God Owns It All, Part 2
Tom Shrader opens in 1 Corinthians 16 to address Paul's instructions on the collection for Jerusalem, using the passage as a launching point for a full treatment of Christian stewardship. He argues that God retains ownership of all things while transferring possession to believers, making every dollar, hour, and effort an act of trusteeship before God. Shrader answers four practical questions — who should give, how to give, how much to give, and where to give — calling believers to treat generosity with the same spiritual seriousness as prayer, Bible study, and fellowship.
“God has transferred possession to us, but not ownership. You are a steward. You are a money manager. You're a trustee. The things in your possession are yours to invest for Him.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 1 Corinthians
Recorded: 2002 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 1 hr 19 min
Themes: giving, stewardship, generosity, money, tithing, ownership, sacrifice, faithfulness, struggling with finances, new believer, learning to tithe, young adult, feeling financially stressed, husband, parent, questioning how much to give
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 16:1-4, 1 Corinthians 4:2, Deuteronomy 10:14, Psalm 24:1, Proverbs 3:9, Leviticus 27:30, Mark 12:42-44, 2 Chronicles 24:10, 2 Corinthians 9:7, 2 Corinthians 8:3, Romans 12:1, Acts 4:34-35, Galatians 6:6, Galatians 6:10, 1 Timothy 5:17, 1 John 3:17, Matthew 5:27-28, Matthew 6:19-21
Theological Themes: stewardship, divine ownership, sanctification, biblical giving, trusteeship, lordship of christ, spiritual disciplines, christian living
Full Transcript
God Owns It All
Open your Bibles, if you would, to 1 Corinthians chapter 16, verses 1 through 4. Paul is writing to this church. He has been talking about some of the great truths of the faith, about the gospel and about the resurrection. In verse 1 of chapter 16, he says, "Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia" — churches plural, did you notice that? He said, "I've been talking to these other churches, I've talked to all the churches of Asia, and I've told them, as I do you, that on the first day of the week, let each one of you put aside and save as you prosper, that no collection will be made when I come."
Now this is a collection being taken for something other than the needs of the church at Corinth. This is something over and above the giving that they were doing on a regular basis to this church at Corinth. It is made, we find out here, for the church in Jerusalem. "When I arrive, whomever you may approve, I shall send them with letters to carry your gift to Jerusalem; if it is fitting for me to go also, they will go with me." Paul is talking about this special collection that is to be given, but in this, as well as his second letter to the church at Corinth, he gives us some great instruction about giving.
That is what we introduced last week. We will talk a little more about it today and try to answer some big questions. Then next week, I want to share what I think is the greatest enemy you face in the whole area of giving — and in fact in the whole area of stewardship of your time, your energy, your effort, and your money.
The Foundation: God Owns Everything
Here is a reminder — this is where it all starts. I do not think you can begin to talk about giving until you talk about this: God owns it all. Everything in the universe, everything on the earth, every creature is His. In fact, you sang just before communion, "All to Jesus I surrender, humbly at His feet I bow. Worldly pleasures all forsaken. Take me, Jesus, take me now." We sing "I surrender all" because it is already His to start with. This is not some extraordinary act of generosity on your part. This is simply an acknowledgment of where all your blessing came from to begin with.
God owns it all — it is a consistent theme throughout all of Scripture. Deuteronomy 10 says, "Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the highest heavens and the earth and all that is in it." Psalm 24, verse 1: "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it." Simply stated, all the way through Scripture. It is very clear.
If you can grasp this principle right here, it should begin to change your relationship with everything in your life. Here it is: God has transferred possession to us, but not ownership. That is huge. God has given you possession of all of your assets — do not overlook any of them. Your time, your energy, your effort, your money. We will talk about money a lot today, but not all of us were blessed equally in terms of money. In time, however, we have been treated equally. All of you have 168 hours next week. How will you invest those?
Stewards, Not Owners
We do not typically think that way. We do not think of investing our time. Most of us do not have a strategic plan for the investment of our time. God is the owner. You are a steward. You are a money manager. You are a trustee. The things in your possession are yours to invest for Him, but He is the owner.
When you reach into your pocket and pull out a bill, you have a tendency to say, "This is my money." Legally and technically you may be right. Biblically, you are not right. It is not your money. It is God's money. And this extends to everything around you. I know exactly how it goes — you have a child and you say, "Look at this. This is my little boy. My girl." It is not your boy. It is not your girl. It is God's child, given to you to steward. Nothing — get this now — nothing in your life do you own. You are a steward.
Do you see what I mean? That ought to revolutionize everything. That changes my entire relationship with everything around me. All of a sudden I understand that He has transferred possession to me but not ownership.
Understanding the Owner's Investment Goals
This means something very important: God is the final authority in the way I use my stuff, because He is the owner. The owner ultimately dictates what we are to do. Since we are stewards, we had better understand what the owner's investment goals are.
If you go and sit with a financial planner or a money manager, the first thing that person is going to do is say, "Tell me your dreams. Tell me what your goals are. What is your vision?" If they are any good at all, they will take a couple of hours — they may even have you filling out reams of paperwork. It is a great annoyance, but they need to understand how you think and what your ultimate desires are. Well, if you are a steward, you had better understand how God thinks. You had better understand His ultimate desires.
Every breath you take is an investment. Is it an investment in line with God's investment goals? Every dollar you spend, that process goes all the way through. What a steward is expected to be is faithful. 1 Corinthians 4:2 says, "It is required of a steward that he be faithful." And there is a day coming when we will give an accounting.
The Judgment Seat of Christ
If you are here this morning and you did not take communion — if you are not a Christian — understand this: you are not going to be judged at the end of your life in the same way. You are already judged. You are already condemned. At the end of your life, your sin is declared upon you, and you will spend eternity in a place called hell. The people who will appear before the judgment seat of Christ are Christians — those of us who are followers of Christ.
At that judgment, our sins are not judged. They were already judged at the cross. What is judged is how we handled the time, the energy, the effort, and the money that God gave us.
Who Should Give?
These are really hard questions, because they get into lifestyle issues. How much house should I have? How much car should I have? Is it okay to send a kid to any school just because they get in? Is it alright to spend $200,000 on college? There is a sense in which you ask yourself: What would Jesus drive? Where would Jesus live? How much would Jesus pay for tuition? Where would Jesus eat? Would Jesus be comfortable spending $300 on dinner? I'm not making any judgment — see how convicting this stuff is? All I'm saying is that I think it's worthy of asking. Over the last two weeks, this has been very convicting to me personally, and it has caused me to begin to think and rethink these things.
So here are the questions we want to answer this morning: Who should give? How should you give? How much should you give? And where should you give? We'll answer them fairly quickly.
Who should give? The answer is simple. If you took communion, you should be giving. Every believer should give. "On the first day of every week, let each one of you" — and that theme is repeated also in 2 Corinthians — give of your time, energy, effort, and money. Every person who is a follower of Christ should give.
I have never had anyone who calls themselves a Christian — as an adult — ask me, "Do you think I should give?" They ask how much they should give, and where they should give, and for what they should give, but I have never had a Christian ask me whether they should give at all. We understand that giving is expected. But don't give anybody a pass on this, and take it all the way down. I had junior high students last night — if you are a junior high student cutting grass and getting paid for it, you ought to be giving part of that money, or all of it, to the church. It applies at every level. If you have decided to teach your kids economics by starting when they are very small and giving them an allowance, I hope you understand that is income. I am not suggesting you report it to the IRS, but I am suggesting you ought to give off of it and begin to teach that lesson early.
Now, if you are an unbeliever — if you did not take communion today — don't give. Don't drop any money here, and I don't think you should give anywhere else either. If you are not a Christian and you begin to give, something awful happens: you start to think you are okay, and you are not. You begin to say, "Look, I write checks, I'm very philanthropic." The very simple principle is this: God wants your heart, or He doesn't want your money. If you are not a Christian, please don't feel any compulsion to give. In fact, we would rather have you receive — receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
The flip side of this is equally true. If God has your heart, then your money, along with all of your life, belongs to Him. Paul says in Romans 12, "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice." The idea is that God wants all of your life — your time, your energy, your effort, and your money. But everyone who is a follower of Christ should give.
How Should You Give?
We are talking here about strategy and attitude. There are more than these, but I want to give you three or four things.
The first is that giving should be the top priority. "Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops." To paraphrase it: we give our first and our best to God because we recognize that it all comes from Him. I mean this literally. When you sit down at the end of the month — or whenever you pay bills — the first check you write should be your giving. That should come ahead of the mortgage, ahead of the car payment, ahead of rent, ahead of tuition, and ahead of funding your retirement program. It should be the very first check you write.
Here is what typically happens instead. It is the last check. We give based on everything else first, and we give what is left. If you give first and then find there is not enough money to pay the other bills, here is what I suggest: don't stop giving. Sell the house and get a smaller one. Get rid of the car and get a used one. If you are paying too much for tuition, go to a different school. If you are spending too much eating out, eat in. Fifty percent of the meals eaten by Americans are now eaten out — that is a lot. Giving ought to be at the very top of the list, and it should not be dictated by what is left over.
The second thing is that giving should be regular and systematic. "On the first day of every week, put aside and save." Let me remind you that the people Paul was writing to were paid every day — they would work on Monday and get paid Monday night, work Tuesday and get paid Tuesday. Virtually none of you probably operate that way. What I think he is saying is this: give in a regular, systematic way. If you get paid weekly, give weekly. If you get paid every other week, give every other week. If you get paid monthly, give monthly. If you are someone who, like I was for years, gets paid when a deal closes — perhaps only four or five times a year — then give four or five times a year, but give when you are paid.
One pastor writes: it is very rare that people give substantially unless they give systematically. They may give a few hundred dollars a few times a year and think themselves big givers, but the person who gives consistently — $50 a week every week, or $200 a month every month — is the backbone of the work.
Giving Systematically
People who don't give systematically invariably overestimate how much they give. One pastor writes that when his church's financial secretary was handing out giving receipts one Sunday morning at the end of the year, a man came up and said there must have been a mistake because his wasn't there. The truth was that though he knew it had been a few months since he'd given, he actually hadn't given the entire year.
The pastor continues: "If I have weekly income but wait until the end of the month to give, or monthly income and wait until the end of the year, several things happen. Most importantly, if the firstfruits belong to God and I'm holding on to them, I'm embezzling." These are very strong words — embezzling from, or robbing, God. He has every intention of paying Him back, but meanwhile he is using money that is strictly God's, not his own.
The longer one waits, the higher the likelihood that the money will disappear. It will dissipate — used for this emergency, that contingency, or this indulgence. The great thing about giving immediately upon receiving is that it removes the temptation to rob God. If somebody asked me to pass a $20 bill on to a friend, I wouldn't put it in my wallet and mix it with my other money. I'd set it aside immediately and make sure it got where it was supposed to go as soon as possible. It is a great rule of thumb that simply acknowledges human nature: when I get paid, I should give.
Giving Sacrificially
We should also give sacrificially. Paul, writing of the Macedonian church, said he was testifying that they gave according to their ability and even beyond their ability. We saw last week in Mark 12 as Jesus observed people giving in the temple — some were giving very large amounts of money — and then this happened:
> "A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent, and He called His disciples to Him and said to them, 'Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.'" (Mark 12:42–44)
There ought to be times when you are giving and going without. There ought to be times when you say, "We had been saving this money for a particular purpose, but we are going to give it because there is a need." The point is not to be fixated on the amount. The point is to be giving.
Giving Joyfully
We are also called to give joyfully — and this is both an Old and New Testament theme. Second Chronicles 24 records that all the officers and all the people rejoiced as they gave. The classic New Testament passage on this is 2 Corinthians 9:7:
> "Let each one do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."
I want to spend a moment on that verse, because I don't think it is saying that unless you can give cheerfully, you shouldn't give at all. I received an email this week that speaks directly to this. The writer said: "I know we are supposed to tithe out of obedience to God, but also willingly and happily, with joy. Generally speaking, I've got my tithing responsibility down, but the joy part seems to escape me so far. I don't dislike tithing, but I do it out of obedience mainly."
The writer went on to ask a practical question about what income to tithe on — wages, pension, deferred compensation payments, and whether tax refunds count as income. His reasoning was that since taxes are taken out before he receives his pension check, he has been tithing on the net amount, and so when he gets a tax refund it seems like income he simply didn't receive beforehand — and therefore he tithes on those amounts as well. He closed by saying: "This is the first time I've sent you an email. Wouldn't you know it would be about money?"
Obedience and the Growth of Cheerfulness
That email illustrates an important principle. When we talk about spiritual disciplines, we tend to place prayer, Bible study, fellowship, and evangelism in one category and giving in another, as though giving is somehow separate. Once we make that distinction, we begin to treat giving differently. But I cannot imagine saying to someone, "If you don't feel like praying, don't pray at all," or "If you're not joyful in your Bible study, then don't study." That is not what we say about any other discipline.
The principle we apply everywhere else is exactly the opposite: do what is right because it is right, even when it doesn't feel right. One of the great joys in giving is that it tends to grow as we practice it. Oftentimes the cheerfulness comes in the very act of giving. Randy Alcorn puts it well: "God loves a cheerful giver. This doesn't mean that we should give only when we're feeling cheerful. The cheerfulness often comes during or after the act of obedience, not before it." So don't wait until you feel like giving.
Giving as a Spiritual Discipline
Just give and watch the joy. Talk to somebody. If you know somebody who is a giver, talk to them about what it is like, and they will tell you there is an extraordinary joy in it. There is something extraordinarily joyful about giving, just as there is about praying.
It is becoming very clear to me that we have isolated and separated giving from these other spiritual things, and the minute we did that, we started treating it differently. It is not different — it is the same. If you are not praying, you have a spiritual problem. If you are not studying the Word almost every day, you have a spiritual problem. If you are not in fellowship, you have a spiritual problem. If you do not love one another, you have a spiritual problem. If you are not giving, you have a spiritual problem — or if you are giving but giving incorrectly, you have a spiritual problem.
What Is a Tithe?
That raises the question: how much should you give? Someone who wrote in asked about a tithe. What does that word mean? It is a concept we see throughout the Old Testament. Leviticus 27 says, "Thus all the tithe of the land, of the seed of the land and of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's." The word tithe literally means a tenth part. So if you talk to somebody and they say they are tithing, and you ask how much they are giving, you should hear 10%.
In fact, the Jews tithed a little more than that. They actually paid three tithes: 10% to support the priests and the Levites, 10% for the sacred festivals, and 10% every third year to care for the poor. This does not include almsgiving and other things done above and beyond that. The Jews were tithing approximately 23%. Here is what God did with that tithe: He funded His work, it provided perspective, and it reminded the people of their indebtedness to God.
The early church fathers took tithing very seriously. Augustine said, "Tithes are required as a matter of debt, and he who has been unwilling to give them is guilty of robbery." Another church father, Jerome, said, "If anyone shall not pay his tithe, he should be convicted of defrauding God."
The New Testament Standard Exceeds the Tithe
Here is what I believe. I believe the Bible teaches that as New Testament Christians, we are no longer under the tithe. You are free from the tithe. God is not asking you to give 10% here and 10% there and 23% overall. God is telling you to give.
As I have been studying, I can see that God puts things together in ways I never would have planned. I am studying the Sermon on the Mount for Priority Living, and we are going through First Corinthians here. I never would have dovetailed these two together, but I see it now. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus challenges His disciples, saying, "Listen, your righteousness has to exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees." The scribes and the Pharisees were the holiest of the holy. We have a somewhat negative view of them today, but the Jews had a saying that if only two people could go to heaven, one would be a scribe and one would be a Pharisee. Jesus said you have to go beyond them, because He is looking at the heart.
In Matthew 5, He makes this pattern explicit. Verse 27 reads, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery'; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." We are not under the tithe. Jesus takes the law and shows it is deeper than any external requirement. When you look at the tithe, that 10% figure represents the floor of your giving, not the ceiling.
Proportionate, Not Equal, Giving
So how much should you give? The answer is: proportionate to your blessing. You are to bring your offering every week as you prosper. Second Corinthians 8:3 says, "according to your ability." This is not equal giving. God did not say to the Jews, "I want 10 cows." He said, if you have 10 cows, give Me one; if you have 100 cows, give Me 10. Proportionate giving is not necessarily equal giving, nor should we fall into the trap of thinking the one who gives the most is the greatest giver.
Randy Alcorn writes this: "Jesus is saying that the amount we give is important to God only in relation to the amount we keep. One person can give $25 and it is an act of great sacrifice. Another person can give $100,000 and it is not a sacrifice at all. If someone makes $10 million a year and gives away $9 million and spends only the other million on himself, we may be deeply impressed — but God is not. This is one reason it is unfortunate and misleading to publicly praise large donors in the Christian community. Often their sacrifice is far less than those whose names will never be known."
The beauty of New Testament giving is that the believer, as he senses God's direction, can increase the portion of his giving as God blesses him financially or as he learns to trust Him more. Hence, over the years, many believers give higher and higher percentages to the Lord. I was with a man last week and we were talking — he was not bragging — about a specific book he had been reading. He mentioned that he had gotten his giving up to 65%. There is a tendency to respond with admiration, but my thought was that perhaps it ought to be 75%. And that reveals a dangerous trap: we start to evaluate the people around us.
if there is among them a man that is poor and needy, and they have not an abundance of necessities, they fast two or three days that they may supply the needy with their necessary food. That's the early church. That's how they lived.
Where and How We Should Give
When we ask how much we should give, we get one answer. But let me ask the question with a different twist: how much of God's money should you keep? That may produce a very different answer, though it strikes the same chord. We acknowledge that it is God's money. We praise Him, we thank Him, we gather at Thanksgiving and say thank you for all of this. When something good happens, we say God blessed me. Someone stopped me yesterday and said God just blessed them with a new job. If that is the case, then we are acknowledging that it is all His.
How much should we give? Proportionately to the way He has blessed you. If He has given you a lot, you ought to give a lot. That is why the whole thing can be very misleading — someone can write a check for $200,000 and that is essentially nothing. In fact, it is not even much of a gift compared to someone who has written a check for $200. It is a very hard concept.
That is what we have tried to keep in mind even as we raise money for these buildings. It cannot get any more low-key than the way we do it. We have all sorts of experts who come and tell us how we can raise more money — get the big givers together, work the program, then bring in the smaller givers. But we are not trying to manipulate you. In every relationship you have on this earth, at every moment, you are either ministering or manipulating. I want you to understand: I am not manipulating you this morning. I am trying to minister to you.
Your giving is a sacred issue, as significant as your prayer life, your study life, your fellowship, and every other area of the Christian walk.
Giving Through the Church
Where should you give, and to what should you give? Primarily, if we stick with the New Testament, it appears you should give to and through the church. In 1 Corinthians 16, even as Paul collects for the need in Jerusalem, he does not say to send everything directly to Jerusalem and see how it shakes out. He says to do it locally, through people they know and trust, so that the need is met by those who are accountable. In Acts chapter 4, "there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles' feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had need." They understood that the body functioned that way.
We see this play out regularly. Someone will say they want to help a particular person and ask if we will meet that need. Oftentimes we will say no, because we have been involved in that person's life. We know things as spiritual leaders in the church that the giver does not know, and we know that God is doing something specific in that person's life. The primary place the Scripture teaches you should give is the church. You should sit down as a family, or as an individual, and figure out what you are going to give.
If you want to use the tithe as a reference point, that is a great way to establish a floor — you are not going under that amount, and the question becomes how much over it you will go. That giving should flow primarily to the church. Does that mean it is the only place you give? No. You may be involved in ministries like Young Life, Christian Family Care, Crown Ministries, or others, and that is great. But those are over and above your regular giving to the church.
Give Where You Are Fed and to Those in Need
You should give where you are spiritually fed. Galatians 6:6 says, "Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with the instructor." First Timothy 5:17 says, "Let the elders who rule be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching." Galatians 6:10 says, "So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, especially those who are of the household of faith." There also seems to be a special commitment to those who are genuinely needy and who are believers. First John 3:17 says, "But whoever has the world's goods and beholds a brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?"
Here is what I understand about my resources: they are finite, they are limited, and there are a great many needs out there. I may have two people in my sphere of influence who are both needy. What the Scripture seems to be saying is that if I have a Christian who is needy and a non-Christian who is needy and I can only meet one need, I should reach first to meet the need of the believer. That was a hallmark of the early church.
A Second-Century Witness to the Church
Listen to this evaluation of the church written by a man who observed it in Athens in the second century. He wrote: "They walk in humility and kindness, and falsehood is not found among them. And they love one another. They despise not the widow and grieve not the orphan. He that has gives liberally to he that has not. If they see a stranger, they bring him under the roof and they rejoice over him as a brother. For in fact, they call themselves brother not after the flesh, but after the spirit. When one of theirs passes away from the world, and any of them see him, they provide the needs for his burial according to their ability. And if they hear of any of their number that is imprisoned or oppressed in the name of their Messiah, all of them provide his needs. And if possible that he may be delivered, they deliver him." He even notes that they would come together and trade out time for that imprisonment, serving alongside the one being held.
And then this: "And if there is among them a man that is poor and needy, and they have not an abundance of necessities, they fast two or three days that they may supply the needy with their necessary food." That is the early church. That is how they lived.
Where Should You Give?
If there is among them a man who is poor and needy, and they have not abundance of necessity, they will fast two or three days that they may supply the needy with the necessary food. Listen to that. Here is a man who has a need, and the response is: "I cannot really meet it right now, but here is what I will do — I will not eat for two days. I will fast. I will go without in order to meet your need." We wonder why that early church was so effective. Jesus said the whole world will know you are His disciples by your love. And what is love? Love is compassion and kindness. Love is action.
Here is the bottom line. You ought to give to build the kingdom — to support the work that God is doing, to support evangelism, to support missionaries, to support all of those things that are in line with God's heart. That raises a great question: Should I be giving to the United Way? Should I be giving to secular organizations? My answer is: only with money above and beyond. Why would you give to any other organization when you can advance the kingdom? If you have two giving options — one that is advancing the kingdom and one that is advancing the world — why in the world would you invest over here in the world when you could invest over there?
Answering the Key Questions
Here are the questions we are working through today. Who should give? Every believer should be involved in a significant way. How should you give? Giving should be your top priority. You should give systematically, regularly, and sacrificially. How much should you give? A lot — probably more than you think.
You may be someone who is very hard on yourself and self-critical in most areas, but I will bet you give yourself a pass here. Your desire should be more and more and more — to get to the point where you are giving and giving and giving and are more concerned about that than about your own needs. Where should you give? Primarily to and through the church.
Questions to Sit With This Week
Here are a couple of questions I want you to think about. If you are an individual, think about them this week. If you are a couple, think about them and talk about them together. How much of God's money should you keep? That is a terrific question. Is God pleased with your giving? I presume for most of us the answer is no, but I do not know — maybe He is very pleased. But if the answer is no, what is stopping you? What is limiting that giving?
Am I more concerned with storing up treasures on earth than in heaven? That is the natural flinch. I will tell you what — the stock market has been going down, and I have heard more talk about the market and retirement in the last two months than I have in years. Why? Here is why: where your heart is, that is where your treasure is. Where is your treasure? It is in that retirement program.
I will be autobiographical here. I am 52 and a half years old, and I think about this — what about the end? Am I going to have enough money? How is this going to work? Every time I start thinking about it, it pulls me away from giving. Then we start to say, "Okay, this is acceptable," but then there are variations in the market and cost of living and all these other things, so now we have to adjust the number upward. What are we doing? God has provided for us here. He is going to take care of us.
The Difference Between Planning and Hoarding
Please hear this — I am not saying do not plan. I am not saying do not prepare. But at some point you have to acknowledge that what you have is enough. Why do you need any more? You do not. Anything above that, by your own definition, is greed and hoarding. There is a very big difference between planning and saving on one hand and hoarding on the other.
I think you are playing fast and dangerous when you say, "I am going to accumulate all of this, and then when I am dead I will leave a little bit to the church and leave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the kids." Let me help you with that idea. Write the word "stupid" right next to it. If you have adult kids — and I am talking about adult kids — who have already done well, why would you give them a large sum of money? And if they have not done well, they are just going to blow it. When it comes to inheritance, I think giving something small is fine, but the majority of that money ought to be going to the church and to the kingdom.
If you are hoarding it and saving it and telling yourself you will give it away later, you are going to miss the joy of giving. I think you miss the reward in that process, and along the way your heart is not in the kingdom. I will tell you what — you put a significant amount of money into a building program and you will have a very different interest in it. I say that not to manipulate you but to minister to you. You put a meaningful amount into Christian Family Care and your relationship with Christian Family Care will be very different than it is now.
Are You Winning the War Against Materialism?
Are you winning the war of materialism? It has been interesting to hear the responses to this message. A couple came up after the first service and said, "We are both business majors and we thought we had this whole thing figured out. We realized we are violating most of those principles. We never thought we needed Crown Ministry." Do you understand what Crown is? It is a great resource. They are not just going to tell you how to get on a budget — it goes way deeper than that. It is about what to do with God's resources. Someone else came up after one of the services and said, "I have grown complacent. I know all this stuff, and things have been going all right, so I had not thought about it much."
I want to take one more week on this topic. I want to talk about what I am convinced is the greatest enemy you have to fight in this whole area. I will tell you ahead of time — it has to do with the issue of contentment, because it deals with —
Discontentment is tied to what we consider home — this planet or heaven. As long as we are discontent, and as long as we see this world as our home, we will have a very different relationship with our stuff, with our time, our energy, our effort, and our money. We will return to all of those things next week.
A Closing Prayer
Father, help us see this. Help us see that whether we are talking about prayer, giving, fellowship, or Bible study, it is a spiritual issue — it has a spiritual dynamic to it. If we are not in right communion with You, we are sinning. If we are not praying, we are sinning. If we are not studying, we are sinning. If we are not giving, we are sinning.
This is a spiritual issue, and it is a great reflection of where our heart is. God, help us see that. Some of us think we are doing okay, but we are not.
God, give us a vision — Your vision — for how we participate in Your kingdom with our time, with our energy, with our effort, and with our money. God, we praise You. We worship You. We thank You. In Jesus' name. Amen.