"Does It Really Matter"
Dr. Howard Vanderwell
Hillcrest CRC, Hudsonville, MI
Text: II Corinthians 8:1-7
I begin this morning a new series of five messages on the Christian's
practice of financial stewardship. I am convinced that dealing with this
issue in the way that I want to deal with it could be one of the most things
for your spiritual health. I
did not say your financial health, I said your spiritual health, though
I am convinced the two are tied together. I should say at the outset that
I am very grateful to see that in the bulletin there's a very positive
financial report, you make it easier to preach on a series of sermons like
this when it has been a year of very good giving. Thank you for the giving
and for making this a little easier. (Topic:
Giving)
But as we begin I want to ask a question that I suppose none of us would
dare to ask consciously but probably have it whirling around subconsciously.
Does it really matter? Does
it really matter how much I give? I'm a child, or I'm in school and I don't
earn very much. Does it really matter what I give? Does it matter whether
I tithe or not? Does it really matter if the church get behind or not in
its budget? Does it matter what my motive is as long as I give? Does it
matter what I do with all the rest that I keep? Does it really matter that
30%, nearly one out of three members of this congregation above 18 years
of age still give less than $1,000 a year? Does it matter that this congregation
adopts a budget of $750,000 and only 80 people show up to consider it?
Does it really matter that I take seriously the proposal that I give 6½
% of my total income to the church here? Does it matter that giving to
the quotas or ministry shares of the Christian Reformed Church is lower
in our denomination than it has ever been in its history?
(Topic: Giving) And for that matter, does
it matter that Americans this past year gave $26.6 billion to the lottery.
$26.6 billion and only $19 billion to churches! (Topic:
Giving) Does all that stuff really
matter? I aim to be showing you during this series of sermons that it certainly
does. You will, in the weeks ahead, be hearing from your fold elder and
deacon about some small group discussions for folds after these sermons
or between the services in the morning. I'm sure you will find that stimulating
as well. Well, at the outset let me layout for you four goals that I gave
for this series of messages and let them spell them out for you.
The first one that we focus on are biblical principles. We will step
aside from other kinds of considerations and just dig right down to the
principles of the Bible that ought to guide us. I will give you 3 of them
this morning. I am going over the series of 5 messages that built that
system of Biblical principals until we have accumulated 17 principles of
giving. We'll add a few of them each week and I will give all of them to
you in printed form at the end of the series.
One of my colleagues wrote recently that when he entered the ministry
a senior more astute pastor said to him the biggest challenge that the
church faces today is not doctrinal but it's practical and its this, how
will we handle our wealth? We'll talk about principles that will guide
us in that.
The second goal that I have is that we examine our practices of giving.
How much do you give? Do you know or do you do it randomly? Do you do it
systematically? Have you figured out what percentage it is of your total
income? Could you tell me this morning it's this percentage, do you know,
do you manage it that well? Do you tithe? Do you think it's necessary to
tithe? Do you less than a tithe? Do you do more than a tithe? In the 4th
sermon of this series on February 9, I'm going to ask you as a congregation,
as individuals of a congregation to make a covenant before God about that
matter of tithing and I hope you'll do some calculating in your pattern
of giving between now and then. So the second goal is that we examine our
practices of giving.
The third goal is that we examine our motives for giving. It matters
to God why you and I give. There
are four kinds of giving you ought to be aware of. Let me spell them out
for you very quickly. There is manipulative giving. I've given in that
way. It's when people back you into a corner, twist your arm or in some
other way exert emotional pressure so that you give whether you want to
or not. I've given that way and I resent it. The second kind of giving
is disguised giving. That's when you don't really know you're giving because
you "bought" something in return or you "received" something in return
as a gift. It's all kinds of fund-raisers in our society today, really
are disguised giving. Thirdly, there is obligatory giving. When you give
because you know you've got to. You know it's an obligation, you know it's
a duty and you just do it whether you want to or not. The fourth kind of
giving is voluntary giving. I happen to believe that that's the kind that
counts with God. The other three are greatly inferior kinds of giving.
Voluntary giving is done simply because you want to and you have joy in
doing so. That's the kind we're talking about. Larry Burette said how we
use our money is an outward indicator of our spiritual condition. Let me
say that again, how we use our money is an outward indicator of our spiritual
condition. That's why our motives for giving are particularly important.
(Topic: Giving)
My fourth goal is that you will experience greater freedom in giving.
That's where the theme of this series comes and you will find it in the
narthex and you will find it in various printed materials. I want you to
sense that it is a privilege to participate in supporting eternal ministries
that are going to make a difference in the lives of people now and forever.
It's a privilege to participate in ministries where the gospel goes out
and hurting people are helped and growing children are taught. There was
a time in my life when I gave and I gave well, but I did not give with
freedom. Now that I know what that freedom is, that delight, that joy to
be able to do it with a clear heart, I want you to know that too, if you
don't know it now.
Well, with that in mind, go with me will you to Corinth as we begin
this journey lets listen in on the conversation Paul had with that congregation,
that's what's recorded in II Corinthians 8, if you've closed it would you
open it again, it's page 1801. You need to know something about Paul's
relationship with his church first. If you know anything about Paul's missionary
journeys, he started this church on the second journey. He wrote more to
this church than he wrote to any other church. Two long epistles, but in
between there was at least one more if not two more, we only have these
two preserved. Paul loved the church at Corinth, loved them intensely and
invested so much of his time in it. But he had problems with them, they
were his problem congregation. He says he wept more over Corinth than any
other church he ever founded. 1st Corinthians, if you read it through you
will discover, is a very stern letter where he rebukes them for evil practices
and sad compromises. In between I Corinthians and II Corinthians there
must have been another even more stern letter to them that brought a great
deal of conflict to the surface. That now seems to be resolved and 11 Corinthians
is much more pastoral and loving and compassionate. But Corinth was a tough
place to be a church. It was a major, prominent city. It was a prosperous
city, but it was an incredibly pagan city. A hard place to be a Christian
church. Its pagan practices wormed their way into the church as well. So
it was a church Paul founded, it was a church he loved, it was a church
he was concerned about. Now look what he does. In these versus that we
read, Paul is holding up for this church at Corinth the churches in Macedonia
as a model. Look at verse 1. "Now brothers, we want you know about the
grace that God has given the Macedonian church".
You know were Macedonia is, Corinth is in the southern part of Greece,
way on the lower part of it. Macedonia is the northern province of Greece
and it covers Thessalonica, Philippi, Apollonia, Berea and they were sort
of a crescent, an arch on the northern part of Greece. So he said to Corinth
on the South, "you people need to know about Macedonia up North and the
way that they give". Now notice verse 2. Here's how he characterizes the
Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy
and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. Now there's a formula
for you. Severe trial, overflowing joy and extreme poverty produces rich
generosity.
Now what you need to know is that Corinth was a very prosperous place.
It was on the top line of the materialism scale. Things were going well
in Corinth, it was a very prosperous city. Things were not going well in
Macedonia, it was an economically depressed area. Listen to what's happening
here. He writes to this upper, middle-class church and he says these poverty
stricken people up North are good models for you. They give better than
you do and you prosperous Corinthians, you need to learn from these poverty
stricken Macedonians. Did you
know that the average per-capita proportionate giving in the United States
of America was better in the depression than it is today. (Topic:
Giving) Average per-capita given
proportionately was better than the depression than it is today. You see,
you've got so much, you need to learn from Macedonia up north that has
so little. That was a surprise to them and a surprise to Paul. Verse 5;
"They did not do as we expected". But how do you explain that surprise?
You explain it this way. They gave themselves first to the Lord, then they
gave themselves to us and that explains the generosity. When you add up
severe trial and extreme poverty, you don't normally get generosity. But
when you add up giving themselves to the Lord and then giving themselves
to other people and finding overflowing joy, that adds up to generosity
and so he says to Corinth in verse 6 and 7, "you need to learn from that.
I want you to excel in the grace of giving". You excel now, this is the
more loving letter compared to 1 Corinthians, do excel in faith and speech
and knowledge and in complete ernestness in your love for us, now you need
to add the grace of giving to that and excel in that as well. So you see,
we'll really given the privilege here of listening in on a rather confidential
and personal conversation between Paul and this church.
Now with that in mind, let me give you from this passage the first three
principles that will start on our list of them. Write these down and follow
them very carefully because we'll be coming back to them from time to time.
The first one is this. Paul is telling Cornish and us by the authority
of the Holy Spirit, "generosity is God's goal for every Christian". Generosity
is God's goal for every Christian, look at verse
7. "Just as you excel in everything, faith, speech, knowledge, earnestness,
love, see that you also excel in this grace of giving". Do you know what
he's saying in that verse? He's saying the Christian life is a lifestyle
that is to be a cohesive hold. You need to fit all the pieces of life together
if you expect people to take your witness and commitment to Jesus Christ
seriously. If you say, I believe in Jesus Christ and I'm going to
live for him, but your faith isn't there, people are going to say, you've
got a big gap man! Or, if they look at you and they see that your speech
is vulgar and profane they're going to say, "don't tell me about your commitment".
Or, if you are so low in knowledge that you really are illiterate when
it comes to God's promises, they're going to wonder about your commitment,
or if you have no earnestness you are so lukewarm and lackadaisical there's
just no zip to your life as a Christian at all, they're going to wonder
about you. If you are one who finds it easier to hate and criticize than
to love and care for, they're going to wonder about it. If all of those
are true, so is your giving. Don't tell me you've got a consistent Christian
life, he says, until you excel in the grace of giving, or it will be a
very noticeable gap that will arm you, your relationship with God and your
witness. If you or I are not generous, we are less than God wants us to
be and that means, of course, that we're going to have to be very good
managers of what God has provided so that we're able to be generous. We'll
be coming back to that. Well, that's the first principle. Generosity is
God's goal for every Christian.
Secondly, we don't need to be rich to be generous. We need to think
about that one because it is often been said, maybe you've said it, I've
said it, "if only I had more money, I could more generous", and that's
not true. It really isn't. God is not interested so much in the size of
our gifts as He is in the proportion of that gift relative to what we have
and keep. That's why Macedonia stood out. I don't know how much these churches
in Macedonia gave and when Paul finally tallied things up their benevolent
fund at the year end, I don't know how Corinth and Macedonia compared in
the total dollar amount, but that doesn't matter. He
says, Macedonia excelled in generosity because it came out of trial and
poverty and they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability.
There are 3 stories in the Bible were people or churches are singled out
for unique, special model giving. One of them is here, let me tell you
first, and all 3 of them are people who don't have much. I can't really
tell you any story in the Bible where someone is held up before God as
a model giver and is wealthy. But He holds up people as model givers who
don't have much. The Macedonian churches severe trial, extreme poverty,
held up as model givers. (Topic: Giving) In
a couple of weeks we're going to talk about the widow at Zaraphath, 1 Kings
17, a giver to the prophet, but how did she give. When Elijah came to her
and said, I need held, I need support, I need to live with you, I need
food, she said, "come on in, but I'm getting a few sticks together to build
a fire and me and my son are going to die, that's all we've got". (Topic:
Giving) Poverty, but she gave.
You know the other story, Luke
21, the widow who put in a few copper coins and Jesus said, "wow, she gave
everything she had". (Topic: Giving)
Those are the 3 that are held up as models. You don't need to
be rich to be generous. I have seen, talked to, and heard of children who
give from babysitting money. That is a more generous gift than some couples
with double income. It isn't the dollar sign that counts, it's the expression
and the proportion that count. You don't need to be rich to be generous.
This principle is as applicable for children who earn from babysitting
or a paper route, or young people with their first job, or young couples
with double incomes, or young families when tuition gets high and those
who are empty nesters and those who live on social security. You don't
need to be rich to be generous, but generosity is God's goal for every
Christian. Let me go to the third one.
Generosity is stirred by a vision for ministry. Let me go back to those
four kinds of giving. Manipulated giving, disguised giving, obligatory
giving, those are the lowest, most inferior kinds of giving there are.
God is interested in the voluntary giving. Now when does that happen? When
do people give generously and voluntarily? One thing has to happen. They
need to have a vision of what is done through those gifts in ministry in
the name of Christ. Now go back to Macedonia again. Look what it says there.
In verse 4, "they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing
in this service to the saints". Now the saints they're talking about are
in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was in trouble. That's where the whole church started,
at Pentecost. Three things
were happening in Jerusalem. The church was growing by leaps and bounds,
persecution was increasing by leaps and bounds and so Christians lost their
jobs when they converted, and poverty was setting in. So here you have
this large growing new church in Jerusalem, suffering from persecution,
suffering from poverty and you have these new Christians in Macedonia with
a very clear picture in their mind about these people in Jerusalem. Maybe
they never met them. Maybe they never would meet them, but they have this
vision in their mind of helping those people in their time of need and
that's the vision that moved them to generosity. (Topic:
Giving) It takes a vision like
that. If it's hard for you to give, maybe it's because you have no vision
in your mind of what that money is really doing. Maybe you've lost that
vision.
May I suggest that you take one part of our worship service every time,
that Christian's usually wonder what they're supposed to be doing and so
they pull out the bulletin and read it, it's the offertory. While you hear
the offertory being played and gifts are collected, you spend some time
thinking, developing in your mind a picture and a vision of what those
gifts are doing. Tonight when you give for the ProLife Mission of Hillcrest,
you try to picture an abortion clinic and the babies that are being murdered
there. You try to picture some young girl, pregnant, struggling, should
I, shouldn't I. Get those pictures in your mind so that a vision of ministry
will fuel your giving.
Let me tell you the story of
a Christian, a college president as a matter of fact. He was criticized
one day for an appeal for money that that Christian college needed and
he said to his critic, you may say to me, I'm always asking for money and
you're probably right, but let me tell you a story. "I had a little boy,
my firstborn. He was a delight to our heart. We watched him grow, but he
was always costing us something. We had to buy clothes, shoes, food, and
he always had some special interest and we wanted to buy him things to
make him happy and keep his life going. One day, he died. This was an experience
I will never forget and I hope you never have. It is so agonizing, but,
you see today he doesn't cost me a dime. Anybody that's dead doesn't cost
you a dime. It's the alive and the living that have a cost associated with
it". He went on and said, "every need is an unfailing sign of life and
growth and a ministry that is constantly in need of funds is an alive ministry.
It's a growing ministry, it's going somewhere. A dead ministry has no need,
a dead ministry will not bother you". (Topic:
Giving) A vision of an alive ministry
serving well fuels generosity. You are aware of the fact that Calvin College
recently had a fund raising campaign. The goal was to raise $35 million
in five years. They didn't do it. Instead of $35 million, they raised $58
million. Incredible! Why? Simply, there is a vision in the Christian Reformed
Church of the ministry that is going on in Christian higher education at
Calvin College and it has fueled the generosity of the denomination. If
I'm in a church that gives me a budget and says, this is what we need,
pay it. I'm not going to feel like it. But if that church can hold out
before me here is what we're doing, here are the children being taught,
the youth being led, the hurting being helped, the sick being healed, the
gospel being spread, then I catch a vision for ministry. Then I'm more
generous. If we go back to those principles from time to time, we'll find
it taking shape.
Generosity is God's gift for
every Christian. You don't need to be rich to be generous, but generosity
it stirred for a vision for ministry. So our question is this. Does it
really matter? Well of course it matters! It matters to us, to you, to
me, for the sake of our spiritual health. It matters to God, whether He's
honored or not and it matters to the church and the Kingdom. (Topic:
Giving) There's nothing more painful
than to see new opportunities for ministry being able to wish you could
do them but being told, we don't have the funds. Of course it matters.
It matters what we give, how much we give, but even more, it matters where
we give. Watch out! There are a lot of causes around pleading for your
funds around that are not reputable and not well supervised. Be mighty
careful where you give and of course it matters even more what our motives
and attitudes and purpose is.
May I ask you to take two items home for some homework this week. Number
one: put some effort into studying your current giving situation, regardless
of whether you are a child, a youth, or an adult. How much are you giving?
How regularly are you giving? What percentage is it of your total income?
Get information about your giving situation and secondly, work this week
on visualizing ministry that's going on because of your giving. Draw up
in your mind some mental pictures. What's happening? What people are being
reached because you're giving who would not be reached if you were to stop
giving. I pray that you may also excel in this grace of giving. AMEN.
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