Giving to God Lon Solomon McLean Bible Church November 16, 2008 Hey, I want to start today by asking you to complete the following sentence, so are you ready? All right, here s the sentence that I want you to finish. The church is always asking for... (audience responds, Money ) Yeah, money. You got it! I am intensely aware of the sensitivity that people have when it comes to the church talking about money, but you know, my job as your pastor is to teach what the Bible says to us about everything, and the Bible says a lot about money. As a matter of fact, the Bible says more about money than it does about any other single subject. The reason for that is because God knows that the lure of money has destroyed the lives of more people than all the armies that have ever marched in history. This is why the Bible says in I Timothy 6:10, For the love of money is the root of all evil. I think all we have to do today is look around in our modern world, and we can see indeed the truth of this, how many lives have been destroyed even in our modern economy because of greed and the love of money. That s why today I want to talk to you in part 7 of our series, How Firm a Foundation about giving to God. I want to talk to you about some of what the Bible says about money. We can t cover it all today, but we can cover this one issue, giving to God. So let s talk about that in a biblically teaching model. That s our goal here. Our goal is not to raise money; our goal is to learn what the Scripture teaches. Now, what the Bible says about giving to God is based on two primary principles. Principle number one is that giving to God is an act of worship. In Philippians 4:18, Paul writes the Philippian Christians who had sent him an offering to support his missionary work while he was in jail in Rome. He said, I have received the gift that you sent the money it is a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to the Lord. The imagery that Paul is using here comes out of the Old Testament system of sacrifices, of animal sacrifices. You see, in the Old Testament, there were two
categories of animal sacrifices. Category number one were those sacrifices that were brought for forgiveness of sin. In this case, when a person sinned against God, they would bring a sacrificial animal, a lamb, to the temple in Jerusalem. The priest would kill that animal. He would put that animal s blood on the altar, and in response, God promised to forgive the sin of the person offering it. Of course, we understand that this was merely a temporary measure until the Lamb of God Himself, the Lord Jesus, came and solved the problem of sin once and for all on the cross. Hebrews chapter 10 says, He Jesus offered one sacrifice for sin for all time on the cross, and by this one sacrifice, He has made perfect for all time those who put their trust in Him. Therefore, Hebrews 10 goes on to say, where there is forgiveness like this, no further sacrifices for sin are needed. Friends, the reason you and I as followers of Christ don t take a sacrificial lamb, get on an airplane, fly to Jerusalem and go up on the temple mount and slaughter that animal any more is because our sin has been paid in full, once and for all on the cross by the Lord Jesus Christ for all of eternity. Hallelujah? Hallelujah, you bet! Now that was the first kind of animal sacrifice. We don t do that any more; it s done. But there was another kind of animal sacrifice in the Old Testament, and these, number two, were sacrifices that were brought for worship. These were sacrifices by which a person was trying to show to God their love, their devotion, their commitment, their loyalty. Here, too, a person would bring an animal to the temple in Jerusalem. Here, too, the priest would kill that animal, but instead of putting the blood of that animal on the altar, the priest would take the meat of that animal, put it on the altar and burn it. The smell of that burning meat would waft up into heaven like a fragrant aroma in the nostrils of God. We ve all experienced this. I was at Dulles Airport not too long ago walking down the concourse, and I m not lying, ten gates away, I could smell Five Guys down the hall. (laughter) I mean, it was unbelievable. It was like, Come have a burger, which I don t do any more, but the point is that we have all ridden by a Chinese restaurant. You smell it, and it s pleasing. Well, the point is that this was the imagery of these offerings that they were pleasing in the sight of God.
For us as followers of Christ, this category of sacrifice, worship sacrifices, still exist today; it s just that their form has changed. Their format has changed. Peter said in I Peter 2:5, As followers of Christ, we are to offer up to God spiritual sacrifices not literal animal sacrifices of worship. Friends, Philippians 4 tells us that one of these spiritual sacrifices of worship that are a sweet aroma in the nostrils of God is this idea of giving financially to God. Hey, do you remember the story of the three wise men in Matthew chapter 2:11? When they saw the child with his mother Mary, they bowed down and worshipped Him. Now how did they worship Him? Did they sing the doxology? No! In fact, the doxology wasn t even written yet. What did they do? They worshipped Him by opening their treasures and presenting Him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Now you say, What was baby Jesus going to do with gold and frankincense? The point is not what He was going to do with it; the point is that by giving away the most precious thing they owned, they were communicating to the Lord Jesus and to God Himself that God meant more to them than their most precious possession. That s worship. All worship is, friends, is telling God that He s number one in your life. That s all it means. For many of us, this is a whole new slant on the idea of giving to God. Many of us have been taught to see church offerings and giving to God as the way we pay the bills, run the programs, build the buildings, send out the missionaries. The focus of our giving becomes the building, the program, the missionary. Friends, when you give to God like that, there is no joy in it. This is not the model of the Bible. In fact, in Exodus chapter 35, when Moses was building the tabernacle, five times he asks for people to contribute to it. But notice very carefully in Exodus 35, not one of those five times did he refer to this as an offering for the tabernacle. All five times he referred to it as an offering for the Lord. Why? Because when people gave, Moses wanted their focus to be not on the building but on the Lord.
That s why, whether it s putting money in an offering plate, whether it s sending a check to a missionary, whether it s paying off your Finishing the Wall pledge, whether it s giving to Jill s House or putting money in Turkey Outreach envelope, whatever it is, friends, our attitude needs to be, Lord, I m giving this to You as an act of worship, as a way of letting You know that You mean more to me than this money or anything it can buy. Lord, this is from my heart to Your heart. As one person said, We need to give as though the hand holding the offering plate had a nail scar in it. And you know, when you give like that, my friends, there is joy in giving to God. The other principle that giving to God is based on is that giving to God is a form of spiritual investment. In our modern-day economy recently, everywhere I go, I read articles of people telling me where I can invest my money and get a positive return. Forget about double-digit returns. We just want a positive return anywhere these days. When we open the pages of the Bible, we find God telling us about the greatest investment opportunity that has ever been offered to the human race in the history of the world. In Philippians chapter 4, Paul says to these same Philippians, It was good that you sent me this offering watch now I say this not because it benefited me, but because of the dividends, because of the interest that God is going to credit to your account. Friends, here in Philippians 4, the Bible tells us that giving to God is a form of spiritual investment upon which God pays unbroken, positive dividends. First, God pays dividends eternally on what we give when we get to heaven. In Matthew 19, Jesus said to the rich young ruler, Sell what you ve got. Go give it to the work of God, and you shall have treasure in heaven. In Luke chapter 12, when we give to God, Jesus said, We provide purses for ourselves that will not wear out, treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted. Friends, throughout the Bible, God tells us that every one of us as followers of Christ has a heavenly bank account that He opened for us the day we gave our life to Christ. Every time you and I use money down here on earth to honor Christ, every time we give to the work of God in some way, we are making direct deposits into that heavenly bank account. When we get to heaven, God is going to take that amount
that we have in there and hand out rewards to us, multiply it and reward us for what we gave. But you know, God s dividends on what we give are not limited just to when we get to heaven. Oh no! Secondly, God pays earthly dividends on what we give. Listen to what the Bible says in Proverbs 3:9. It says, Honor the Lord from your wealth, then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will brim over with new wine. Now that s the promise of God. In Luke chapter 6, Jesus said, Give, and it will be given back to you by God, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over will be poured into your lap. That s the promise of God. In Matthew chapter 19, Jesus said, Anyone who has given anything to Him watch now will receive a hundred times as much in this life. That s 10,000% return! Go into your bank tomorrow and ask them if they could kindly give you a CD with an APR of 10,000%, and after they get through laughing at you, see if they do it. Well, I can guarantee you that you re not going to get an investment opportunity like that down here, but that s exactly the one God says He is offering. Listen, friends, I have to tell you that I have seen God do this in my life over the last 39 years as I ve been a follower of Jesus. When I came to Christ 39 years ago, I had a knapsack on my back and $5 in my pocket. I ve never done this, but if I were to sit down and total up every dollar I d ever given to the work of God in 39 years, friends, I want to tell you that I couldn t even begin to duplicate all of the material blessing that the Lord Jesus has given me down here on earth. You can t either, if you totaled up everything you ever gave. Do you know why? Friends, it s because God will never be any man s debtor. He will never be any woman s debtor. You cannot out give God. It cannot be done, because God takes what you give and multiplies it by 10,000%. You can t out give Him! These are the two principles upon which giving to God is based in the Bible. Number one, giving to God is an act of worship. Number two, giving to God is a form of spiritual investment. Now that s as far as we want to go in the theological treatment of that, because we want to stop now and ask our most important question. So are you all still with me?
(audience responds affirmatively) All right, here we go now, nice and loud. One, two, three SO WHAT? Oh yes, how sweet! You say, Lon, okay. I got what you re saying, but I mean, make this practical for me, would you? Put some handles on this for me, would you? Well, I d love to do that, so in closing, let s ask and answer four questions about giving to God that are very practical. Number one, when should I give? Well, in I Corinthians 16:2, Paul says, On the first day of the week which, by the way, is Sunday let each one set aside a sum of money in proportion to their income. This doesn t mean that the only day of the week you can give to God is on Sunday. What this means, what Paul is calling us to here is to consistent, deliberate, planned, systematic giving. Friends, we can give weekly. We can give bi-weekly. We can give monthly. We can give quarterly, depending on how our income stream works. The point is the exact timing of when we give is not important, so long as it is regular, planned, deliberate and consistent. Number two, where should I give? Well, the Bible gives us three places where we can give and lay up treasure in heaven. Place number one is to the local church that we are part of. Place number two is to individual missionaries just like here in Philippians chapter 4 where the Philippians sent money to Paul for his missionary work. Finally, place number three is to individuals who are poor and needy in the name of Christ. Don t forget that last little phrase there, in the name of Christ. We re not talking about giving to the United Way; they don t dispense their money in the name of Christ. We re not talking about giving to one of Oprah s charities; they don t dispense their money in the name of Christ. We are talking about giving to ministries that exalt the name of Christ in how they reach out and help people with their need. This is the alms giving aspect to our giving to God. It s clear in the Bible that this is also an acceptable way to use our funds. So these three are our options: our local church, individual missionaries, or to the needs of people in a way that the name of Christ is exalted in how their needs are met.
Now, may I share my personal opinion with you? It is my personal opinion, I personally believe that the vast majority of our giving should be to the local church that we re attending. And you say, Well, duh, of course you would! You re the pastor of a church. What else would you say? Well now, wait a minute. For five years before I came to McLean Bible Church, I worked for a parachurch organization, and yet during those five years, you need to know that I still gave almost all of my giving to the local church I was going to, not to the organization that I worked for. Friends, there are three reasons I believe this. Reason number one is because the local church is the primary instrument of God in the New Testament; therefore, I believe my obligation is to support it above all else. Number two is because a good local church will be allocating the money that we give among all three of these options. Do you understand what I m saying? A good local church will be using some of the money we give for its own ministry. Some of the money it will be sending to missionaries, and it will be using some of the money in the name of Christ to use poor and needy people. By giving to one place, if it s a good church, you re covering all three aspects. Finally, reason number three is because giving to the local church results in the maximum level of accountability regarding how that money is handled. Here at McLean Bible Church, our elders get a monthly accounting of all our finances. They even get a weekly accounting of how our finances are being handled. The congregation here gets a quarterly accounting and an annual accounting. We do an audit here every year, and it s not one of the little squeaky things. I m talking about the big boy; the one on steroids is the one we do here. Friends, now listen. If you give to some TV preacher or some radio ministry or some other thing, you don t have this kind of accountability available to you for you to see and check out over the money you give. The principle is that the farther removed your giving is from you, the lower your ability to ensure that it s being used in an ethical, Christ-like way. Therefore, I m just telling you the principle I ve followed my 39 years as a Christian. The principle I follow is that I give where I can see financial accountability
over the money I m giving in action, which is why I have always given the bulk of my giving to the local church that I go to. That s for your consideration. Number three question is how much should I give? Well, as soon as we ask that question, we re confronted by a word, and that word is tithe. The tithe is an old English word meaning one-tenth. In the Old Testament, Israelites were commanded to tithe to the temple, to take one tenth of their income and give it to the ongoing work of the temple. This is how the temple was funded. We need to understand that the tithe was not voluntary. The tithe in Israel was obligatory. It was not a way of worshipping God. Essentially, the tithe was income taxes that people were required to pay, ten percent of their income. You say, That s it? Ten percent? Yeah, we should have all been Israelites, huh? (laughter) Well, the question then is, are we as followers of Christ in the New Testament obligated, are we instructed to tithe? We re not supporting the temple in Jerusalem. What is our obligation? Well, if you look carefully in the New Testament, you will find that the New Testament never commands Christians to tithe. To the contrary, we are told in the New Testament to give on a very different system. Listen to I Corinthians 16:2, where Paul says, Give in proportion watch to how God has blessed you. In Acts 11:29, the Bible says, Each disciple gave in proportion to their means. Here is the New Testament principle of giving. As followers of Christ, we are to give in proportion to how the Lord has blessed and prospered us. What does that mean? Friends, it means that for a single parent mom who s working to support her family, who has a disabled child, who has no child support, who has no alimony, in my opinion ten percent giving for her is probably way too high. On the other hand, for an empty nest couple whose kids are already through college and their college is paid off, a couple that s making in the six- or seven-figure range in income, I believe that giving God ten percent in this situation is an insult to God. It s not about picking 10% and saying, That s what we give. It s about looking at our lifestyle, looking at our income and what we have, and saying, Now Lord, what would be an appropriate level of giving for me?
You understand that the New Testament approach to giving places a far heavier accountability on you and me than tithing. In tithing, you give your ten percent, and you re done. It s just that simple. Friends, in the New Testament system, we must do a far deeper job of evaluating our spending and our lifestyle and deciding what the Lord really is pleased with in terms of our giving to Him. You say, So Lon, are there any biblical guidelines at all about how much we should think about giving? What is an appropriate guideline? Well, there is one. Do you remember the widow who came in and put the two mites in the temple treasury? That was about a quarter of a penny. Do you remember that? The Lord Jesus was so impressed with her gift, more so than all the other rich people giving thousands. Do you remember that? The Bible says in Luke 21:3, When the disciples questioned Him, Why are you so impressed with this woman? Jesus said, This woman put in more than all the others. You say, No, she didn t. She put in a quarter of a penny, and they put in thousands of dollars. But wait a minute. You ve got to understand that God is on a different method of accounting. Watch. Look what Jesus says. For they all gave out of their wealth, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on. You see, friends, with God it s not about the portion. God s not interested in the portion we give; He is interested in the proportion we give. It cost this woman something to give what she gave. She didn t even know where dinner was coming from; she put in her dinner money. She gave it all. That s what impressed Jesus, that she really communicated worship, because it cost her something. The rich people put in thousands of dollars, but it didn t cost them one thing. It didn t adjust their lifestyle one bit to give what they gave. Jesus said, I m not impressed with that at all. I m impressed that it cost this woman to give. If I had any guideline to give you, it would be this. We are to give in proportion to our income, and if we really want God to see this as worship giving, we are to give at a level where it genuinely costs us something to give to God. There is something we can t have that we want, something we can t buy that we want to buy because of the level at which we are giving to God. That s the guideline of the Bible.
Finally, the number four question is with what attitude should we give to God? II Corinthians 9:7 says, God loves a cheerful giver. You know, folks, I could get up here and lay all kinds of guilt on you about giving to God. I could lay all kinds of manipulative things on you about giving to God. I could probably, if I did it well, convince you to give and squeeze some money out of you if we wanted to do it that way, because guilt is a good motivator. It s not the biblical motivator, but it is a good motivator. But you know, this would not only be wrong, but it s completely contrary to the spirit of giving in the Bible. God doesn t want our giving to Him to be out of compulsion. He doesn t want our giving to be out of duty, obligation or guilt. No, no, no. Giving is worship, and friends, worship is only sincere if it s voluntary, if it is willing, and if it is cheerful. Now you ve never heard a pastor tell you not to give, but I m going to tell you with whatever you re giving to God, if you can t give it cheerfully, willingly, and excitedly, keep it. Keep it! Don t give it, because you re like one of the rich people coming into the temple. It doesn t impress the Lord in the least, and He doesn t consider it as worship. Friends, we ve got to be able to say, Lord Jesus, I m getting a bang out of giving to You, Lord. You mean so much to me, I m happy to give this to You. That s when the Lord says, Hey, do you see him, like the widow? Now this is worship, and this pleases Me. By the way, there s a lot more the Bible says about money that we haven t been able to cover today. I want to urge you, if you want to learn more on everything from consumer debt to greed and all kinds of things, there is a series in our BOOKstore called Stewardship. It s 6 CDs, and I encourage you to pick them up if you want to follow up with this and get a fuller treatment of everything the Bible says. Let s summarize what we ve learned today. We ve learned, number one, that giving to God is an act of worship. Number two, we ve learned that giving to God is a spiritual investment, upon which God pays exorbitant dividends both here on earth and in heaven. Then we asked four questions. Number one is when should I give? It doesn t matter, as long as it s consistent and regular, systematic and deliberate.
Number two, where should I give? Well, it s my opinion that the bulk of our giving should go to the instrument of the New Testament, and that is the local church we re attending. Number three, how much should I give? Friends, that s totally between you and God. The only two principles of the Bible are that we re to give in proportion to how the Lord has blessed us and if we really want God to consider it worship, then we have to give at a level that costs us something. Finally, with what attitude should I give? Friends, we need to be able to give cheerfully, voluntarily and enthusiastically to the Lord whatever it is that we re giving. Let me close with a true story that kind of sums all of this up. In 1835, George Mueller maybe some of you have heard of him was a pastor in Bristol, England. He sensed the call of God on his life to start an orphanage for all of the homeless children that were on the streets there in Bristol. He knew that would be an enormous undertaking, so before he agreed to do it, he said to the Lord, I m going to cast a fleece out there, Lord, to be sure I m right on this. Here s what I want You to do. I want You to send me a thousand pounds do you know how much money that was in 1835? but I m not going to ask one person for a penny. You send it in without me saying a word, and when I get it, I ll know You want me to start this orphanage. Well, he got the money without ever saying a word. He started this orphanage that changed the lives of thousands of children for Christ in England, but the largest single gift that made up this thousand pounds did not come from some wealthy benefactor. It was actually a gift of 105 pounds, ten percent of the total, and it came from a poor seamstress living in London. Here s the story. This poor seamstress, whose total annual income was eight pounds a year her father died and left her 480 pounds. She paid off all her debts, and after she had paid off all her debts, she had 105 pounds left. She went to see Mr. Mueller and said, I ve been praying about this, and the Lord s just laid it on my heart to give you this money. When he heard her story, Mueller said, I don t want it. I m not taking it. You need this money. This is twelve years of salary. I m not taking it. She insisted. She would not take no for an answer.
Finally Mueller said this. He said, In talking to her, I found her to be a quiet, calm follower of the Lord whose desire in giving away all this money was simply to take God at His word and lay up treasure in heaven. She ended by saying to me, The Lord Jesus gave His last drop of blood for me, and shall I not give Him my last hundred pounds? Let s pray. Lord Jesus, You know we ve talked today about a very sensitive and touchy issue. Yet, Lord Jesus, of all the people who should talk to us about money, it should not be our stockbroker or our financial advisor; it should be You telling us how to use money in a way that, at the end of our lives, we will be glad we did. So Lord, I hope I ve done a good job today of simply teaching the Word just as it is without any attempt to manipulate or cajole anyone, just teach the Word, Lord; that s my job. I hope people have received it in that spirit and that we can all internalize what You say to us about giving to You and that, Lord, we will respond in a way that every one of us will qualify as those people who send up a fragrant aroma of worship to You in our giving. Lord Jesus, use what we talked about today to change our lives, to change the way we handle our finances for the Lord Jesus sake. Help us lay up treasure in heaven so that when we get there, we will be glad we did. Lord, use all of this in our life today, we pray in Jesus name, and what did God s people say? Amen.