"The Grace and Worship of Giving" Pastor Philip Stel Deuteronomy 14:1,22; 16:13-17 II Corinthians 8:1-7; 9:6-15 (Mark 12:30,31) Theme: The Lord wants to bless us, also as we worship him and draw down his blessing through our faithful, thankful, stewardly giving. ----------------------------------- There's an old story around about three fellows who were telling each other how they decided what they were going to give to the Lord. One fellow said, "Well, what I do is I draw a circle on the ground, and then I throw all my the money from my paycheck up in the air. What lands in the circle is mine; the rest is the Lord's." The second fellow said, "Hey, I do about the same thing. Only what lands outside the circle is mine; what lands inside I give to the Lord." The third fellow said, "I do kind of the same thing too. But I don't bother with drawing any circles on the ground. I just throw my money up in the air. What the Lord wants, he can grab. Whatever comes down is mine!" How do you decide what to return to the Lord? How do you decide what to give? This morning I wish to focus our attention on giving. Council requested a message on giving once a month, as I could fit it in. It hasn't for a while, but here we are again! I am also kind of glad for the context in which I can bring this message because as a congregation we are on the rise in our sharing of our resources. Did you know that giving is absolutely necessary if we are to genuinely worship God? God says repeatedly to his people, "No one is to appear before me empty handed. Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you." (Deut. 16:16; cp. Ex. 23:15, 34:20) Why? Let me mention two basic reasons: 1. Because worship means literally, "bringing to God what he is worth." What is God worth to you? Haven't you received everything from God? Should not our worship then reflect that dependence? And thankfulness. Giving sharpens that awareness. 2. Because worship is supposed to be part of our whole life, not some isolated thing we do on the side. Part of life, a huge part of life, is economic. For most folks, both well-to-do and poor, it consumes not only their time but also dominates much of their thought. "How do I get more? How do I make ends meet?" When we bring money into our worship, and when we give away from that with which we are preoccupied and sometimes obsessed, it helps us bridge our daily living and lifestyle with God. I will use the summary of God's Law as the outline of the message: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength... and you shall love your neighbor as yourself." I wish to talk about giving in connection with each of those four dimensions of loving the Lord -- with heart, soul, mind and strength. 1. I wish to begin to talk about giving in connection with loving God with all our soul. The overwhelming first reason that we give is because God has done so much for us, because God has made us, because he watches over us, because he has saved us in Jesus. We give, not because we feel guilty but because we have experienced grace. Did you notice how Paul repeatedly talked about the grace of giving? 8:1, "...we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches..." Vs. 5, "...they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God's will..." Vs. 6, "... bring to completion this act of grace on your part." Vs. 7, "... see that you also excel in this grace of giving..." Vs. 9, "...you know about the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor..." Chapter 9, vs. 8, "... God is able to make all grace abound to you..." Vs. 14, "... the surpassing grace God has given you..." Vs. 15, (here's the grand finale, the exclamation point of grace) "... Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" Paul is referring to Jesus, and our salvation through him. Giving has to do with grace. It has to do with our souls. It has to do with our response to Jesus, God's gift to us. Do you remember the story of the ungrateful servant? Matthew 18. He was forgiven a huge sum of money. Billions of dollars in our money. There was no way that he ever repay such an incredible debt. He had accumulated an enormous debt, and his master forgave him. But what did he turn around and do? He met someone who owed him a few thousand dollars, maybe a widowed mother with a part time job, somebody for whom a thousand dollars, a hundred dollars, was a lot of money, and he pressed her to pay her debt in full. And Jesus says it doesn't work that way. We have been forgiven so much. And we must forgive others in return -- because whatever it is that others have done to us, we have done far worse and have been forgiven far more by God. Well, it is really that same principle that the apostle Paul is seeking to apply with respect to our motivation for giving. He says, God has given us so much! He has given us Jesus his only Son--Jesus who died on the cross. What an incredible, indescribable gift! What grace! We need to remind ourselves of that also and maybe especially when we are reaching for our wallet or purse or check book. Its easy to lose or forget the connection between giving and Jesus, because all our giving has some kind of earthly purpose. We give to church budgets, missionary salaries, cancer funds, school drives, and all the rest, and we may feel all kinds of pressures and mixed feelings. And somehow perspective on Jesus gets lost in and through it all. Somehow with all the statements and pleas and what not, we don't feel as if we're really giving to Jesus. The late poet of Calvin College, Sietze Buning, wrote a marvellous poem about that. It is called "The Sea of Forgetfulness: Lake Michigan." The poem is a story of a minister and an elder visiting a devout old member of the congregation in a retirement home. His name is Willem. In the course of the conversation, Willem says, "About the budget. I pay, sure, but I envy them Israelites. Priests ate a little of them unblemished lambs, but the rest got burned up, useless to everybody but God. All my budget money is an investment. My Nelly was in our hospital and I'm in our Home. All five children went to our Christian schools, four to our college. Pete got a job with the mission board because he knows languages. Bert took up business. Now he's on synod's budget committee. Lenore teaches philosophy at our college. Jake is a preacher. Now their children are in college, and guess what? They all want jobs like it. I try to give my money to God, but none of it seems to get through. Some year our churches ought to collect our money as usual, put all the money on a boat in Muskegon Harbor, set out for the middle of the lake, and while Synod sings a psalm and prays on a boat nearby, sink the boat with the money on it right to the bottom of Lake Michigan." (The Sea of Forgetfulness: Lake Michigan (For Ed Ericson); Stewardship File #98) You get the point. Sometimes we may need to remind ourselves especially clearly that we are giving because of God's gift to us. 2. Secondly, we are called to love God with all our heart. And in this connection I wish to pull in the other part of the summary: we are called to love our neighbor as ourselves. Worship must be from our hearts. Giving must be from our hearts. And giving must also be aroused by deep love for our neighbor in need. In Deuteronomy 15, God says, "If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tight-fisted toward your poor brother. Rather be open-handed and freely lend him whatever he needs." When we know God's grace, then our eyes and hearts are also opened to our neighbor's needs. That was what was happening in Macedonia and in the early church, in an incredible way. The predominantly Jewish church in Jerusalem was experiencing hunger and need. And the predominantly Gentile churches in Macedonia and Corinth were responding. What an incredible thing was happening! Jews and Gentiles didn't get along in the past. But because of Jesus they were! And because of Jesus, they were seeing each other with different eyes. They were seeing Jesus in one another. Our heart and giving for others as Christians has a direct tie-in with God's grace to us. The motivation is always different from that of unbelievers. Others may be motivated to give by pictures of little children with bloated bellies, the rubble in the wake of an earthquake, the plea of a cancer patient. But for us, the ultimate picture that we see is always Jesus. Giving is the grace of God to us flowing through us. We see people who have physical needs. And we see people who have spiritual needs. We seek to minister to both. We recognize that people's ultimate need is spiritual. Pedro and Eduardo were brothers in Venezuela. They were married, had children. But both wasted their income on alcohol, their families went about in rags and hungry, they abused their wives and children, and made life tragic and miserable. But Pedro and Eduardo came to learn about Jesus. They gave their lives to him. And as a consequence their whole life changed. And their marriages and family life and economic situation improved tremendously because Jesus became Lord. (Canadian Bible Society Newsletter). The basic need of the world is spiritual. But something else too. When we give and bless someone, then it's blessings all the way around. We feel good. God is happy. He blesses us some more. Others are made happy. They praise and thank God for us. And things just keep on expanding. Paul wrote, 9:8ff: "God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work... You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and ... your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. Because of (your) service, ... men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you!” Isn't that marvellous? The heartfelt worship that we bring through giving concrete gifts for the needs of others is like turning wide open the faucets of God so that grace can pour and splash all over. 3. Thirdly, Jesus says "You shall love the Lord your God with all your mind." Also when we give we are called to use our judgment. We are called to think through our giving. Giving should not be simply an emotional knee-jerk reaction; we should also use our heads. In chapter 8:20,21, the section we did not read, Paul talks about administering the liberal gifts of God's people in responsible ways. He writes, "We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift. For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of men." Let me lead you in thinking about some of those "head" things, keeping in mind that using our heads does not indicate that we are being unspiritual or heartless. Head and heart and hands must all go together. I am sure that we all realize that when we send a dollar to a cause, not all of that dollar gets used for the actual ministry. Some of it goes into administration; some of it goes into promotion. We hope that most of it goes to doing why we gave the money. But do you know how much of the money you give to various causes is actually used for ministry? Some ministries need to plough 50-90% back into promotion. Only 10-50 cents of each dollar actually goes to do the work. Some States came to the point that they passed laws that stipulate that at least 50% of money given for a cause needs to go for the ministry! If it wasn't for the law, it wouldn't happen. In this connection, I wish especially to highlight some things about our denominational ministries that we support through what we call our "ministry shares." Because people in our denomination commit themselves to support various ministries, and all kinds of promotion isn't needed, 88 cents of every dollar is going toward doing the nuts and bolts of the ministry! I want to tell you just a few things about our ministries. Did you know that our denominational college has repeatedly ranked among the top ten colleges in its class in the whole United States? Did you know that one of our mission churches, the one in Nigeria, has more members and worshippers than our whole denomination in North America? The CRC in NA has about 300,000 members; the CR church in Nigeria has some 500,000 people attending every Sunday! Did you know that the CRC in NA worships in a dozen different languages every Sunday? Did you know that the Back to God Ministries International, our radio ministry, broadcasts in nine different world languages? Somebody has quipped, "Water covers 3/4 of the earth; the Back to God Ministries International covers the rest." Did you know that the Back to God Ministries International has received very strong credibility because we do not and do not have to ask for support on the air? People notice and say, "Here's a ministry that is out to give, and not to get our money." Did you know that Christian Reformed churches were established in the Dominican Republic simply through our radio ministry and even without our knowledge? We are very familiar with the Friendship Program in our congregation, a ministry to mentally handicapped persons. This program was developed in the Christian Reformed Church. A number of years ago, James Dobson interviewed the Friendship director. There were over 2000 inquiries for more information. Since that time we have created a non-profit foundation, kind of like a gift to the whole Christian church. This was a ministry that has ministered to so many burdened families and met so many needs in so many churches. Did you know that our educational materials are being used by twice as many nonCRC churches as CRC churches? Education is one of our strengths. One of my colleagues in Ontario using Coffee Break materials for a parish Bible Study was a Catholic priest. And I could go on and on, not only with statistics, but with stories. Stories of people whose lives have been touched physically or spiritually through one of the ministries that God has blessed. But the people in charge today are wondering what to do. Church members aren't giving like they used to. They used to give simply because of their commitment to the Lord. They knew the people in charge were accountable. And they got their reports from our denominational magazine. But today, a lot of organizations are making slick and heart touching appeals. We are also moved to give. As a consequence, our own very efficient denominational ministries are losing out. We don't know what is happening. Meanwhile many of our own people refuse to accept material and mailings about our ministries because they feel it is a waste of money. That may be so, but in the meantime they don't know and they don't give and they fail to check out how much these other organizations use for promotion and administration. It is a real dilemma. All of this reminds us that we must worship God with our heads too. What did Paul say? "We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift. For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of men." We want to do the same. I wish to mention also another head thing. It has to do with tax deductions. Did you know that the Canadian government wants to encourage us to give generously? It has legislated such generous provisions that for every dollar we give which is receipted, we get about 45 cents back! Or put another way, if we pay $1800 towards our church budget that includes all those denominational ministries I was talking about, the cost to us after taxes is only about a $1000! In the United States, people get about 28 cents back, and in Australia they get nothing. What an amazing thing! Here we want to help people and do ministry, but of course we have a limited income. And now we hear that we can do almost twice as much as we thought we could, when we use our heads and follow our government's encouragement! In worship, in giving, in loving God and our neighbor, we are expected to use our heads. Actually, educating us about these things is a primary role of the deacons. The form for ordination says, "... inspire faithful stewardship in this congregation ... remind us ... teach us ... prompt us ... (p. 1005) 4. And finally, we are called to love God with all our strength. When it comes to giving, I would equate that with generous giving, giving strongly. Paul wrote, 9:6, "Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.... God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work... You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and ... your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God..." Are you a generous giver? How is "generosity" measured, say, in comparison to regular giving? Near the beginning of the service, we heard how upset God was because his people didn't even bring in the tithe, the 10% that he required back from them. When Paul writes the Corinthians, he talks about proportionate giving (8:11,12) and generous giving. Actually he speaks even of sacrificial giving, of people who gave more than they could really afford. Giving meant that they themselves had to fall short. But we are told, 8:4, "They urgently pleaded with us for this privilege of sharing in this service..." On the basis of God's Word, I would encourage you, if you do not already do so, to set aside a tenth of your income for the Lord. Now I am describing obedient giving. If you haven't been used to giving at all, perhaps you could start at 5%. Just put it in a different account, put it aside right away. And then build from there. As you give, make yourself aware of the good things your giving is doing for others and for God. Accompany your giving with your prayers. Perhaps write a letter or two to a missionary, or visit the mission field if you can. Perhaps you can be a short term volunteer. You can always contribute right here in the church, right on the home front. Talk to our church ministries coordinator or myself about how you would like to plug in. You too will get more and more excited about what's happening. You know, they say, there are three kinds of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder, "What happened?" You will be among the ones who more and more make things happen. And you'll want to contribute even more. You will grow in the "grace of giving". You will grow in excitement about what God is doing through you! You will become that cheerful giver, literally that "hilarious" giver that the Lord loves. ------------------------------ And now, let me hit the bottom line. Did you know God doesn't need any of our money, any of our gifts? I guess we all know and realize that. But the Lord asks and expects us to give, of our money and of all that he has entrusted to us, for our sake. Money especially has such a powerful pull on our lives; we are so strongly attracted to the things money can buy. But if we become caught by the love of money and things, we will miss the kingdom of God. And we will miss out on the real joys that are obtained when we give, and then receive. God only desires the best for us. As we read in Malachi, he just desires to pull out all the plugs and shower us with immeasurable blessing. And the surprising way he has ordained that would happen is when we move ahead in faith and obedience, worshipping him with heart, soul, mind and strength, also in our giving. Bring in the tithes! Bring them with joy and cheerfulness. Worship the Lord! And discover his rich and surprising blessings! ------------------------------ The Grace and Worship of Giving - outline Deuteronomy 14:1,22; 16:13-17; II Corinthians 8:1-7; 9:6-15 Pastor Philip Stel Introduction:   giving is absolutely n___________ if we are to genuinely w_________ God. "No one is to appear before me e______ h______. Each of you must bring a g_____ p____________ to the way the Lord your God has b_______ you." (Deut. 16:16; cp. Ex. 23:15, 34:20) Why? a. Because "worship" means literally, "bringing to God what he is w______." d_______ence; th__________ Giving s__________ that awareness. b. worship is supposed to be part of our w________ life loving God -- in our giving -- with all our heart, soul, mind and strength ... and loving our neighbor 1. "... loving God with all our soul..." - first reason that we give is because ___________ ________________ We give, not because we feel g______ but because we have experienced g_______ Paul repeatedly talked about the grace of giving? 8:1,5,6,7,9; 9:8,14,15 "... Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" Paul is referring to J_______, and our s_________ Matthew 18 Sietze Buning (Stanley Wiersma), "The Sea of Forgetfulness: Lake Michigan." 2. "... loving God with all our heart..." giving must also be aroused by deep love for our n_________ Deuteronomy 15:7,8: "If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be h______hearted or t_____fisted toward your poor brother. Rather be o_____handed and freely l_____ him whatever he needs." Giving is the grace of God t_____ us flowing t________ us. The basic need of the world is s___________ The heartfelt worship that we bring through giving concrete gifts for the needs of others is like turning wide open the f________ of God so that grace can pour and splash all over. 3. " ... loving the Lord your God with all our mind...." II Cor. 8:20,21, Some ministries ... only _____ to ___ cents of each dollar actually goes to do the work. "ministry shares" ___ cents of every dollar is going toward nuts and bolts of ministry tax deductions - for every (receipted) dollar we give, we get about __ cents back $1800 towards our church budget - cost to us after taxes is about a $______ educating us about these things is a primary role of the d__________ 4. " ... loving God with all our strength ..." II Cor. 9:6, "Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap s_________, and whoever sows generously will also reap g__________ ... God is able to make all grace a_________ to you, so that in all things, having all that you need, you will abound in every g_____ w_____ ... You will be made rich in every way s__ t_____ you can be g__________ on every occasion, and ... your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God..." Malachi, II Cor. 8:11,12,4 ___% of income = tithe the bottom line: God d_______ n____ any of our money -- the Lord asks and expects us to give, of our money and of all that he has entrusted to us, for o_____ sake.