THE BLESSING OF GENEROSITY January 24, 2017 Second Samuel 24:23 25, Mark 12:41 44 Pastor Vic Willis

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1 THE BLESSING OF GENEROSITY January 24, 2017 Second Samuel 24:23 25, Mark 12:41 44 Pastor Vic Willis 1 18 On that day Gad went to David and said to him, Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. 19 So David went up, as the Lord had commanded through Gad. 20 When Araunah looked and saw the king and his officials coming toward him, he went out and bowed down before the king with his face to the ground. 21 Araunah said, Why has my lord the king come to his servant? To buy your threshing floor, David answered, so I can build an altar to the Lord, that the plague on the people may be stopped. 22 Araunah said to David, Let my lord the king take whatever he wishes and offer it up. Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and here are threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood. 23 Your Majesty, Araunah gives all this to the king. Araunah also said to him, May the Lord your God accept you.

2 24 But the king replied to Araunah, No, I insist on paying you 2 for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them. 25 David built an altar to the Lord there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then the Lord answered his prayer in behalf of the land, and the plague on Israel was stopped. We've heard just about every pastor who's preached a stewardship sermon say, "you can't out-give God!" And you're going to hear it again today in fact you just did! Let's say it together: YOU CAN'T OUT-GIVE GOD! It's a spiritual principle built into the fabric of life. When we give, we receive back more than what we gave God gives more back to us than we gave! I see it in the church all the time! Somebody will very hesitantly join a ministry thinking it is going to take more of their time and energy

3 than they have to give, and so often that same person a month or two 3 later comes back to me saying I can't believe how much I'm getting out of that study, or that small group, or that regular act of service! We can't out-give God! We hear it all the time from those who go to offer communion to our homebound folks they'll put it this way: I started out going to minister to these people who don't get to church anymore, thinking that if I could only lift their spirits and brighten their day a little bit but I come away every time with my spirits lifted and my day brightened! We just can't out-give God! It also works when we give of our resources, not just our time. If I had a nickel for every time someone told me how their life had been blessed financially after they had given sacrificially, I'd be a rich man! The blessing doesn't always come "in kind" in money in resources. That's where the preachers of the prosperity gospel have it wrong you don't put in a dime and get back a quarter like some heavenly always-paying-off slot machine! God's not in the business of

4 4 making us more dependent on money -- He's in the business of making us more dependent on Him! So a sacrificial financial gift to the work of God's kingdom sometimes comes back around to us in simply knowing you have done what God called you to do! And if it does, that will be more than enough to a believer in Christ! The assurance of having been obedient you can't put a price tag on that! That has an eternal value that cannot be measured! Luke 6:38 says "Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you." We can't out give God! Yet, when we give we always get back more than we give if we are giving for the right reasons! You see motive has a lot to do with whether or not we are blessed in our generosity. King David knew his motive in giving to God makes all the difference. David wrote in the psalms, "my sin is ever before

5 5 me " What made David "a man after God's own heart" was his ability to own his stuff where he messed up - this ability to assess his own hearts condition--"for I know my transgressions," he would say..."and my sin is ever before me." He was a great discerner of his own motives. And that made him the greatest king in Israel's history aside from Jesus himself! This incident in second Samuel 24 shows his desire to do the right thing for the right reason! David was looking for a place to offer sacrifices to God to stop a plague that he was quite sure he started so his heart was burdened. He comes upon a threshing floor which was owned by man named Araunah, a place where the wheat and the chaff is separated. Araunah sees that the King is looking for a flat place to sacrifice to God so he is very eager to not only offer to give him the threshing floor but the cattle and the threshers and several other items he said here it is king, take it, it's yours! But what David says then tells us his integrity as well as serves as

6 a model for us in our giving: he said "No, I will not give to God that 6 which cost me nothing!" In light of that, if someone had hit the $1.5 billion lottery a couple weeks ago and very generously had offered the church a large portion of it, wiping out our debt and taking care of us for years to come, would that be a spiritually healthy thing for us to receive? According to David, no! Would I turn it down? No! Because the finance committee here would hang me from the highest tree if I didn't accept it! But let's just think about that for a few minutes Why wouldn't receiving that money be a spiritually healthy thing for the church to do? Because all of the sudden our dependence would shift to our bank account rather than our trust in God. It all boils down to where your trust is. Jesus said, "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also..." This is precisely why Jesus talked more about money than he did heaven and hell combined because he knew the power wealth has to capture our hearts. That's why it's harder for a rich man to go heaven

7 than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle...possessions, 7 money, wealth has the power to distract and misguide us into thinking our souls are secure when they really are not. God so desires for us to receive the Blessing of Generosity that He has put into place a process by which we can experience it it s called the Tithe. A Tithe is 10% of your income to be given to the work of God. I m of the conviction that if each of us tithed, two things would happen: 1. The church will have everything it needs to be about the work God has put before us, and 2. You will experience a deeper joy and freedom freedom from a misplaced loyalty to your bank account. You see, He gives us the principal of the Tithe for our spiritual wellbeing. St. Augustine said, God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them. Tithing should never be a burden, and the way to keep it from being a burden is to write that check first. The Bible calls it First Fruits. The church does not want or need all your money The church the budget, the lights, the utilities, paying staff salaries and making

8 sure that the facilities are kept up All that plus the mission of the 8 church beyond these walls will be taken care of if everyone tithes. We have an especially challenging year this year with the increase in insurance rates for our staff. But I believe no, I know we would have more than enough money to do the mission and we could even expand a lot of what we wanted to do if everyone tithed--10% of your income. There's so much to be done in this community to bring people to an awareness of their need for Jesus, and I do believe God is calling each of us to increase our giving to the level of a tithe because the need is great. But the need is not something that should be a burden on anyone. If everyone tithed we would way over-subscribe the budget. You may feel like a tithe 10% -- is a sacrifice. If so, let me ask you to consider making that kind of sacrifice. Let me challenge you to tithe for the month of February. Give it a try and if it's too much of a problem, of course, you can adjust it at any time. But remember, the Bible says in Malachi 3:10 bring the whole

9 9 tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." I know many of you have a second church up north. I would just once again ask you to give where you are being fed for the months that you are here please do all you can to support the work we do here, and then when you are not here we certainly understand your desire to support your church up north. Let me close with a familiar story of the widow s mite. Mark 12: Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. 43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44 They

10 all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in 10 everything all she had to live on. Remember, as you prayerfully fill out your pledge card this week and bring them for dedication next Sunday, it's not the amount, it's the sacrifice. God bless you as you give to the work of God's kingdom through his church. Father, we ask for your blessing as we consider the challenge you make of us to trust you more with our resources to bring the whole tithe into the storehouse and test you to see if you will not pour out a blessing too big for us to contain. We want to do that in the right way, checking our motives help this pledge Sunday, next week, to be an adventure in trusting you so that we can experience The Blessing of Generosity. In Christ s Name we ask it.