Family Values Part 7: Resources

The New Revised Standard Version Regulations concerning Tithes

22 Set apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from the field. 23 In the presence of the LORD your God, in the place that he will choose as a dwelling for his name, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, as well as the firstlings of your herd and flock, so that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always. 24 But if, when the LORD your God has blessed you, the distance is so great that you are unable to transport it, because the place where the LORD your God will choose to set his name is too far away from you, 25 then you may turn it into money. With the money secure in hand, go to the place that the LORD your God will choose; 26 spend the money for whatever you wish—oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink, or whatever you desire. And you shall eat there in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your household rejoicing together. 27 As for the Levites resident in your towns, do not neglect them, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you.

28 Every third year you shall bring out the full tithe of your produce for that year, and store it within your towns; 29 the Levites, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you, as well as the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, may come and eat their fill so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work that you undertake.

Introduction- I love talking about money

Actually, no one likes that, so here are three jokes to get us started:

Two men were marooned on an Island. One man paced back and forth worried and scared while the other man sat back and was sunning himself. The first man said to the second man, "aren’t you afraid we are about to die." "No," said the second man, "I make $100,000 a week and tithe faithfully to my church every week. My Pastor will find me."

The strongman at a circus squeezed the juice from a lemon between his hands. He then said to the audience, "I will offer $200 to anyone in the audience who can squeeze another drop from this lemon. A thin scholarly looking woman came forward, picked up the lemon, strained hard and managed to get a drop. The strongman was amazed. He paid the woman and asked, "What is the secret of your strength?" "Practice," the woman answered. "I was the treasurer of my church for thirty-two years!

A farmer lived alone in the Irish countryside except for a pet dog he loved dearly. One day the dog died and the farmer went to the parish priest, inquiring if a mass could be said for the dead pet. Father Patrick told the farmer: "No, we can't have services for an animal in the church, but I'll tell you what, there's a new denomination down the road, and no telling what they believe in, but maybe they'll do something for the animal." The farmer said: "Thanks, I'll go right away. By the way, do you think 50,000 is enough to donate for such a service?" to which Father Patrick replied: "Why didn't you tell me the dog was Catholic?"

All preachers want to do is talk about money.

It’s true that preachers have a reputation for always talking about money.

But actually, there are a few compelling reasons to talk about money for us.

Why we should talk about money:

Jesus talked about money ALOT!

Jesus talked about money more than he talked about heaven and hell combined.

11 out of 39 of Jesus parables are about money.

One out of every seven verses in the Gospel of Luke talk about money.

About 25% of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels relates to money, stewardship, and the resources God has given us.

Money will point us to what we believe.

I think I’ve gotten pretty good at this, but I’m betting if you showed me your checkbook, I can tell you what you believe in.

Some people believe in investing in their kids, in a better tomorrow for them in college and beyond.

Some people believe in entertainment, spending a whole ton of money on streaming services and movies and such.

Some people believe in charity work, giving to a ton of great organizations and causes.

Some people believe in convenience, spending a great deal of money on eating out and Amazon Prime.

First of all, these are all me. :)

Secondly, I hope you’ll see that this isn’t always a bad thing.

Some preachers use this almost in entirely negative light, as if guilting folks about their spending habits will somehow increase what’s in the offering plate every week.

It’s never worked on me when someone else is preaching!

But there are some really solid and awesome ways to spend our money!

Which leads us to my fourth reason we need to talk about money, and ultimately our scripture for today.

I think people have a warped sense of thinking around stewardship and giving to God that needs to be addressed.

Because even I, who have been studying this for a little while now, came across a detail I had missed in previous readings.

Bible Breakdown: What God Requires of Us.

Tithing- Set it aside.

The boys have now been to two trunk or treats, and so there is a massive pile of candy built up in our house at the moment.

Having twins has really been a neat experiment for Sarah and I, to see what pieces of our personality each boy has picked up from us.

Julian sat down the other night and organized his candy by shape, wrapper color, and what he likes the best. He’s been setting aside his favorites so that he always has something he can fall back on.

Joshua dumped his entire bag, and just went indiscriminately crazy eating his candy.

I’ll leave it to you to figure out who is more like who in our family...

But there is something to this idea to setting something aside.

The Hebrew word we’re looking at here is “Yeser”, which specifically means to take 1/10th of what you have and set it aside.

If you make $100, you set aside 10.

If you’re the guy on the island making 100,000 a week, you set aside 10,000 a week.

This shows up a whole bunch in the Old Testament, specifically with the idea that you would give 10% to God right off the top.

How do you give something to God?

The question often becomes how do you actually give something to God?

Give to the temple?

You could donate so that the physical structure that we worship in can be improved.

There were however a few problems with this throughout history.

The first was that for the first couple of generations of the nation of Israel, there was no temple!

Notice in this verse that Moses is making provisions for the event that the Temple was too far away.

This is because at this point, Israel is a nomadic people.

They had no temple, church, or sanctuary that they could keep up with.

They didn’t have a board of trustees.

They didn’t have electric bills to pay.

They were just the people of God wherever they happened to find themselves.

Interesting.

Secondly, this is pretty easy to abuse.

Sure, you can donate to a temple.

But that temple is going to need to have a nice big office for the priests, right?

That temple also needs stained glass windows, right?

That temple also needs a private jet, right?

Sacrifice?

This is where I think some of our conversation around tithing and giving has gotten off the rails.

The old system was that folks would pay for their sins by giving an ox, or a donkey, or turtle doves, or whatever the law prescribed so that their sins could be atoned.

You burned those sacrifices and the aroma went up to God.

And so some folks have started to suggest that our giving, our tithing, should be sacrificial in nature.

Again here, two problems with that:

One- Sacrifice is a total bummer, isn’t it?

Two, and more importantly- The sacrificial system went away for a reason.

Jesus Christ became the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

We do not need to sacrifice goats and bulls and such to make ourselves right with God.

Let me put that another, more important way:

There is no amount of money you can put in this basket that will make God love you any more, or any less.

God loves you if you never put a dime in this basket.

And because we’re doing our level best to be like God, we as a church will continue right on loving you if you never put a dime in that basket.

Like we’ve already said, guilt is a horrible reason to give to something.

If the only way we can sustain ourselves is through guilt, we probably ought to just close the doors right now and call it a day.

So if it’s not about a building, and it’s not about a sacrifice, why then do we keep passing the plate on Sundays?

This brings us to the detail that I had never noticed before in this text.

A party?

God is inviting his people to celebrate in the temple.

Hear this verse again:

Deuteronomy 14:26 “spend the money for whatever you wish—oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink, or whatever you desire. And you shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your household rejoicing together.”

Am I off my rocker, or does this passage actually suggest spending your tithe on a bottle of whiskey, taking it to the temple with your friends, and having a party?

That’s exactly what this verse is suggesting.

This verse is suggesting that 10% of the people’s income should be set aside from bills.

This verse is suggesting that 10% of the people’s income should be set aside from consumerism.

This verse is suggesting that 10% of the people’s income should be set aside to enjoy God, and enjoy each other.

And, this verse even goes a step farther.

God is also making sure that we include people who can’t give in that celebration.

There were 12 tribes in Israel.

The Levites way back in Exodus are set aside out of the people of Isreal to be the temple priests and attendants.

Which is a great gig!

But in an agrarian nomadic culture, if you are set aside for temple work, it means that you have absolutely no financial resources to contribute to anything.

You’re broke!

And most of the time, the Levites are pretty ok with that, though of course there are stories of abuse within that system.

But this particular story encourages us to not only give, but to give enough that everyone can participate, even those who are unable to give.

The text even lifts up some particular people that we as the people of God are called to provide for:

Immigrants (whew, that could be a whole other sermon, couldn’t it?)

Orphans

Widows

All three get brought up again and again in scripture, because all three have absolutely nothing of their own to put in to the plate.

Giving should feel like a party, not an obligation.

2 Corinthians 9:7 “Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

Don’t give to the church: Give to the party.

The Values

The last 6 weeks we have named what we kind of want the party to look like around here:

Family

Belonging

Youth

Experimentation

Living Life Together

Missional Outreach

We’ve named this as what the party can be.

And as I spent the last few months dreaming and imagining what this church can look like, I’m getting really excited folks!

If we can live in to these values, if we can commit ourselves to these principals, then I think God is going to do a mighty thing through us.

I think we’re going to see a ton of people liberated, and healed, and redeemed, and graced, and overjoyed because of what God can do through us!

And I think it’s going to be a party atmosphere around here!

We Need Three Resources

Time

Let’s be honest, this is the most valuable resource that any of us has.

And it behaves a lot like money:

We have to budget it with our calendars.

We have a whole lot of people who keep asking for it.

When we have a lot of time, we feel rich.

When we spend too much of it, we go in to a kind of energy debt.

And this is something the church badly needs.

We believe very much in the 80/20 rule.

80% of the work in a church is done by 20% of the people.

And I’m sad to say, that’s very much the case here.

What we need are more people willing to invest their time.

And to be clear, everything we say yes to is a no somewhere else.

To say yes to the church with our time might mean saying no to a band teacher.

Saying yes to the church with our time might mean saying no to sleeping in.

Saying yes to the church with our time might mean saying no to catching up on Ted Lasso (HIGHLY recommended though it may be)

That sounds a bit sacrificial, and I get that.

But the opposite is also true: everything we say no to is a yes somewhere else:

To say no to the band teacher might mean saying yes to having a front row seat to someone’s healing.

To say no to sleeping in might mean saying yes to God speaking to us in our time of worship together.

Saying no to compelling television like Ted Lasso might mean saying yes to our own liberation and redemption and experience with the Divine.

So today I have to ask us, what are you willing to say yes to?

Pledge cards.

Money

To build the kind of church we’re looking at is also going to require some financial resources.

And this works exactly the same way as time: what are we saying yes to and what are we saying no to?

In real terms, our church right now is budgeted for an $80,000 deficit.

We have plenty in savings, but that means that every year we’re spending $80,000 more than we’re bringing in, and that’s just not sustainable.

Or another way to put it…that’s about $80,000 worth of no.

It’s a whole lot of people saying yes to extra coffee and no to the church.

It’s a whole lot of people saying yes to entertainment and no to the church.

It’s a whole lot of people saying yes to their own wants and desires, and no to the church.

But again, I don’t think that guilt helps us get where we need to go, so I don’t want to focus on the no today.

I want to focus on what we want to say yes to.

When we say no to extra coffee, we can say yes to (what I came to see as) a world class Vacation Bible School.

When we say no to entertainment here and there, we can say yes to providing a place across the street for addicts to find healing, embrace, and liberation every single week.

When we say no to our own wants and desires, we can turn our attention to our neighbors and their needs, making sure that we spread our resources out so that NO ONE is ever in need on our watch.

We can say yes to that.

Pledge cards again

Hope

A little more than a year ago, I preached a candidacy sermon here and I talked about hope.

The definition I use for hope is “A faithful confidence that God is telling a story, and we have a role to play in it.”

So yes, we need your time and we need your money.

But man, more than ever, we need your hope.

I need you to see that God is not even close to done telling the story of Laboratory Presbyterian Church.

I need you to see that God is inviting you and I to participate in that story.

I need you to see that God is asking us to play a pivotal role in changing the lives of our neighbors, our brothers, and our sisters.

God is giving us hope. Are you ready to follow?