am God, your God. I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices or for your burnt offerings, which are continually before me. I will not take a bull from your household or male goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and everything in it is mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Sacrifice a thank offering to God, and pay your vows to the Most High. Call on me in a day of trouble; I will rescue you, and you will honor me.”

Psalm 50:7-

The people kept bringing empty sacrifices, but they meant nothing.

It’s not like God needed their gifts. He is the God of all creation, so everything that exists belongs to him!

This is why we said in the introduction: God doesn’t need your money!

The Israelites still didn’t understand, though, and they kept bringing empty sacrifices.

When Isaiah prophesied, God told his people this:

Isaiah 1:11–13 CSB

“What are all your sacrifices to me?” asks the Lord. “I have had enough of burnt offerings and rams and the fat of well-fed cattle; I have no desire for the blood of bulls, lambs, or male goats. When you come to appear before me, who requires this from you— this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing useless offerings. Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons and Sabbaths, and the calling of solemn assemblies— I cannot stand iniquity with a festival.

God established all these sacrifices, but they angered him because they were empty expressions of religiosity, not sacrifices from a pure heart.

I know we already took up the offering this morning, so let me ask you: why did you give what you gave?

Was it just because you grew up in church, so that’s what you do?

Was it because you are just trying to keep God happy by throwing him a little bit here and there?

God isn’t pleased with empty gifts.

So, then, what does God want?

2) God wants me.

Look back at verse 17.

Psalm 51:17 CSB

The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God.

The first gift you give God is your broken, humbled heart.

What does that mean?

This brings us to the simple, beautiful truth of the gospel that we talk about every week.

Like David, you and I have sinned. The Bible says

Romans 3:23 CSB

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Isaiah 53:4 CSB

Yet he himself bore our sicknesses, and he carried our pains; but we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.

Isaiah 53:6 CSB

We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all.

That is every single one of us.

You may not have sinned as publicly as David did, but the Bible says any time we do what we want instead of what God wants, we are sinning.

Any time you have gone against what you know to be right or not done the things you should have, you have sinned.

Because of our sin, we deserve to die.

That’s one of the things the sacrifices in the Old Testament point to: something has to die because of our sin.

I don’t want to be overly gory, but don’t lose sight of how gruesome those sacrifices were.

They were not inhumane in the way they killed the animals, but the sacrifices for sin involved death and blood and fire and smoke.

Every single animal that died as a sacrifice for sin reminded us of the weight of what our sins have done.

David was saying, then, that he couldn’t bring a sacrifice for sin, bring an animal that would die, if he wasn’t first broken for what he had done.

He had sinned against the God who made him, shaped him, and placed him where he was!

He had broken the law of the perfect God of the universe and stood rightly condemned by him.

How could he flippantly give some token offering if he didn’t first allow his heart to break over his sin.

We know something David didn’t, though.

We know that all of those sacrifices made on the altar in the Old Testament were pointing us to the ultimate sacrifice that would be made.

You see, those goats and bulls and rams and lambs could never atone for sin, because couldn’t take the punishment we deserve.

So God had to make the ultimate sacrifice. Jesus, as God in the flesh, came and died in our place.

He gave himself for us as the ultimate sacrifice for sin.

If you are new to Christianity, this is the heartbeat of what we believe.

God loves you so much that he would die in your place!

1 John 4:10 CSB

Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Putting this in the context of , that should break our hearts!

My sin caused Jesus’ death! People argue about whether the Jews or the Romans were responsible for Jesus’ death.

It doesn’t really matter, because it was my fault that Jesus died!

My sin put him on the cross. As we will celebrate in a few moments when we take the Lord’s Supper together, his body was broken for me!

1 John 4:10 CSB

Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

The only appropriate response to that reality is to cry out to God for mercy and forgiveness, falling at his feet under the weight of our sin in brokenness and humility.

David only knew hints and shadows of this, but he knew enough to know that sin was devastatingly painful, so he cried out to God for forgiveness.

Here’s what is so beautiful, though: when we cry out to God for forgiveness, he cleanses us, not because of what we have done, but because of Jesus.

1 John 1:9 CSB

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Isn’t that incredible? That God would forgive you like that?

That should fill your broken heart with such joy that you want to give anything and everything you can back to him, which is what we see in our final observation...

3) God delights in gifts from a right heart.

Jump down to verse 18-19...

Psalm 51:18–19 CSB

In your good pleasure, cause Zion to prosper; build the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in righteous sacrifices, whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Once David’s heart was right, he was free to come and offer sacrifices that are pleasing to God.

You and I must give our hearts before we can honor God with our money, time, talents, or any other resources we have.

Then, after his hee

When we give out of a right heart attitude, it delights God’s heart because it demonstrates that we value him above everything else.

In the coming weeks, we will see more about what God calls us to give and why.

For today, let me ask you: Have you given God the sacrifice he is most pleased with, a broken and humbled heart? If you have never been saved, then you need to start there.

Maybe you have been saved, but your heart has grown calloused and your giving has been forced. Would you ask God to remind you again of the darkness of your sin, the cost of Christ’s sacrifice, and the beauty of your salvation?

To help solidify

To help solidify that truth in your mind this morning, we are going to close by observing the Lord’s supper together...

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