Sermon Tone Analysis

THE JOY OF GIVING

A man had a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital.

He could receive little company and was not to be excited.

While in the hospital a rich uncle died and left him a million dollars.

His family wondered how to break the news to him with the least amount of excitement.

It was decided to ask the pastor if he would go and break the news quietly to the man.

The pastor went, and gradually led up to the question.

The pastor asked the patient what he would do if he inherited a million dollars.

He said, “I think I would give it all to the church.”

The pastor wound up in the bed beside him, recovering from a heart attack himself.

Gratitude doesn’t just come because we receive something.

Generosity also inspires thankfulness in the one who gives.

That gratitude gets translated into more generosity.

It’s cyclical and addictive.

If we look at what we have as something we’ve earned, we hold on to it tightly.

If we recognize God gave us the ability to make money, it’s natural to see ourselves as stewards of what he has entrusted us.

One of the keys to thankfulness and generosity is seeing that everything belongs to God.

Today I want us to briefly look at a New testament passage that talks about giving.

1. Giving is Rooted in God’s Love

The purpose of giving is to remind us of God’s love.

We give to God out of the abundance He has given to us.

Giving is a recognition of God’s faithfulness, a celebration of His provision for us.

Our giving is rooted in the fact that all we have has been given to us from God.

Our giving therefore is an expression of our thanks and is part of our worship.

You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving.

What we do for the Lord flows out of our love for him.

It is an extension of our worship.

What sometimes turns people off giving is the idea that tithing is just a command, something we have to do.

Again, God asks us to do this not only out duty but out of love.

In the Old testament, there were not only tithes but there were offerings.

Offerings were things that people gave freely beyond the tithe just to show their love for God.

In the New Testament we also see offerings.

That is why we talk about both tithes and offerings in the church.

The tithe is just the beginning.

The word “offer” is the essence of worship.

We offer our lives to God.

There is no other area of life where this is so concrete as in the area of giving.

It is where the rubber meets the road.

Rick Warren in the purpose driven life said

"Did you know that your checkbook and your calendar (day timer) are theological documents?

Without even knowing you, if you were to show me your checkbook stubs and you were to show me your schedule, I could tell you right now what you love, because the way you spend your time and the way you spend your money shows what you love the most."-

Rick Warren

2. Giving Releases God’s Blessings

verse 10 that he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed.

The Bible is clear that when we give we also receive back from the Lord.

We see this in both the Old and New Testament.

Obedience leads to blessings.

We have already read Malachi 3;

Studies have shown that most church goers in North America give about 1.5 to 2.5 percent of their income to the church.

If we really believe what it says in Malachi 3, this means that a lot of people are missing out on God’s blessings when it comes to their finances.

Captain Levy, was once asked how he could give so much to the Lord’s work and still be so wealthy.

He replied, "Oh, as I shovel it out, He shovels it in, and the Lord has a bigger shovel."

Recently the magazine Christianity Today had an article about a movement called the 90 day challenge that is happening in North America.

Different churches have asked people to sign up with a commitment to give 10 percent of their income or more (tithe), and if “God doesn’t hold true to his promises of blessings” after three months, they can request their money back, no questions asked.

It’s the church’s version of “satisfaction guaranteed.”

They do this based on the promise given in Malachi 3.

One church that participated was NewSpring Church in Anderson South Carolina.

Their pastor preached a message saying

“God literally says, ‘Test me out, see if I’m God,’ You and I cannot out-give him.”

More than 7000 participants took the challenge and less than 20 asked for their money back – that is about a quarter of 1%.

When asked why the church had taken this challenge the pastor said

“Tithing is about being obedient, putting God first in our finances and training our hearts to trust him at his word.

It is one of the hardest next steps for many people to take, and the 90-day tithe challenge is one way we can help people with that step.”

Hundreds of other churches in North America have also given this challenge and have found about the same result, less than 1% ask for their money back.

No one has ever become poor by giving -- Anne Frank

We will not do a 90 day challenge but maybe God is challenging you to become more faithful in your giving.

Maybe God is convicting you to test his generosity by being generous yourself.

3. Giving Results in God’s Kingdom Advancing

This passage says that when we give “men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ”.

Giving is evangelistic – it proves our faith and results in God’s kingdom moving forward.

Yes your giving pays my salary and I would love to be able to Pastor the church full time and devote all my energy and attention to the church we are not there yet but I believe we will be soon.

But your giving supplies much more than that.

Your generosity allows for us to advance the kingdom.

16-17- church giving was around $34000

17-18- around $44000- that year we hosted our first easter egg hunt- with help of the community( blessing over 2000 people.

we also were able to get the tv’s, presentation software, and give around $3000 to missions around the world.

18-19 your giving went up around $59000.

we hosted ester egg hunt, made improvements around the church.

gave an extra $1500 to missions.

from 2016-2019 we went from giving $3400 to missions to giving almost $8000.

In 3 years we went from having about 10% of out budget going towards ministry(serving people, outreach, missions) to a little over 25%.

We have also went from no baptisms to baptizing 7 people in the last two years.

We were a church struggling not knowing how long we would last to having over 15 people join as members and having more than 80 people that would say that this is their church home.

Your generosity has already made an impact in our church and community and I want to celebrate and thank you and God for his abundant generosity but we are not done yet.

There is much more to be done and we must continue to be abundantly generous.

Tony Campolo tells of being invited to speak at a ladies meeting.

There were 300 women there.

Before he spoke the president of the organization read a letter from a missionary.

It was a very moving letter.

In the letter the missionary expressed a need for $2,000 to take care of an emergency that had cropped up.

So the president of the organization said, "We need to pray that God will provide the resources to meet the need of this missionary.

Bro.

Campolo will you please pray for us?" Tony Campolo, who is very outspoken said, "No."

Startled, she said, "I beg your pardon."

He said, "No, I won’t pray for that."

He said, "I believe that God has already provided the resources & that all we need to do is give.

Tell you what I’m going to do.

I’m going to step up to this table & give every bit of cash I have in my pocket.

And if all of you will do the same thing, I think God has already provided the resources."

The president of the organization chuckled a little bit & said, "Well, I guess we get the point.