First Love First Fruits

First Love First Fruits The Joy of Extravagant Generosity Those who practice extravagant generosity thrive with the joy of abundance rather than starve with the fear of scarcity. Robert Schnase Is your life marked by the joy of extravagant giving or is your life constrained by the fear of scarcity? The holy habit of extravagant generosity reveals the truth of our hearts. Our giving is a reflection of our relationship with God. Is God our first love or have other lesser gods displaced that love? Those who freely give of the first fruits of their labor know what it is to love God and participate in the building of the kingdom. This year s leadership study focuses on the invitation to practice extravagant generosity born out of our relationship with God in Christ, our first love. The Call Banner

Did you know? Fifty years ago Americans consumed half as many goods and services per person as they do today. During that same amount of time, the size of homes tripled. Every day we buy more clothes, appliances, cars, books, televisions, and computers simply because we can (and often when we can t). Some sociologists have named this propensity to continually purchase and consume more affluenza. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-21 Twenty-four percent of people give forty-five percent of all charitable gifts. Take heed and beware of all covetousness; for a person s life does not consist of the abundance of possessions. Luke 12:15 Volunteering is among the strongest prediction of giving financially. Sixtythree percent of volunteers are financial donors, only seventeen percent of non-volunteers. remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive. Acts 20:35 In many congregations, the annual gift falls within the $200-1600 range, or about $16 to $35 per month or $4 to $30 per week. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each should give according to what they have decided in their heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. II Corinthians 9:6 2 2011 MVP Leadership Study

And you shall love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Love with ALL Lee Hodges Scripture: Deuteronomy 6:4-5; I Corinthians 13: 1-13 Mark 12:28-34 When asked by a scribe which part of the Torah matters most, Jesus, without hesitating, quotes the Shema. Listen, he calls us, this is what matters most! Love God with your all: all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength. Hold nothing back! Before anything else worship God. For only as we love God with our all will we come to understand what it means to be created in the image of God and experience a foretaste of the kingdom. But how do we love God with our all? Sometimes it is helpful to look at the original languages for intent. For example, the Hebrew word for heart is lebab which means enclosed; in Greek the word is kardia referring to the center of a person. So, when Jesus calls us to love with all of our heart, he is calling us to love God from the very center of our being. Likewise, the Greek word for soul is psuche meaning to breathe. To love with all our soul is to love God with every breath that we take. With heart and soul, we add the mind or dianoia so that our love would always be born out of our thoughts as well as our feelings. To heart, soul, and mind, we add strength in Greek, ischus that we might love with the very force of our being. God does not want us to love him with only part of our being. God yearns for us to bring our whole self into relationship with him. Yet, far too often, we hold back. We shy away from such depth of commitment. We pull away from the surrender involved in loving with our all. The paradox of loving God with our all is that until we do so, we will not learn how to love ourselves. And, until we have learned how to love ourselves, we cannot love our neighbor. Ultimately, to love our neighbor as ourselves means that we hold our possessions loosely, we suffer with one another, and we share our burdens. Scripture tells us that we can sell everything we have and give it to the poor, but if we do not love, our actions are empty. Faith, hope, love abide; but the greatest of these is love. Are you ready to love God with your all? And your neighbor as yourself? 3 2011 MVP Leadership Study

Questions for Reflection 1. Describe the last time you spent a significant time alone with God? 2. How would you rate your prayer life today as compared to two years ago? 3. When you take time to go into the Word, is it to deepen your relationship with God or is it in response to a particular ministry need? Holy Habit: First Love Read I Corinthians 13 aloud. Ponder which aspects of love described here are evident in your life. Which aspects are most likely to be extended to others? Least likely? What are the biggest barriers to the flow of love in your relationship with God and neighbor? What are the biggest enablers? Spend time in prayer with God offering your all. Lee Hodges, I Am a ladder to Heaven And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. -I Corinthians 13:13 4 2011 MVP Leadership Study

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices, Who wondrous things has done, in whom this world rejoices, Who from our mothers arms, hath blessed us on our way, With countless gifts of love and still is ours today. --Martin Rinkart, c. 1636 Gratitude Scripture: Psalm 136; Matthew 14:13-21; I Thessalonians 5:12-28 It was 1636, in the midst of the darkness of the Thirty Years War. A German pastor, Martin Rinkart, is said to have buried five thousand parishioners in that one year. This was an average of fifteen funerals a day. His parish was ravaged by war, death, and economic disaster. In the heart of that darkness, with the cries of fear outside his window, he sat down and wrote this table grace for his children: Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices; Who, from our mother's arms, hath led us on our way with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today. Here was a man who knew thanksgiving comes from love of God, and not from outward circumstances. Just fifteen years earlier the Pilgrims had celebrated the first Thanksgiving. They, also, were acknowledging their gratitude to God for God s "countless gifts of love." Whether expressed in the joy of plenty or in times of economic challenge, it is a good thing to give thanks to God. Giving thanks is evidence of faith. Thanksgiving reveals the depth of our fellowship. Clearly God s people have evidenced deep thanksgiving through the centuries, both in times of plenty and want. But, are we truly thankful? Do we practice thanksgiving not only in the good times but also in the hard times? Do we take time to thank God when it is easy? Are we able to thank Him when it is hard? Do we understand what our forebears instinctively knew: that there is no scarcity except in our souls and that gratitude is the heart s memory? Apparently, the disciples needed a reminder. And so, Jesus took a boy s simple offering of five fish and two loaves, gave thanks to God and all were fed with the leftovers filling twelve baskets. We who are daily besieged with the insidious disease of scarcity of not having enough we who find ourselves enslaved to the stuff of our lives would do well to remember who and whose we are. We were created for a purpose. We are not our own, as the apostle Paul reminds us. An old French proverb reminds us that gratitude is the heart s memory. What is your heart s memory? 5 2011 MVP Leadership Study

Questions for Reflection 1. For what are you grateful? 2. What role does the practice of thanksgiving play in your life? 3. What in your life makes it difficult to trust God? 4. How does gratitude inform your understanding of God and your life? Holy Habit: Count Your Blessings One by One! Over the next week, keep a gratitude journal. It can be as simple as a nightly list of those things for which you are thankful. Take note of the little things. Pay close attention to how God is at work in your life. And add to the list each day. As the list grows, offer God thanks and consider what gift of your time, talent and treasure you might offer in return. Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God s will for you in Christ Jesus. -I Thessalonians 5:16-18 6 2011 MVP Leadership Study

Bring the whole 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 there will not be room enough to store it. First Things FIRST Scripture: Malachi 3:10; II Corinthians 9:6-15; Luke 18:18-30 I was first taught how to tithe as a child. On Saturday nights each week, we would receive our allowance. But, to make sure that God came first, my father would always break out the tithe so that we might immediately place it in our offering envelopes for Sunday morning. As I ve grown, I find that I pay the bills the same way, God first and then the rest. What I ve found is that when God comes first, there is always enough and more to spare. Our tithes have a spiritual significance for our relationship with God. Richard Foster said, When we let go of money, we are letting go of part of ourselves and part of our security. But this is precisely why it is important to do it. It is one way to obey Jesus command to deny ourselves... When we give money, we are releasing a little more of our egocentric selves and a little more of our false security... Giving frees us to care. It produces an air of expectancy as we anticipate what God will lead us to give. It makes life with God an adventure in the world, and that is worth living for and giving for (Richard J. Foster, quoted in "Reflections," Christianity Today, 6-12-00). Malachi 3:10 We honor God when we show we are willing to trust him with our tithe and the rest as well. Imagine then what we could do if everyone here actually tithed. A few years ago, a Galveston church had a Tithing Demonstration Sunday for its members. On a designated Sunday everyone was asked to give a tithe of one week s salary. They urged everyone whether or not they usually tithed to give a tithe that one time. As you could imagine, the offering that Sunday was the largest ever given. In fact, it was six times the usual offering. The aftermath was even more exciting. Many who had never tithed before changed their attitude and decided if they could do it once, they could do it again. By the end of that year giving was up almost three times what it had been before the tithe demonstration. The people s enthusiasm was up more than that. Over and over, people gave testimonies of the many changes in their lives as God fulfilled his promise in Malachi 3:10. All of this came from a simple obedience to the God who provides. 7 2011 MVP Leadership Study

Moses said to all the congregates the Lord has commanded: Take from among you an offering to the Lord; let whoever is of a grateful and generous heart bring the Lord s offering. Exodus 35:4-5 Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. -II Corinthians 9:7 Questions for Reflection 1. How does the knowledge that all that you have belongs to God affect your life? 2. How does the way you were brought up affect your stewardship? 3. List the strengths (or weaknesses) bequeathed to you with regard to money and consider the legacy you are passing on to others. What do you want people to say about the stewardship of your resources when you are gone? 4. Do you already give a percentage of your income, rather than an amount? If not, are you ready to do that? If so, consider increasing your percentage through committing to a relational tithe? (see holy habit) Holy Habit: Relational Tithe God has created an economy of abundance and intends for us to care for one another. This call is lived out not simply or even primarily by benevolence, charity, or even philanthropy, but through a call to Christian community. Economic sharing was a mark of the early church: No one claimed that any of their possessions were their own, but they shared everything they had There were no needy persons among them (Acts 4:32, 34). The Relational Tithe is a means by which we can participate in God s economy and care for one another. It s simple. Commit with a group of friends to tithe (10%) of your income into a common fund to meet the needs of one another and the needs of people in your community. Then allow God to direct your shared giving. For more information: www.relationaltithe.com Holy Habit for Children: Start a Shepherd s Purse Set aside a shepherd s purse. Collect all your loose change and put it in a purse or jar. Then when you hear of a need, offer what is in your shepherd s purse. Or check out other opportunities to give through www.samaritanspurse.org 8 2011 MVP Leadership Study

Enter into the JOY of your master! Risk Management Scripture: Psalm 8; Revelation 21:1-6; Matthew 25:14-30 We are a people swimming in anxiety. And, it is easy to understand the preservationist attitude that is popping up in some quarters the attitude that believes we are to protect what we have at all costs from whatever foe. However, such an attitude is neither biblical, nor Reformed. We are a covenant people called to be a sign in and for the world of the new reality, which God has made known in and through Christ. Even our Book of Order urges us to risk everything for the sake of the kingdom: The Church is the body of Christ. Christ gives to the Church all the gifts necessary to be his body. The Church strives to demonstrate these gifts in its life as a community in the world (1 Cor. 12:27 28): The Church is to be a community of faith, entrusting itself to God alone, even at the risk of losing its life. F-1.0301. As members of the Body of Christ, we are not to live out of a sense of scarcity. We are not to bury our talents. Mission calls us to risk all for the kingdom. The parable guides us to see our lives in the context of risking what we have been given... thereby reminding us that all that we have and all that we are is a gift from God. The question is who do you relate to most in the Parable of the Talents: the one-talent, the two-talent, or the five-talent person? Are you living a life guided by fear of loss? Or do you trust God enough to step out in faith for the kingdom? Think about it another way which is worse: the possible loss of your money or the loss of your relationship with God due to your failure to take risks? The Parable of the Talents is about the one thing that is necessary: trust in God. The judgment is rendered on faith-in-action, not on the results of that faith. God is not a bookkeeper counting pennies here. The only bookkeeper in the story is the servant who chose to fear an audit that was never going to come. And to underscore this, Jesus has the Master say to the useless servant that he would have accepted anything even rock-bottom interest in a savings account that the one talent might have produced as a result of faith-in-action. Enter into the joy of your master! At its center, this parable is about joy. The only reason judgment comes into this story at all is the sad fact that there will always be those who refuse to trust in God. It s grim when we realize that, in the light of our own habitual guilt, shame, and fear, that we are often the people who fail to trust God. 9 2011 MVP Leadership Study

Questions for Reflection 1. How are you currently a steward of God s gifts to you? Do you hoard God s gifts? Or have you risked them in order to multiply them for God s kingdom use? 2. When have you given sacrificially, that is, gone without, so that someone else could have? What was the experience like for you? 3. When have you failed to give? What was that like? 4. What would it look like for you to engage in the practice of multiplication born of God s risk management? Holy Habit: A Giving Covenant with God Risk is something with which many of us have become all too familiar. The volatility of the stock market and the collapse of the subprime market have been sobering and provided a much needed reality check. Yet there is no way to entirely eliminate risk from our lives. Risk is intentional exposure to uncertain change. Risk, uncertainty, and change go hand in hand. Risk management may be a modern phenomenon, but the characters in Jesus parable of the talents certainly knew about risk. It is important to remember that the Parable of the Talents is not about capitalism. The parable is about building the kingdom. The lesson of this parable is that we are to intelligently risk that which God entrusts to our care for the sake of the kingdom. God gives us talents, time, and treasure, and expects that we will put them to good use. Each one of us possesses an abundance of resources that God asks us to use. The deciding factor in life is not what God gives us but what we do with what God gives us. One of the marks of spiritual growth is the desire and ability to put fear aside and to take risks for God. Commitment is the first step. Are you ready to commit to a giving covenant with God like the one on this page? If you are, be prepared to find your life transformed! My Giving Covenant 1. I affirm God s full ownership of me and everything entrusted to me. 2. I set aside the first fruits at least 10%--of my every wage and gift I receive as holy and belonging exclusively to the Lord. 3. Out of the remaining treasures God entrusts to me, I seek to make generous free will gifts. 4. I ask God to teach me to give sacrificially to his purposes, including helping the poor and reaching the lost. 5. Recognizing that I cannot take earthly treasures from the world, I determine to lay them up for heavenly treasures for Christ s glory and the eternal good of others and myself. 6. I ask God to show me how to lead others to the present joy and future reward of the Treasure Principle. Source: The Treasure Principle 10 2011 MVP Leadership Study

Extravagant Giving! Is your life marked by the joy of extravagant giving or is it constrained by the fear of scarcity? Too often we confuse our stewardship with meeting a budget. We worry about the size of the gift expected of us and what impact that will have on our personal budget. The story of the widow s mite models extravagant giving for our times and points us to God s economy. While she was ridiculed by the Pharisees for the size of her gift, Jesus praised her for her trust in and love of God. Her gift, though small in monetary terms, represented a deep trust in God s faithful provision. She dared to entrust her life to God s care, giving freely of what little she had. As Jesus pointed out to the disciples, what counted was not the amount but the spirit in which the widow gave to God. Put another way: The stewardship question is not really how much we give. The stewardship question is how we spend what we have been given. The widow s giving reflected the true depth of her faith. Likewise, what we give reflects the depth of our faith great or small. Money is not spend our money really lies. talked about than any other Where our hearts will be also! All these people gave out of their wealth, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on. Luke 21:3-5 everything. But how we reflects where our treasure Perhaps that s why Jesus money and possessions more subject in the gospels. treasure is, there our A pastor from Georgia recently did an analysis of giving in his congregation. Where do you fit in the analysis? 1. A very few cannot pledge as much as last year. 2. Some are now giving all they can. 3. Almost everyone can pledge something. 4. Most could increase their giving by growing one step. 5. Some could increase their giving by 25% or more. 6. Others increase their giving by 50% or more. 7. Others could double their giving. 8. All of us can give thanks for God s many blessings. May we dare to give extravagantly, knowing that our God s abundance is revealed through our active participation in kingdom economics. Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices! 11 2011 MVP Leadership Study

Selected Bibliography Books The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn & Howard Dayton The Big Book of Presbyterian Stewardship by Elaine Barnet, Laura Gordon & Margaret Hendrix Giving & Stewardship in an Effective Church by Kennon Callahan Financial Parenting by Larry Burkett & Rick Osborne Not Your Parents Offering Plate by J. Cliff Christopher Sabbath Economics by Ched Myers Economy of Love by Relational Tithe Five Practices (including Extravagant Generosity) by Robert Schnase Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ron Sider God s Economy by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove Websites www.ausable.org www.creationcare.org www.crown.org www.daveramsey.com www.generousgiving.org www.relationaltithe.com www.thesimpleway.org 12 2011 MVP Leadership Study