Give Until It Feels Good

So this morning I want to share what I think might be a few surprising thoughts about Biblical teaching concerning giving sometimes you've heard the phrase give until it hurts. But biblically the language should be give until it feels good. And I want to look at the scripture about that subject a little bit this morning. Paul says in 2nd Corinthians chapter 8 verse 12, whatever you give is acceptable if you give it eagerly now I've never heard too many churches are especially those whose business is giving and fundraising or who are concerned about money and charity and those sorts of things. I've never really heard folks a really it's not about the amount. Usually there is a figure right and I'm out and a goal in a campaign thermometer and all that kind of stuff and Paul says when he introduces the subject of giving in this chapter, whatever you give is fine. As long as the way in which you're giving it is eagerly it's interesting that he introduces this sort of surprising thought about giving God is a lot more interested. The reason he does this. He's a lot more interested in our willingness then our wealth is what seems to be displayed in this verse hear what God's focus is not our wealth, but the willingness we have to give so it's not about how much you give as long as the amount you give you give willingly or eagerly. So you want to say what why is that the question and I think the answer is God is most interested in what he wants to do in our hearts. That's his focus in our lives to guide us to resemble him to help us Journey back to the original identity that we had when we were made and created In His Image in the garden and then selfishness and sinfulness entered and that image became corrupted. We know that as Sin and his journey in our life now is all about restoring us to that original image to his concern is our heart. He's not up in heaven saying, you know, I just don't know what I'm going to do. I just don't have enough money to get done what I want to get done. I'm going to look down everybody's bank account and figure out how I'm going to accomplish what I need to come. That's not what he's worried about. What he's worried about is the one thing on the face of the Earth that he has left us complete authority over and that's our own hearts. And we can shape our hearts selfishly and have a barrier between ourselves and him and his will we can hear his call and his plead and his love and his grace and open our hearts up to be shaped by him and his goodness and his grace and that's his concern and Paul brings that thing that's clear in scripture from Genesis to Revelation that meant a narrative he brings it to bear on the specific subject of giving in this chapter in Corinthians. So God is most interested in what he wants to do in our hearts. We see this when Jesus teaches he says for wherever your treasure is there where your heart be too now, sometimes I'm at least he's talking about treasure. Jesus is concerned about treasure. He's concerned about money, but actually what he's concerned about in that verse is what our hearts he's concerned about treasure in relation to its impact on our hearts. That's the focus of this teaching on this verse he's saying here's why I need to say something about money. Here's why I need to say something about treasure because you your heart's will follow what you treasure until what I'm concerned with. Jesus is saying what I'm concerned with is your heart's so we see that teaching not only in Paul's letters but also clearly in the gospels with shaved what Paul wrote any way. We see it in this passage where Jesus says it says just then talking about Jesus just then Jesus looked up and saw the rich people dropping offerings in the collection plate. Then he saw a poor Widow put into pennies. He said the plain truth is that this Widow has given by far the largest offer today. Don't think about how stunning that is. If we were doing a big campaign and we were raising lots of money and a lot of us brought in big checks and big bags of money and put it in there and one person dropped in to pennies and I said, well clearly that person has given the largest offering today people would say and he must be from you know, I County School somewhere in Tennessee because he cannot do math. There's no way that that $0.02 that was put in by that little ol Widow was the largest offering today yet. That's is what that's what Jesus says in this context. And again, I think he says that because he's giving a little window a little transparency to forward what God is focused on in relation to money. He's focused on the heart in relation to giving giving is a matter of the heart not the wallet.

For some of us that might be a wonderful feeling because you may have said I have always felt deficient in my giving because my wallet has never been very full. And I've always measure Myself by saying I don't I'm unable to give very much. I don't have a lot of money I end up spending my money on things like electricity and food and family that's always in trouble and I never have a large amount to come to the offering plate with and I see other people who have thicker wallets and they're able just to drop big amounts of money in and I just feel like a second-class. Citizen like a second-class Christian part of this surprising truth through scripture is good news for those who may feel like I just don't have a lot of money and therefore I'm not able to give a lot of money there for I'm not as good as those who are able to give a lot of money Jesus throws that logic right out the window and says, you see this lady that put two pennies in that was the largest gift given today. now it's also it's both comforting and challenging because We can also have the ability to give a lot and others would say wow, that is impressive. But we know in our heart. That we can give a lot sometimes and it not really cost us everything we can give it and it won't change the way we live one bit. It won't change our plans one bit. It won't change our retirement or the trust or the security that we placed in money over God. It won't challenge us we can give. And not even worry about it one bit. Like a lot of Jesus teachings this idea both contains comfort for some and challenge for others because it's not a matter of the wallet the amount I give does not reveal my heart. In the interesting we're so tempted to think. Well, of course, it does know. Jesus said the lady who gave two pennies. Her heart was revealed to be the most generous when people next to her we're pouring in large amounts. Now my saying it's not good to give a lot. Absolutely not a good preacher like everybody else. It's good to give alot. It's good to be generous. But I'm just trying to be faithful to what scripture teaches that Jesus teaches something surprising about money and we shouldn't be surprised that he doesn't line up with our assumptions about money. It should be that he offers a teaching that's different and more challenging than what normal human thinking is about finances that it's really not a matter of the wallet. It's a matter of the heart. So I want to get really proud to go. How do we make giving a matter of the heart? How do we shape our giving to be honorable to God the way he wants it to be to be a matter of our heart and fortunately in this same set of teachings that Paul offers on giving and Corinthians, he has a verse that does exactly that he says to his readers. Here's how to make your giving a matter of the heart in that perfect that off as a preacher my perfect. There's the answer to that question. Actually. I found the answer first and then shake the storm. Ingredients he says in 2nd Corinthians 9:7 you must each decide in your heart how much to give and don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure for God loves a person who gives cheerfully soap all unfolds. I think three things in that verse that point us toward how to make giving a matter of the heart first. He says give thoughtfully give thoughtfully you need to give intentionally you need to get deliberately hid it is sometimes we're tempted to think that spontaneous giving is somehow more spiritual if we just get moved by The Moments is a preacher yells loud enough talk soft enough for whatever it does. Whatever it is that pulls our heartstrings if we just get the wallet out and dumped in the plate, you know, or the old joke is when it's offering time comes reach in the pocket of the person next to you and give like you've always wanted to you know, But we think sometimes that spontaneous somehow automatically equals more of a spiritual giving but Paul seems to be suggesting just the opposite that if you're giving from the heart, it's something that you're doing thoughtfully intentionally. Deliberately. You're doing it with prayer and consideration. That's that's the first way you give for the heart you think intentionally about it. That's why I'm preaching this sermon on giving today and not next Sunday. I'm not preaching the moments before the special offering the preacher sermon on giving and say put a lot of money in the offering plate and have you do it's something you need to think about now for next week. You need to think ahead of time in order to honor the biblical mandate to say giving should be done thoughtfully from our heart. Secondly. He says give enthusiastically or not reluctantly and I think part of the key of doing that is you give in response to God's activity. That's what's going on. You don't give in response to I love the preacher or I don't love the preacher. I love the worship or I don't love the worship. My Pew is comfortable or it's not comfortable or anything else Under the Sun that all of us can slip into thinking I like that. I don't like that. That's just human nature. We can offer me like I like the parking and don't like the part you get this a million things that can tickle her fancy or not Tickler fancy, but I think Paul is challenged us to be thoughtful about it and and to give with enthusiasm in response to God's activity not in response to her own preference or opinion, but instead to say what is God doing around me and in me, where do I see him working? And how do I get excited about participating in what God is doing and give enthusiastically Think there's something exciting about realizing you're joining god with your giving. That you're joining him and what he's doing cuz there's excitement in seeing his work and his spirit and his will being done and that you can participate in that that he gives us that honor that Grayson so that creates the enthusiasm. He says give voluntarily not under pressure. anytime you're pressured by person to give don't give we don't hear that in church very much be I would not want anyone to give because I felt like I was pressuring them to give because giving is not a man-made activity within the life of the church. It is something that God does in our hearts and in our lives and with his spirit and so whenever you feel pressured by a person to give I think you just need to say well that's a bad sign. But the other side of that coin is when God is challenging you to give then guess what you should do. You should give you should trust God and you should give when God puts it on your heart to give when you thought about it and you've considered it and you have that enthusiasm to contribute to the work you see him doing and you have that that that consideration you think I should give to that then you should do that. That's what you should do. You should give so I don't want to be miss her when God is leading you and you see his work being done. You should give that that's what he calls us to be to be generous people who support what he's doing on a regular basis. And lastly. Paul says give cheerfully God loves a person who gives cheerfully it's interesting. The original word In this passage is hilarious and it represents a deep joy that I think comes in part from what Paul has already said when you're giving it based on thoughtfulness and enthusiasm and Free Will those things are kind of the foundation of being able to give with joy Can you see The Logical connection? If I'm giving because I thought about it. I prayed with my my my spouse my family whoever needs to be involved in that and we've intentionally thought about it and it's been a prayerful considered decision. And we're excited to give because we see the work of God his activity both in our life within the life of those were giving too and so we're excited to participate in what God is doing that adds to it that sort of thoughtfulness and that sort of enthusiasm be excited about why God is doing that. That's part of what he'll brings this joint and when were doing it not because of any pressure. But we're doing it purely out of her own free will I mean have you ever given somebody a gift when there was no reason to give them a gift?

You're just give a loved one something and it's not Christmas is not their birthday. They didn't do something awesome for you the month earlier and you thought I owe them. I should really, you know, I'm picking raise the bar on what I'm doing and I know that kind of thing if you ever just been filled with enthusiasm. And love for that person and you just thought they liked these things and so I'm going to get one of them and just surprise them. You're done that kind of thing. Isn't there a deep Joy when you're just doing something purely out of your own free will. You know, they didn't leave you a lot ad for a magazine showing you their favorite, whatever around the holidays or their birthday. There was no leading no pressure even positive tiny loving pressure. There was none of that you just spontaneously thought about who that person is in your life and what they've done and what they mean to you and you just thought you know what I'm going to go get one of those things today that I know they just give me something simple. You can bring him a coffee in the middle of the day their favorite coffee from their favorite shop or could be something big. But there's this deep Joy when it's just done of your own free will is the spontaneous and $0.01 expression of your life to God that is not been influenced by other circumstances. You've just decided to celebrate what you know to be true you thought about it. You see the work of God and you just choose to do that. I think that's the joy that he's talking about. That's the joy that is talking about I share this story before but I'm always amazed by and I want to share it again in 2008. We all know that the economy took a big dive and Ben is probably someone who can testify to this truth that it was difficult for fundraising organizations, cuz that's what Ben does for a living and so suddenly when there was a huge dive and everybody's retirement accounts and savings accounts and all their mutual funds and everything suddenly dried up. I was I was actually in South Korea when it first happened during my doctoral program. And there was discussion half-jokingly, but only half-jokingly. Like are they going to fly us back to the States? I mean is the school so surprised and caught off guard because there's this huge blow are they going to finish their commitment to ask are we going to be left here or are we going to get back and they're going to say the doctoral programs down we can't scholarship you anymore because you're there was a little bit of a sort of anxiety in the midst of that sort of thing and a few months later. I was at a dinner. They didn't let it like Lewis back as soon as you can tell we made it back from South Korea and we finished our year of classes and we are all cut loose to spend a couple years doing my dissertation but a few months later I was at a special banquet because we were all scholarship recipients and it was a banquet of some of their biggest givers and the development fun guy was at this banquet and occurred to me man. This must have been one of the worst years of your entire life. If you are the if you're the guy that raises money for the school and this is the year when everybody went belly-up across the US economically so we will What's it been? Like if you just aged 10 years, you know, if you cuz your blood pressure all over the place, and he said you wouldn't believe me if I told you and I said tell me he said we gathered 53 of our biggest givers at a retreat which we do once a year and he said and every one of them increased their giving. And I said, you've got to be kidding me. He said yeah, you could have knocked us over with a feather. He said every one of them when we came together said we lost so much money in the market that what we learned was that we had our money invested in the temporary and not the eternal. As a we're upping our investment in the eternal. Now that is a God thing you could have orchestrated that Ben would would probably chime in the most skill development person could not have said here's what I'm going to do boss in the midst of this National crisis. I'm going to talk to her best givers and get them all to up there giving in in human wisdom. Everybody would have said yet. There's no no just leave them alone. Let's just hope they don't stop giving they would have been such fear and trepidation. That was a God thing that in their hearts of their own free will they said you know what we want to invest in the kingdom of God, we want to invest in the Eternal we want to invest in something bigger than ourselves larger than ourselves and that is always the challenge of giving Human nature is to always draw back in and then circle the wagons and protect ourselves. And there's this big step of Faith to say I'm going to trust Jesus even when it feels counterintuitive when he says to gain your life. You have to give it away to find your life. You have to lose it that when God calls me to be focused on others and cause me to be focused on the kingdom of God and cause me to have a heart for those who are lost and will never know him that I can trust God when I do that because God is God and I am not And when I just pull back in and I let my life be driven by the voices of people or let my life be driven by my own voice of insecurities or my let might let my life be driven by fear or anxiety and I can tell you it is easy to do that. That is the human condition that we all suffer from very easy to lean in that direction. And I think this is the reason why whenever Jesus talks about money, he talks about it in context of the heart because that's the issue. It's not about the amount. It's about our heart and will we trust God and have hearts that are open will we trust him and say I can I can lose my life and gain it I can trust you and not live kind of a prophylactic life that just make sure everything is double checked and everything is just the way I wanted it ends up being a small small vision of the world end of life and God called us to trust him and see larger and see bigger and that he does that in part because he wants to bless us. And he wants to bless us when we're not a pond but we're river that flows to others and sometimes we want to live our lives as if we just want to be a swimming pool or Pond or just say let's just in a let's just focus on ourselves and this will be the right way to do it, but it breaks God's heart because he still loves us his grace is still there for us. Don't mishear me but he misses the opportunity to pour into our lives because we cease to become people whom His blessings flow through and it's dead. We kind of damn it up and think I just got to play it safe and every human on earth struggles with that Temptation. And so everytime Jesus talks about money. He makes it a matter of the heart. So one last thing I'm going to bite the worship team to come forward one last thing what helps us to keep renewing our heart to be focused on God what helps us to took to fight that battle because it's a battle of every human to be self oriented and self-centered. That's just human nature. That's that's at the heart of sin that all of us are marred by so how do we overcome that? Because every morning I renew my focus on myself As soon as I wake up to be a human being with my mind starts working. I can immediately start saying okay. What am I worried about? What am I worried about work and my life can just the day cuz can I get an amen? It's really hard to get away from yourself in it. I mean wherever you go there you are right? It's it's just a challenging is the human predicament to not just have the rubber band constantly stretch back to a self focus and the challenges. How do we stretch it out? How do we help God call us to that bigger picture of life. And I think one simple answer is the way I wake up every morning and my default thinking my default position is to think about myself is the reason we pray and the reason we read our Bibles is to put our minds on something larger than ourselves. We don't do daily devotions in prayer in order to earn some sort of credit with God to Pat ourselves on the back and sound better than my neighbor who didn't do that this morning. We read scripture on a regular basis and we pray on a regular basis because we desperately need the kingdom of God to invade our own self-centered thinking and so we need to open up that word and remind ourselves that life is about something sold. Larger than ourselves and remind us that we can trust God and we can take risk and to look at something larger than just what worries us that day. Don't mishear me. We bring what worries us that day to the creator of the universe. We pray to him. We leaned on him we depend on him but we we linger there longer than just our own personal prayer list and we ask God to expand our own hearts and our own minds so that we might more resemble him the one who gave his life to save us. We take that risk of trusting that our lives can be larger that we can trust. God to call those lice to be larger. In the simplest way, we remind ourselves of Jesus. Mirfak that's what we're supposed to do every week when we come to the communion table. the communion table

it is a time to focus on Jesus Christ. Not a time to focus on herself.

Not in a selfish sense not a time to Pat ourselves on the back or to somehow act like we're Lord. We're you know, we know that the good people are in here in the bad people are condemned by you and sometimes I I I I think we missed the point of communion. The point like our daily devotions in prayer time is to draw our minds to Jesus Christ and the fact that he took judgment on our behalf because sometimes communion can we come this time where we just we just end up feeling bad. We just end up being a focusing on God's judgment in the end is if Jesus is not part of it at all is if there's just God's judgment and we just kind of meditate on that and and

Right Jesus instituted communion. There's no lack of clarity in the New Testament about exactly what should be on our minds in communion. Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for us. So he said take the body and break it and be reminded remember that I gave my body for you that it was broken for you. Take the wine or in our case juice and and drink it and remember that my blood was poured out for you. That's the purpose. The purpose is to celebrate Paul use that word in scripture. We're celebrating the Lord's supper. We're celebrating what Christ did for us. We're celebrating the goodness of God revealed in Christ. And when we celebrate that just like reading or Bible each day or praying each day. We're opening our eyes. to a wider reality that contradicts our human nature to always tend to assume the worst or think the worst or be afraid or live out of fear instead of Faith or the constantly say, I'm not good enough or haven't done enough. We're celebrating this incredibly radical reality that Jesus laid down his life and the any who call upon him have his righteousness imparted to them. You sense a little bit of why it's called celebrate. No matter what you even apologized to whoever's got the change meditation this morning. I've slipped into a communion meditation, but look part of what we're doing here in a few more moments. We celebrate communion is something that just causes us. I don't know what you've come in this morning burdened with Whether you've got guilt or shame or struggle, or maybe just fatigue or confusion. but we're invited to come to the table and hand everything over to Christ the things that were victims and the things that were the perpetrators we all come with that mixed bag and were invited to trust God In This Moment at the celebrate what Christ did on the cross scripture says it the whole reason we do any this is because of the generosity of Jesus Christ scripture says that this way remember the generosity of Jesus Christ the lord of us all he was rich beyond our telling it he became poor for your sake so that his poverty might make you rich That's the reason we give is because our hearts have been touched by the work of Christ on the cross that affects our hearts. It affects our hands it moves our hands to serve it moves our hands to give it's a heart issue that's impacted. Now admittedly we do it in perfectly and we do it inconsistently and God's grace covers that repeatedly that's what beautiful. Even when we come to the communion table now we come as people who say I knew this last week and I didn't do it well, and I need to be reminded yet again of God's grace and it is love.

Father we thank you for your tremendous patience with us.

And Lord we admit that were at a loss to understand everything that we'd like to understand. We we struggle to understand ourselves fully why we repeatedly disobey you at times or we we struggle to understand others. We we struggle to understand. How your grace can be as deep and repetitive as it is.

And all of that just reminds us that ultimately what we are wise to do is to lean on you. To depend on you to ask you for wisdom and guidance to ask you for grace and forgiveness to to ask you for direction and instruction and courage.

That's a father just as giving is a reflection of the heart.

Play all of our life be a reflection of our hearts and then we start each day and this moment Now by placing our hearts with you.

by trusting you even now is will continue to worship even now as we pray even now it will take communion and give