Untitled Sermon (5)

Financial Stewardship

2 Corinthians 9:6-11

Everyone is calm until someone brings up the subject of money.

-A relative dies. There is money in the estate and a question on who it is to go to. Everyone is calm until money is involved.

-The cable company sends you a bill it’s $30 too much. That kind, nice person you know calls the cable company and tuns into a pit bull with customer service. Everyone is calm until money is involved.

-The preacher at church starts talking about giving. Your blood pressure goes up and lunchtime conversation gets passionate.

Everyone is calm until money is involved.

2 Corinthians 9:6-11

6 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. 9 As it is written,

“He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor;

his righteousness endures forever.”

10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

Here is what I hope you will do at the end of this message.

-If you are currently giving to the Lord. Be encouraged. Grow in rejoicing in your giving. Rejoice at a deeper level. Take pleasure and worship in your giving.

-If you are not giving, make a decision to begin to give. Set a goal for yourself or your family.

Intro - God desires me to give with cheerfulness - with joy. My financial giving is part of my spiritual growth and my reaping of blessing in my life.

Later this month I will have been here 2 years, & we haven’t had a specific message on giving.

99% of pastors don’t want to be known for squeezing their congregation for money.

-There are over 2000 bible verses that mention money.

-Jesus talked about money in many of his parables.

-Talking about money is not something that God runs from.

-God’s church should not either.

Why? Money has a very strong spiritual thread that is tied to our hearts.

Money has a very strong connection to our spiritual lives.

We are going to look at 4 Biblical Principles about money and then return to our focal text for today.

Have you ever heard or seen someone with the attitude, “It’s my money and I will do with it what I want to”?

-Maybe you’ve heard it said or seen the attitude,

Don’t tell me what I should do with my money.”

Those statements are fundamentally flawed.

There is not a dime on this earth that you own.

The Bible tells us this...

1.God owns everything you have

-God owns everything and I am his manager.

Psalm 24:1 (NLT)

1 The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.

The world and all its people belong to him.  

Job 41:11, God says this,

11  Who has first given to me, that I should repay him?

Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.  

In case we need more clarity - Not only is all your stuff God’s, but your money is God’s.

Haggai 2:8

8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts.

When we think - I can do with MY money what I want, you can. But YOU have Zero money.

It’s all God’s money and you have been called to be a good manager (steward) of His money.

Everything you have is on loan from the Great King: Your money, your house, your job, your friends, your marriage, your vehicle, your phone … all of it is God’s.

Be encouraged by this.

-You are the child of a God in heaven that has ultimate ownership of everything in the Universe.

-Not only is all money, Gold, and Silver his, but the planets are His, the starts are His.

-A God who owns all things, is a God of power. You - a Christ follower have placed your life in the hands of the one who is the most powerful.

-Your God does not just own Jupiter. He created Jupiter and gave it enormity and it’s own strength.

-Your God is not the biggest most powerful thing in the Universe. God is bigger than the Universe. He more powerful than all of the strength in the universe combined.

-He has loaned you a few dollars to enjoy and live off of.

Giving is an act of worship & Surrender/sacrifice

-From the very beginning with the first sacrifice of Cain and Able, we see that the worshipers of God never came to God with empty hands. A sacrifice of value was always brought.

-When you come to worship God corporately, you come to give yourself fresh to God in surrender.

Matthew 16:24-26

Romans 12:1

-God desires you to give to Him as part of your worship.

-God loves a cheerful giver.

Illustration -On Christmas morning the children are happy to receive gifts.

-If you are a parent or grandparent, you watch your gifts be opened. You take joy. You take joy to give, because it pleases your children.

-When we give. We give with joy, knowing that when we give it

pleases our Father.

Giving reflects faith in God’s Provision

Mark 12:41-44

The Widow gave out of her poverty.

The widow had the deepest faith.

When we give, we say - I trust that God will provide for me.

I am not white knuckling on to money looking for money to provide security.

I am trusting that God will provide for my every need.

Illustration - When Susan and I bought out first starter home I remember getting an idea of what size house we could buy based on what we could afford in monthly payments.

-I did the math and realized that if we had taken our tithe and used that toward our house payment that we could have purchased a house twice as big as the homes we were looking at.

-Susan and I had to make a decision. Was a house that we could afford to buy after giving our tithe enough?

-Is it better to give to God and have a smaller house,

-Or not give to God and have a larger house, to materially have more?

Your giving reflects your faith in God’s provision.

Transition - And this truth is directly reflected in our next point.

Giving shows where your heart is

Luke 12:34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

-If you want to see what you value the most, look into your bank statement.

Abundant giving brings abundant reaping.

Enter 2 Corinthians 9:6-11

6 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

We see this same truth given earlier in the Bible in Malachi

Malachi 3:10

Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.

Let’s be clear about the blessing.

The blessing may be monetary, it may relational, the longest lasting blessing is eternal.

I am not saying if you give generously your stocks will go up or your small business will succeed.

What I am saying is this, There is a clear promise in scripture that generous blessing follows generous giving.

This promise also holds true with other forms of giving and investing. You see the poor are not exempt from great blessing from God.

You sow - you invest what you have.

-As you generously invest in encouraging others, there is great blessing.

-As you generously invest in discipling and spiritually pouring into other believers, there is great blessing.

-As you generously invest in praying for your children and grandchildren, there is great blessing.

-As Christ generously offered Himself as a living sacrifice for sins, there is the greatest of blessings for Him, His Father, for Millions - maybe Billions of people.

Abundant giving brings abundant reaping. Pause

Transition - You may ask, Preacher, how much should I give?

I’m glad you asked that. Verse 7 gives us that answer.

7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

-You need to decide what God has called you in your heart to give.

-Let me be clear that you pastor gives regularly and gives more than 10%.

-I give to the general fund.

Illustration - This past spring I planted a tomato garden. When my first tomatoes started to ripen I thought … In the O.d Testament God asked for an offering of first fruits. I want to give my first fruits. I found widows and unchurched neighbors to give my first ripened fruit to.

I want to take a minute and talk about your giving to our church:

-State that the pastors of this church do not see the giving record and who has given what.-We don’t have access to giving records and we do not want to have access to giving records. Our financial team handles the giving very well.

3.- How much should I give?

A. What you have decided in your heart to give cheerfully.

B. The model in the Bible that we see is 10%. 10% is a good minimum goal.

-You say, Jonathan if you knew how over leveraged I’ve become with debt or financial obligations - 10% is not even thinkable.

-Here is my council to you, begin. Begin regular giving. If 2% or 5% is all you can do right now. Begin. Make it a goal to increase your giving each year by 1% as you work yourself free of financial constraints.

-If you are young. Begin to give.

-Susan and I began to give when we were first married because we were taught to give when we were children and in High School.

-Teach you children to give their allowance, birthday and Christmas money.

-Susan and I give now, because we started giving when we were married.

Not only give, but give with cheerfulness.

??? You say I feel scared sometimes that I will come up short, or that an emergency may take place.

Here is God’s Promise. vs. 8

God Will Multiply My Giving

8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. 9 As it is written,

“He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor;

his righteousness endures forever.”

10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

How do I know that God will multiply my giving?

A. vs. 8, GOD IS ABLE

Giving to grow you blessings goes against your natural thinking to keep what you have made.

We think that keeping all our money is a blessing.

Giving your money is part of what brings a blessing.

How do we know this blessing will happen?

3 words in verse 8, God is able

He is able to make all grace abound to you.

What is grace = an undeserved gifts.

God is able to give to you abundantly gifts that you don’t deserve.

You say, OK - He is able to do it. How do I know that God will bless?

Answer - Look at His promise in verse 10.

B. God has promise to multiply.

10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

10a, Not only has God given to you what you have,

10b, When you reinvest what you have in God’s Kingdom God will multiply (Compound) what you have cheerfully given.,

God multiplies:

The money you give.

The time you give.

The love you give.

The prayers you give.

He multiplies them into what?

“...the harvest of your righteousness.”

What is the harvest of your righteousness?