Obedience > Sacrifice

Pascal and the Poor

Blaise Pascal was an influential French scientist who lived in the 1600’s. He was something of a genius. For example, at the age of twelve, even before he had received any formal training in geomoetry, Pascal independently discovered and demonstrated Euclid’s thirty-two propositions. I don’t even know what Euclid’s thirty two propositions are, let alone demonstrating them! It’s no surprise then that as an adult Pascal completed important works on mathematics and experimental physics. He even gave us buses. Noticing a crowd of people all headed in the same direction to work he came up with the idea of the bus and in 1662 helped form the very first bus company.

Pascal was also a devoted Christian. He wrote books on grace and the life of Christ as well as other Christian works.

Through all this Pascal realised that his faith, though intensely personal, could not be merely individualistic. His love for God drove him to love for the poor. “I love poverty” he said, “because he (Christ) loved it. I like wealth because it gives a means to assist the needy.” Increasingly Pascal deprived himself so that he could give more. He sold his coach and horses, his fine furniture and silverware and even his library in order to give to the poor. When he received an advance of 1000 francs for his bus he sent the money to the poor in Blois, who had suffered from a bitter winter. He then signed over his interest in the company to the hospitals of Paris and Clermont.

When Pascal died at the age of 39 on August 19, 1662 his funeral was attended by family, friends, scientific colleagues, worldly companions, converts, writers, and the back of the church was filled with the poor, each and every person there someone Pascal had helped during his life.

Source: reported in Charles Kummel, The Galileo Connection (IVP, 1986)

Today is the final message in our short, two-part series on Generosity. Last week, we heard from Pastor Jay as he brought to our attention the fact that God’s blessings to us flow through our obedience in being generous with what He has given us.

Today, I want to focus on our motive for giving and being generous.

You see, its easy for God’s blessing, which can occur through our generosity, to become our motive for being generous. But a mere temporal benefit is not a right biblical motive.

Yes, God sometimes blesses us when we bless others. And yes, we are blessed by God so that we can bless others.

But what is our right motive for such generosity?

When we strip all the goodies and temporal blessings away, what is our right motive?

That’s what we are going to discover here today.

We are going to examine this in three parts, and each part will be centered around a different portion of Scripture.

And at the end of our time in the Word, we will celebrate communion together and bring all that we’ve talked about and read full circle.

So let’s get started.

Pray.

1 Samuel 15:22–23 ESV

22 And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.”

In this narrative, Samuel is in the middle of rebuking Saul, who was the King of Israel at the time, for disobeying God’s direct orders.

Saul was supposed to take his army and destroy the Amalekites, every living thing among them.

However, while Saul’s army did defeat the Amalekites, he did not kill every living thing. He saved the best stuff for himself and his army.

Saul tried to offer the LORD an animal sacrifice using the best of the animals that they took from the Amalekites. But this is not what God wanted.

God did not want a sacrifice. He wanted obedience.

Samuel, in these words, tells Saul and us that sacrifices are to be offered on God’s terms, not ours, and that Saul’s disobedience, even though he meant well, was a flagrant violation of God’s will.

Trying to edit or embellish God’s commands does not impress Him, and is not obedient.

What are some examples in Scripture that you can think of of people editing, altering, or embellishing God’s commands?

Off the top of my head, in addition to this one, I can think of two:

Eve.

She added to God’s command not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge when she said that God said that they could not even touch the tree. God did not say they couldn’t touch the tree. He said they couldn’t eat from the tree.

Why is that important?

Because Eve, having been tempted by Satan when he said that God was holding out on them, saw that the fruit was appealing, and added to God’s words by saying that He said they couldn’t touch the tree.

Her embellishment gave standing to the temptation that faced her, and she and Adam fell to that temptation.

2. Ananias and Sapphira.

These two are found in , and they don’t even have a command to give. They were a part of the early church. And the believers of the early church were known to sell their possessions and donate the proceeds to the church so that there might no need among the believers.

Now, there was no specific command for the believers to do this, other than they were obeying God’s primary command to love one another. So, Ananias and Sapphira, wanting to appear obedient, sold part of their possessions, brought the money to the church, but told the church that they sold everything. Upon doing so, both Ananias and Sapphira died instantly. They just dropped dead. And for what? They didn’t have to give anything. But they wanted to look good. They wanted to impress everyone. So they embellished.

The right motive for generosity is obedience.

Right where you sit, right now, ask God to show you if your generosity is coming from obedience, or from a desire to impress Him, someone else, or even yourself.

Matthew 6:1–4 ESV

1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. 2 “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

This is Jesus speaking and he is not so much dealing with specific acts of righteousness or generosity as much as He is addressing the motives behind one’s generosity.

Here are three truths we can learn from this:

To attempt to live in accordance with biblical righteousness/generosity out of a motive eager for the applause/recognition of people is to prostitute that righteousness/generosity.

In other words, when we give just to feel good, we are selling our generosity to the nearest bidder.

And the word prostitute is not used there flippantly or just to get your attention. That’s really what the passage is saying.

A prostitute, as we understand, is someone who sells their bodies, usually sexually for money or other kinds of favors.

Now, we know that because we are creations of God, that we have intrinsic and eternal value because were given such immense value by our Creator.

And what Jesus is saying here is that not only do you matter, but the reason why you do the things that you do matter as well. So don’t sell yourself, or your actions, to the nearest bidder, because you matter far too much to have anyone pay anything for you, or any aspect of you, other than what Christ has already paid.

Don’t believe the lie that you need earthly approval in order to have immense and terrific value.

You matter so much, and you are so valuable.

1 Corinthians 6:19–20 ESV

19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

2. Our generous and righteous conduct must be visible so that God may be glorified, but it must never be visible in order to win earthly acclaim.

As your pastor, I hope to be able to lead us on an amazing and fantastic journey of generosity and love in Jesus’ Name to the people of the city of Bristol.

But you know what?

If Hollywood ever made a movie about what we’re about to do, when the credits rolled, I sincerely pray that God’s name is the only one that people see.

I don’t want anybody in this city to be able to explain the blessings and generosity and love that they receive from us in any way other than God.

We’ve talked about this before.

What do we want Valley Bristol to be known for?

I always find it interesting when churches brag about their ministry programs more than they glorify God.

We’ve got great music!

Really? Because unless Paul McCartney and Smokey Robinson are your music leaders, I’m going to have to disagree.

We’ve got relevant preaching!

What does that even mean? You know what’s relevant to me right now? I’m hoping that my Seahawks are going to defeat the Rams. I’m not confident about that at all. But that’s what’s relevant to me right now.

And when churches do this, do you know what they are doing?

They are taking their offerings, and offering them to the nearest bidder.

Why?

Because they are hoping that by advertising all that stuff, that people will come and fill their auditoriums and halls.

As for me, as your pastor, I am convinced not to care about how many people are sitting in these seats, as much as I care about why God has brought you here.

I don’t care what songs we sing, I care about why we are singing them.

I don’t care what message series we may have, I care about why we are preaching it.

I don’t care what kind of facility we move to, I care about why we are moving there in the first place.

I don’t care how we reach the people of Bristol, I care about why we are doing it.

And when it comes to our generosity, I believe that God cares about our why, our motives, much more than He cares about our what or our how.

If our motive is righteous, than our what and how will be righteous too.

But if our motive is selfish, our what and how are perverted from the very beginning.

The ends do not justify the means.

What is justified is justified because it is aligned with Christ and His Word, and it doesn’t need to be qualified by any kind of result, circumstance, or argument.

4.

“The Lord warns against hypocrisy and outward show in religious duties. All deeds must be done from an inward principle, that the doer may be approved of God, not praised of men. When the doer takes least notice of his or her good deeds, God takes most notice of them.” (J.M. Freeman and H. J. Chadwick Manners & Customs of the Bible [North Brunswick, NJ: Bridge-Logos Publishers 1998], 413).

deeds must be done from an inwar

d principle, that the doer may be approved of

God, not praised of men. When the do

er takes least notice of his or her good

deeds, God takes most notice of them. To ‘sound one’s own trumpet’ today is to

flaunt one’s own good works or accomplishments

” (

J. M.

Freeman

and

H. J.

Chadwick

Manners & Customs of the Bible

[

North Brunswick, NJ:

Bridge

-

Logos

Publishers

, 1998], 413

).

5.

Hypocrisy can show up in the smallest of things. “Following a great sermon on lifestyle evangelism one family thought they had better do something to witness to Jesus. So they invited their neighbours to dinner the following Friday night. When it came to the meal, the hostess was keen to show their neighbours that they upheld Christian standards in their home. So she asked little 5year old Johnny to say grace. Little Johnny was a bit shy. ‘I don't know what to say.’...‘Well darling,’ she said, ‘just say what Daddy said at breakfast this morning.’ Obediently, the boy repeated, ‘Oh God, we've got those awful people coming to dinner tonight’"

ypocrisy can show up in the smallest of things. “Following a great sermon on

lifestyle evangelism one family thought they had b

etter do something to witness

to Jesus. So they invited their neighbours to dinner the fo

llowing Friday night.

When it came to the meal, the hostess was keen to show their neighbours that

they upheld Christian standards in their home. So she asked little 5

year old

Johnny to say grace. Little Johnny was a bit shy.

‘I don't know what to say

.

’

...

‘Well darling,’ she said, ‘just say what Daddy said at breakfast this morning.’

Obediently, the boy repeated, ‘Oh God, we've got those awful people coming to

dinner tonight’"

(“Just the Truth,” ChristiansUnite,accessed May 30, 2018, http://jokes.christiansunite.com/Hypocrites/Just_the_Truth.shtml).

“Just the Truth,”

ChristiansUnite,

accessed May 30, 2018,

http://jokes.christiansunite.com/Hypocrites/Just_the_Truth.shtml

).

Knowing our motive is not always an easy personal exercise. But here is a good litmus test to help you:

ing

our motive is not always an easy personal exercise. In this illustration

about a believer carrying their Bible with the

m everywhere, the following

litmus

test is offered:

“If our desire is to do right—to give light—we’re acting in the spirit of Christ. But if we only desire to appear right—to get the spotlight—we have the wrong motive”

(Mart DeHaan, “What is Your Motive?,”Our Daily Bread, November 21, 1999, https://odb.org/1999/11/21/what-is-your-motive/).

If our desire is to do right

—

to give light

3. Every opportunity to demonstrate generosity comes with a choice of reward, God’s or the world’s.

—

This truth is expanded upon in the book of Luke:

Luke 14:12 ESV

12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid.

Luke 14:12–14 ESV

12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

we’re acting in the spirit

1.

of Christ. But if we only desire to appear right

In addressing the one who had invited him to dinner (), Jesus shares a principle in living a generous life:

a principle in living a generous life: give without seeking anything in return.

—

to get the spotlight

“The

law of the kingdom is this

—

—

we have the

wrong motive

Give without seeking anything in return.

that if a man gives to gain reward he will receive no

reward; but if a man gives with no thought of reward his reward is certain. The

” (

Mart DeHaan

only real giving is that which is the uncontrollable outflow of love”

“The law of the kingdom is this—that if a man gives to gain reward he will receive no reward; but if a man gives with no thought of reward his reward is certain. The only real giving is that which is the uncontrollable outflow of love.”

(

, “What is Your Motive

W

?

,”

(WilliamBarclay, ed.,The Gospel of Luke[Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster John Knox Press, 1975], 191).

illiam

Our Daily Bread,

Barclay,

ed.,

November 21, 1999,

https://odb.org/1999/11/21/what

Th

e Gospel of Luke

-

is

[

Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster John Knox

-

Press

your

-

, 1975], 191

motive/

).

).

In comparing with , we see the common thread of a generous life that gives without an expected earthly reward, either via a physical response (a return dinner invitation in ) or verbal praise (“look what they gave”in ).

comparing

–

14 with

–

4,

we see the common thread of

a generous life that gives without an

expected

earthly rewa

rd, either via

a

physical response (

a r

eturn

dinner

invitation

in

) or verbal praise (

“

look

what they gave

”

in

).

When it comes to rewards, look to the eternal.

“You cannot expect to be paid twice, if therefore you take your reward in the applause of men, who give you a high character for generosity, you cannot expect to have any reward from God...

You cannot expect to be paid

twice, if therefore you take your reward in the applause of men, who give you a

high character for generosity, you cannot expect to have any reward from God”

We ought to have a single eye to God’s accepting what we give, and to have little or no thought of what man may say concerning our charitable gifts.”

(C.H. Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon’s Expositions, vol.1 [Grace-eBooks.com, 2011], ).

or no thought of what man may say concerning our charitable gifts

” (

C. H.

Practical Apps

Spurgeon,

Obedience to God is the only acceptable motive for our generosity in any every situation (1 Sam. 15:22)

If God asks you to tithe in church, do so out of obedience, not because you think you need to look holy in front of the person sitting next to you. Because obedience is better than sacrifice.

If God asks you to serve in some way, do so out of obedience, not obligation.

Just remember, that God receives sacrifices on His terms, not yours, so when you obey, you don’t get to set the terms.

C. H. Spurge

on’s Expositions

Jesus is the reason for our generosity, and our reward for our generosity (Luke 14:12-14)

Some of you have children, or maybe friends who only want you in their lives so much as you have something to give them. And whenever you offer yourself to them, they reject that, usually with hostility (whether overt or subtle).

, v

The same is true with Jesus. Imagine standing before Jesus and instead of being overjoyed to be with Him for eternity, we start complaining and asking Him, “Where’s all the rewards you promised me for all the good work I did?!?!?!”

ol

Luke 14:14 ESV

14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

And notice this. Jesus says that our temporal blessing is that those with whom we are generous DO NOT repay us.

Further, Jesus says that the reward He has in mind will be received at the resurrection of the just.

Now, what happens at the resurrection of the just?

Believers are given their glorified bodies and are now with Jesus physically for eternity.

Jesus is our reason, Jesus is our reward.

What could Jesus possibly give us as a reward that could be worth more than Him?

Let your generosity bring glory to God ()

Keeping our good deeds a secret is for our protection, but our generosity is blessing others for the glory of God.

Matthew 5:14–16 ESV

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Our generosity, when it gives glory to God, makes a visible, tangible impact in the lives of others, not a resume enhancement for ourselves.

Does that make sense?

So what does this look like in your life?

Is God prompting you to be generous with someone else in some way?

Do you have a motive that you need to examine?

Do you need to repent of trying to impress God or manipulate Him?

Whatever God is asking you to do, do it. But do it for the glory of God, and anticipate that Jesus is your reward for all of eternity.

I invite the ushers forward at this time to distribute communion.

We’ve talked today about generosity being rooted in obedience.

Perhaps there is no greater demonstration of generosity than when Jesus Christ gave His life to satisfy the wrath of God over the sin that we had committed against Him.

Since we were marred by sin, we were all defective sacrifices, and therefore unacceptable.

But Jesus was pure and did not sin, nor was sin present in His being from birth as it is in us.

When Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane just before His arrest, He prayed that if there was any other way to satisfy God’s wrath for the payment for our sin, that He might be able to do that instead.

Jesus prayed that God might remove this cup from Him, but nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.

And there it is. Obedience.

Not my will, but yours be done.

And you know, when Jesus obeyed God, and when Jesus gave Himself as a sacrifice, when He demonstrated this kind of generosity, it brought about His physical decimation.

His body was literally destroyed.

Sometimes, what God asks us to do can bring about more pain in the short term.

But here’s the difference:

When we embellish and edit God’s commands, it brings about death. Sometimes physical death, but usually relational, or emotional kinds of death. Our friendships are severed, our families are split apart, and so on.

But if we obey God at His Word, even if there is death in the short term, we can know that new life is not far behind.

In , Job says that nothing that can thwart the purposes of God.

Nothing.

Not hardship, not pain, not obstacle, not even death.

But again, if we are going to be so obedient, Jesus has to be enough for us, doesn’t He?

We can’t just want His stuff, we have to desire Him.

You know, if we were to strip away all the “blessings” that we’ve heard we’ll receive if we are generous, and if all that was left was Jesus, would that be enough for you to obey Him be generous?

Would Jesus be enough of a reward for you to be faithful in tithing?

Would Jesus be enough of a reward for you to be generous not just with your money, but with your life?

After all, money is not the most valuable thing is it?

Money is renewable. It comes and goes.

But time is our life. Its the one non-renewable resource on earth.

When we spend our time, we are spending our lives.

Is Jesus enough for you to be generous with your life?

Is Jesus enough for you to be generous with your money?

.

Is Jesus enough for you to bring Him more than a few songs in a worship service once a week?

1

Jesus gave all of Himself, so that He could be everything for us.

One of the ways Jesus asks us to obey Him is when we come to communion, we are to examine ourselves, and remember Him.

I want to play you a video of a performance of song by the late Keith Green.

Its powerful, its convicting, and its true.

And before we take communion, let’s examine ourselves and remember Jesus and his sacrifice as we listen to this song, this prayer put to music, together.

Video Here

Communion (*band come up)

You know, if we were to strip away all the “blessings” that we’ve heard we’ll receive if we are generous, and if all that was left was Jesus, would that be enough for you to obey Him be generous?

Would Jesus be enough of a reward for you to be faithful in tithing?

Would Jesus be enough of a reward for you to be generous not just with your money, but with your life?

After all, money is not the most valuable thing is it?

Money is renewable. It comes and goes.

But time is our life. Its the one non-renewable resource on earth.

When we spend our time, we are spending our lives.

Is Jesus enough for you to be generous with your life?

Is Jesus enough for you to be generous with your money?

Is Jesus enough for you to bring Him more than a few songs in a worship service once a week?

Let’s respond to God’s Word together in song.

And as we sing this song, I think its appropriate that we sing it in two motivations.

As a song of repentance.

As a song of proclamation and resolve that no matter how disobedient we may have been in the past, we will be obedient to Jesus from this day forward. Granted, not perfectly, but obedience to God will be our desire, and glorifying God through our obedient generosity will be our goal.

Let’s stand and sing together.

[

Grace

-

eBooks.com

,

2011

]

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)

.