Would you stand please?
Thank you, George.
I'd like to ask you to reach around and welcome those near you.
We want to have a friendly church, and sometimes it's hard to know who the visitors are, but
welcome all of those near you and thank them for coming this morning.
Thank you for doing that.
As we grow larger, we want to maintain that friendly spirit and that sense that we belong
together and even though there are many people here you may not know, we want you to feel
like there are some that you know and you know well.
That's part of the purpose of the small churches, by the way, and we hope that you're involved
in one of those.
But on Sunday morning as we gather together, make sure that those around you sends us a
sincere welcome to the service.
Now I've heard that there may be a football game on television this evening, and if you're
planning to stay home and watch it, I just have a warning for you.
If there is a knock at the door, be careful opening it because there may be a herd of
yaks that will come through your living room.
That might be disastrous, so just be careful of that, will you?
First Corinthians, chapter 16 will be the focus this morning as we continue our series
on the dollars and cents of finances.
Number of years ago now, a board of elders voted to give their pastor a raise.
Because of his writings, he was receiving a good deal in royalties and he said to his
men serving with him on the elder board, I don't need it.
And their response to him was, we know that, pastor, we just want to see what you're going
to do with it.
You know, I wonder if that isn't God's attitude as he blesses us with more than we need.
He wants to see what we're going to do with it.
Our finances are stewardship.
God is the owner of all that we have and he has made us the trustees.
We are therefore responsible for the management and the use of all that he's given to us.
The Bible teaches us about the basics of money.
We might call it biblical economics 101.
In the first place, God wants you to have money.
Secondly, God wants you to think properly about your money.
And thirdly, as we've been discussing together most recently, God wants you to manage your
financial stewardship well.
How do we do that?
Well, as we began saying last week, we do that in the first place by recognizing that
our first responsibility is to God in the management of our stewardship.
And that God wants us to bring to him free will offerings.
God has not established a legalistic tithe that we are to bring.
We discussed that last week in a biblical context.
But God wants us to bring to him an offering out of the love of our hearts freely to him.
In 1 Corinthians 16 verse 2 it says, and on the first day of every week, let each one
of you put aside and save as he may prosper, that no collections be made when I come.
And we noted here in this verse that there are certain principles that are given to us
regarding these free will offerings.
In the first place, we're to give regularly or systematically.
He says on the first day of every week.
The idea is that our giving is to be planned.
There is to be a certain spontaneity about it.
But on the other hand, God wants us to think ahead of time and to plan for our giving.
We are to make that a systematic, habitual part of our lives.
Not a thoughtless part of our lives.
We're to give thought to it.
But it is to be a habit that we get into, that we bring to him systematically our free
will offerings.
And then we notice that it's universal.
Every one of you, also individual.
And as all of us are expected by God to participate in this, and each one of us, without any exceptions
as far as the Scriptures are concerned.
And we notice well that we're to bring our gifts proportionately to our prosperity.
As God prospers us, in proportion to the way he prospers us, we are to bring our gifts.
Now the language here also suggests that as we do this, we are to lay aside these gifts
in store.
That is, we are to bring them together to the church fellowship.
He says that there be no collections made when I come.
And so the believers were to lay aside their money and bring it together to the local church.
And there it would be kept until the purpose for which it was intended arrived.
It is important, I think, to teach stewardship in a local church.
That's one reason I'm doing this brief series now.
This is a priority of which we have established as leadership during 1988, that we want to
better teach the principles of stewardship throughout our church.
For that reason, we are going to begin taking offerings in the Sunday school classes of
the church.
Because boys and girls need to know that we bring offerings to the Lord.
Some classes do that now, but not all of them.
But we're going to begin that across the board.
We're also going to begin taking offerings in small church because there are some who
do not come to large worship service and do not participate therefore in the offerings
here.
We want to give them an opportunity to learn stewardship in the small church.
We believe that's a priority for us as a local body of believers.
Now as we talk about stewardship, there are frequent questions posed by those seeking
to sincerely apply these principles.
There's someone who might say, but I'm to give proportionally, but how much should
I give?
In some respects, it would be easier, wouldn't it, if God had said, bring seven and a half
percent or 10 percent or 30 percent.
Because then we would all know how to calculate that if we passed simple mathematics in high
school or grade school.
It would not be hard at all for us to figure.
But God hasn't done it that way.
He wants it to be a matter of a heart attitude, a spirit that we have.
Zacchaeus, for example, gave 50 percent of everything that he had to the poor.
Now he didn't do that every week.
But after his conversion, he was so overjoyed and so freed from the covetousness of his
heart, the greed was so dealt with in him that immediately he made provision for 50
percent of all that he had to go to the poor.
And not only that, he said, if I have wronged any person, I will repay him fourfold, keeping
the law.
His heart desired to obey what God had told him to do.
It's a matter of the heart.
Maybe the question instead, how much do I have to give, should be, how much should I
keep?
The fact is that only you can answer that for yourself, for your family.
But then someone says, well, what if there really isn't enough money?
What if the money that we receive is not enough to meet our basic bills?
There are some people in that circumstance.
What are they to do with regard to the teaching of the scripture about giving?
Well, if there is no money, even for the needs that I have in my life, I need to examine
my needs.
I need to see where my money is going and be sure that those in fact are needs.
It may be that what I'm calling a need is actually a bill that I have accumulated, and
now it's become a bondage to me, and I have to pay that off.
What am I to do if I'm in a situation where I have to pay a creditor and I have no money
left over for giving?
Well, there are several thoughts about that.
First of all, I need to do what I can to reduce my out go.
And then I need to do what I can to increase my income.
I may need to look for another job that pays better.
I may need to get a second job for a period of time.
With regards to giving, I think if I'm in that predicament, what I need to do is determine
what I can sacrifice so that I can give to God.
I may not be able to give to God as much as I want to, but I can give something, even
if it's just lunch money from one day during the week, or just if it's the price of a
magazine that maybe I buy once a month.
If I'm in a situation where I'm actually in financial bondage, then I need to still
remember that I have a responsibility to give to God something at least to indicate the
sincerity of my heart.
I think the best advice I could give to a person who is in that kind of predicament,
and that's not uncommon, is that you seek out someone who would be able to help you
get reestablished financially.
I don't mean by giving you money, but I mean by helping you to budget and perhaps reorder
your priorities in spending, perhaps even to renegotiate those loans that you have
so that you can get that payment down where you can handle it, as we said before, at the
same time cut up the credit cards.
If you're in financial bondage today, there's hope for you.
God has an answer for you, but it's very difficult in a large group like this to give
specific answers to your problems.
There are those who can help you.
I want to encourage you to seek them out.
If you say, I don't know where to go, I don't know who to approach, then call our
church office and we can put you in touch with some people who can help you.
Someone says, well, should I borrow to give?
I don't have enough coming in.
Should I go out and borrow some of my visa so that I can give to the church?
Of course, there are some churches and parishes now which are making it possible for people
to give with visa or MasterCard.
I don't believe, generally speaking, that it is a principle of God's Word that we should
borrow in order to give.
Now, there may be some exceptions to that or some situation where it might be appropriate
to borrow short term in order to give a gift today, which will be covered almost immediately
with some income that you know is coming.
But the general principle is no.
God does not want us to borrow money to give, but He wants us to give according to what
we have.
He doesn't expect us to give according to what we don't have, but He does expect us
to give according to what we have.
Then someone may legitimately ask, well, if I am to give my money through the church,
what do I do about the other opportunities that come to me?
I've got friends who are going to campus ministries or I have friends who are going with missions
and they write letters to me wanting me to support them.
What do I do about those letters that come from radio programs or broadcasts that are
appealing for funds from me?
How do I handle all of that?
Well, you need a special file in your home in the first place to handle a lot of that.
It's a circular one about that big, about that deep.
Now, I don't mean to be callous toward those that are good ministries and which legitimately
need support, but obviously we have to be careful where we give our money.
That's one of the advantages of God's plan in giving through the local church because
we trust together as a church that we have wisdom where the money should be invested.
We are less prone then to impulse or to emotional appeals.
There are certain basic principles regarding giving.
One is does the person or the organization asking for my funds believe what I do and
practice what I do?
There are some very clever organizations out there today that are appealing for funds from
evangelicals when they themselves actually do not believe what we believe.
They don't teach what we do and they don't practice a lifestyle that we believe in.
They know that evangelicals, some evangelicals are soft touches and can be appealed to emotionally
to respond because we want to be generous people and they know that and they try to
take advantage of it.
So I need to know to whom I am giving and search out that organization.
I need to know that person before I give anything.
Then I need to ask the question, is there a sufficient accountability with that person,
with that organization so that I can trust that my money is being used properly?
There are several organizations these days trying to keep track of parachurch ministries.
Local churches keep track of themselves through meetings like we have tonight.
The third principle is that I need to avoid pressure tactics, promise recognition, impulses
in my giving.
I need to avoid giving because I am going to get a plaque in return to hang on my wall.
If I do that then I have my reward, don't I?
I want to give because God lays it upon my heart to give.
In our family we practice bringing nearly all of our gifts to the church.
But we do send some monies outside of the church to organizations primarily that we
know and trust and that we love.
We believe God wants us to do that.
I encourage you to do that as God lays that upon your heart.
If a church is already supporting an individual, in fact we practice this in our church, if
we are supporting a missionary as a church, we discourage that missionary from approaching
people in our church personally.
Unless it be very close friends or family because already we are giving once.
For someone to come back to us personally and appeal for funds is not right.
We really disallow that of those that we support as a church.
Someone says, well I give to the Lord but I pay the tuition in my Christian school or
I pay for the retreats for my kids.
You know when I use my money in that way I am not really giving to the Lord.
Maybe good uses of money and even necessary uses of money but I shouldn't really call
that giving to the Lord.
Someone says, well can't I give my time or talent instead of money?
This is very popular today especially among the baby boomers because we learn that time
is money and therefore if I give time I am giving money, right?
Well certainly you are giving something that is valuable when you give time and time is
critical.
We need to give time to the Lord.
We need to give our talents to the Lord but we cannot allow that to be a substitute for
money for the ongoing expenses of ministry, the support of missionaries, etc. that cannot
be supported by my time alone or my talents alone.
I need to bring my treasure to the Lord.
John MacArthur said, giving is not God's way of raising money.
It is God's way of raising children.
That's a good perspective.
So if I am going to manage my financial stewardship well it begins by my understanding my responsibility
to God which is first.
But then also I need to recognize my responsibility to my family.
Would you turn please to 1 Timothy 5 and verse 8 for what is a key verse in the New Testament
regarding this.
1 Timothy 5 and verse 8.
Now in the context of caring for widows within the church the apostle says in verse 8, but
if anyone does not provide for his own, that is his own loved ones, his own family, and
especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an
unbeliever.
And so in the strongest kinds of terms the apostle tells us that we are responsible to
care for our families.
That really is a built in part of us.
We know that we are to do that.
And it's important because children interpret the faithfulness of God by the way their parents
provide for them in meeting their needs.
That does not mean that we should be lavish with our children necessarily, that we should
squander money on them.
Moms and dads we need to realize that children as they grow up see and perceive God's provision
for them through you.
And they understand God's faithfulness as they see how faithfully you provide for their
needs, their genuine needs.
Now frankly the pressure that all of us face is toward materialism in our culture.
We are educated from the cradle on up that we need things in order to be happy.
And some of the highest pressure comes on Saturday mornings during the time that the
children are watching television.
We are a culture that is given to things, material things, thinking that that will bring
satisfaction, fulfillment, and joy in living.
Now we know that that is a lie.
And yet we are prone to fall into that kind of a lifestyle, that kind of a trap.
We need to control our own expectations in life.
The danger is that if we are carelessly lavish with our children, that if they grow up having
every want met, that they will think as they become adults that society owes them the same
thing.
Children need to learn as they grow up that not everything can be had, at least when you
want it.
That there are some things that are worth having and there are some things that are
not necessary to have.
Children need to learn value, not just the price of things.
Regarding this matter of expectations, Tim Kimmel writes a book called Little House on
the Freeway, which is quoted and focused on the Family Magazine.
He says this, When we lose control of our expectations, we are guaranteed to be robbed
of rest.
Yet the culture in which we live makes losing control a foregone conclusion.
If I have any hope of enjoying the rest God intends for me, I have to remind myself that
I am in a constant struggle with my environment to maintain a sense of satisfaction.
When people fail to discipline their desires, they feel incomplete.
A gloomy cloud of inadequacy follows them around.
It's difficult to maintain deep relationships with such people.
Their feelings of inadequacy drain their emotions.
When people fail to discipline their desires, they place unbearable demands on a marriage.
Their partner is quick to realize his or her dissatisfaction, and if the partner can't
apply all that he or she wants, the partner feels a sense of failure.
When people fail to discipline their desires, they compound stress in their children.
An environment where the best is always in the future breeds an attitude that makes the
present look cheap.
When people fail to discipline their desires, they accommodate the powers within the world
system that desire to control them.
A heart that finds it hard to accept its position in life is putty in the hands of the powers
of darkness.
What Mr. Kimmel is saying is that we need to learn to discipline our desires, to control
our expectations, to be content with what God has provided for us.
But out of that which he provides for us, we are to be sure that our family is cared
for with regard to its essential needs.
If I am to manage my financial stewardship well, I am to recognize that my responsibility
is first to God, and then to my family, and third, I need to recognize that I do have
a responsibility to the poor.
Would you turn please to the book of James in the second chapter.
In this chapter, James warns us about being partial toward those who are rich.
He says that we should not discriminate against the poor.
And he says in verse 15, if a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food,
then one of you says to them, go in peace and be warmed and filled, and yet you do not
give them what is necessary for their body.
What use is that?
What kind of faith, he's saying here, would do that to a brother or sister?
Turn over to John, 1 John chapter 3, and look at these strong ethical words of the apostle
of love.
He says in verse 16, we know love by this, that he, Christ, laid down his life for us,
and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
But whoever has the world's goods and beholds his brother in need, and closes his heart
against him.
How does the love of God abide in him?
Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.
Clearly, God expects us to care for those who are poor and cannot care for themselves.
Indeed, the word of God teaches us that God himself is the defender of the poor.
He condemns those who oppress the poor.
Only in the terms of the Bible, the primary focus of our attention for the poor should
be upon brothers and sisters.
Not to the exclusion of the world's poor, but the primary thrust of scripture, both
in the Old and the New Testament, is that we as the people of God are to care for the
poor who are among us.
We have various ways of doing that as a church.
We provide food for those who need it.
We have found that a clothing shelf really isn't necessary, apparently, in our area,
because we had lots of clothes and no call for them.
And so we made them available to other organizations that had outlets for that sort of help.
We maintain an elders fund as a church, toward which we give after communion when we observe
it.
And that fund is used to financially help those who are going through tough times.
But the fact is that's only the tip of the iceberg.
Because throughout our church family, week after week, there is caring for the poor going
on.
Now, these may be poor who are out of work at the moment, or family that's gone through
some kind of a crisis financially and needs help in that instance.
We provide help for those who are habitually poor.
The need of those is not primarily financial.
It is counsel.
It is a need to help them to learn to live on what they have.
But as you and I become personally aware of those who have need, God wants us to give
them the right kind of help.
As I say, that may not always be a check or a bill.
It may be something else that we can do.
But God wants us to provide for the poor.
It's part of our responsibility, especially for those in our fellowship.
The Word of God teaches that your money and mine can be a curse or a blessing to us.
Whether we feel we have little or we feel we have much, what we have can either be a
curse or a blessing.
It depends upon our attitude toward what we have.
It will be a curse to us if we allow a spirit of covetousness to dominate our hearts.
The Bible so warns against covetousness that it says that it's equal to idolatry.
When I am greedy and covetous and selfish, I am bowing down before the God of things
or of mammon and am no longer worshiping the Lord.
Our money can become a curse to us if we are like Achan, who brought judgment upon the
whole nation of Israel because of his covetous spirit.
Or if we are like Ananias and Sapphira, who allowed hypocrisy to come into their lives
because of their covetous spirit and for that they were judged.
Our money becomes a curse to us if we allow ourselves to be like Judas and sell out our
Lord for the price of silver.
But on the other hand, our money becomes a blessing when we use it well.
It was our Lord Himself who said, it is more blessed to give than to receive.
I believe that you and I can't help but give when we realize what God has given to
us.
Dr. MacArthur writes, God made the sun, it gives.
God made the moon, it gives.
God made the stars, they give.
God made the air, it gives.
God made the clouds, they give.
God made the earth, it gives.
God made the sea, it gives.
God made the trees, they give.
God made the flowers, they give.
God made the animals, they give.
God made man, does He give?
Let's bow together.
God has made us to be a giving people with hearts that are wide open toward Him and toward
others.
We are to flee idolatry.
We are to flee covetousness.
God wants us to have money.
He wants us to think about it properly and He wants us to use it rightly.
As you think about the stewardship of your financial resources, which God has entrusted
to you, are you today living in light of what God says about it?
What do you need to do to bring yourself perhaps into line, to get in step with God, His plan
for you?
For this part of our life will one day, too, be examined at the judgment seat.
We must give account of ourselves to Him who is our Lord and who bought us with His own
blood, who gave Himself for us.
Father, we are mindful that your principle is that we would first give ourselves to you
and then bring our gifts.
I pray that today we will do that, that you will liberate our hearts from whatever may
restrain us.
I pray that you will work into us a genuine spirit of love and generosity and giving.
I pray today for that one, or perhaps several, who may be here, who perhaps is thinking that
by giving he or she might be found acceptable with you.
I pray that they might see today that money has nothing to do with the gaining of heaven,
but that heaven is a free gift.
And, oh, may they reach out in faith and trust in the Savior who gave Himself for them.
Since we have received that gift, oh God, make us givers.
Make us givers, I pray.
In Jesus' name, Amen.