May 28, 2018

Giving – Don’t Be a Show-off by Ben Fronczek

http://granvillenychurchofchrist.org/?p=544

Giving – Don’t Be a Show-off

After Jesus came into the world He set a standard that was unheard of to the people of His day. They had a religion, they thought it was biblical. It was at least sophisticated and certainly complex, but it was substandard. In a previous lesson I talked about how Jesus raised the bar, or the standard on how they should conduct themselves; that the Christian’s standard of righteousness should even surpass that of the Pharisees and teachers of the Law.
In the Sermon on the Mt. He unveiled the problem with their religion. He tells these so called religious men that basically what they are doing is not much more than a show. He calls them hypocrites and the original Greek word there means, ‘An actor on a stage.’ So He was telling them that ‘You’re nothing but actors on a stage doing what you do for the applause of the people who watch.’ Their religion was a farce.
And here in Matthew chapter 6 Jesus picks out three elements of their religion to attack. #1 is their giving, #2 is how they prayed, and #3 is how they fasted. So this week and the next 2 weeks to follow we are going to look at these three topics in more detail.
Jesus get right down to teaching us our religious responsibility in letting us know that whatever we do in regard to worship, it should be coming from a pure heart not hypocrisy. He tells these men that their giving, their praying, and their fasting is nothing more than a show. And that is not Pleasing to the Lord.
In dealing with these elements, Jesus tell His disciples in chapter. 6, “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. (Then He tells His disciples how) But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
In other words, He says, now when it comes to how those Pharisees give, it’s hypocritical, but it ought not to be so. So He tells them what the problem is and then He offers them the solution.
Now when a preacher gets into the area of giving sometimes he open up a can of worms. It seems like we are getting bombardment from people asking for our money from so called “Christian causes:” from numerous requests on the radio, tv and even in our mail boxes.
But in the Bible I only read about only two kinds of giving, basically, two areas or things that they gave to. #1 was their systematic, structured, regular giving to the church. We know the Bible teaches that. In 1 Corinthians 16 it tells us that on the first day of the week we are to lay by and store as God has prospered us. We also see there that those early Christians lay by in store and gave a contribution to the church.
So the teaching there was that believing people gave weekly, every week, not just now and then but every week; a predetermined amount which they set aside to give to their church. I believe in doing so, we learn the importance lesson in stewardship of money. I believe that’s why God wants us to do it every week, so that every week we take stock of what we have as it relates to our funds and learn to be good stewards. It is a discipline.
So when it says in 1 Corinthians 16:1-2  “On the first day of the week lay by and store.” That is a systematic, structured giving as you purpose in your heart. But then there’s a second kind of giving we see in the Biblical text. That is giving to the poor and needy. This giving is an unstructured, unspecified, and spontaneous.  It is over and above giving to the church. Throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, we read about that kind of giving when a needy person crosses our path and we are encouraged to reach out and help that individual. (eg. Story of the Good Samaritan) Beyond giving to the church and those in need, the Bible is silent.
All too often we don’t like to hear sermons on giving. I believe it is an unpopular subject because #1 it has been abused,  and #2, I believe people don’t understand the blessing of giving that Bible speaks about.
To begin with, you have to begin with this premise; that God doesn’t really need your money. He can get along fine without it. In fact, God got along quite well throughout all eternity before He ever made you me and our money. I think some people forget that God ran the whole universe before there were any people in it, and it didn’t cost Him a penny.
So 1st of all we need to remember that we are not doing Him a big favor by giving Him a big check. God is not at the mercy of us and how much we give.
BUT the thing you and I must realize is that we need to give it. And why do we need to give? Because in giving we find  one of those Christian paradoxes I talked about last week. Like, how we really live by dying, or we become free by becoming a slave, or how we are the strongest when we are weak.  Well in this case the Bible teaches us over and over again that you receive a blessing when you give.
God tell us in scripture to give so that He may give you back even more. It is     a blessing promised by God that most of us forget or don’t even know about. Most people don’t realize that there’s a cycle of blessedness that takes place when we give.
I’d like to illustrate this from Scriptures. In Proverbs 11:24-25 it says, 24” One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. 25 A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.”
See the principle here? It’s like this  If a farmer too cheap to buy few bags of seed to sows in the ground he not going to have tons crops to harvest in the fall.  You see there is a cycle that needs to take place. You buy the seed, you sow it, and God produces the increase, multiplying the seed, producing a crop. If you sell it you get more money back than you paid for the original of bags of seed you bought to plant.  If you feed it to your cows that’s all the less you have to purchase, again money that’s in your pocket.  With that money you buy more seed the following year. You plant it, and you harvest tons of crops again and around and around and around you go. The whole thing depends upon your faithfulness to fork out some cash to buy the seed in the first place and sow it.
Do you realize a farmer takes everything he has and throws it in the dirt and operates on faith that God will give him a big return. God gives him that return and the cycle begins. That’s the illustration. A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed. In other words, as you give, God blesses. And when God blesses, you, out of His blessing,  you give again.
But if you step out of that circle, that cycle of blessing and don’t give, you don’t get a return. There’s no investment for God to bless and multiply. There’s no return, and that just keeps lending to more poverty. Pretty soon you’re out of resources. Isn’t that what Solomon said there in this Proverbs. He said, another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. “
And mind you, the principle about giving is not just about monetary things. The principle of giving is broader than just giving money. We can give our time, talents and acts of love which God will in turn bless and multiply.  I believe it is important to give because it puts us in a circle of blessing which demonstrates  our faith and reveals God’s willingness to bless us.
You give. God blesses. Out of His blessing you give again. There’s only one way to live as believing people. God says, and that’s to give, because you put yourself in the flow of His blessing.
Now the New Testament says a lot about some basic principles to consider as we give. I want to share some of them with you before I move to our text. Let me give you just eight simple principles to remember as you give. Eight simple principles that’ll help you to give in a non-hypocritical way.
#1 Giving is investing with God. That’s what I’ve been saying so far here. It puts you in the cycle of blessing.
In 2 Corinthians 9:6 says “If you sow sparingly, you reap sparingly. If you sow bountifully, you reap bountifully.” God does not need your money, but you need to invest with Him to get into the flow of His blessedness. Of course that’s not the only reason one should give, it’s not just about our greed and getting ahead with God’s help, but rather it’s investing in what is important to God, glorifying Him and hopefully expanding His kingdom.
2ndly We need to remember that giving should be sacrificial. David said, “I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”   You think or say, “God here, I don’t need this, this is what I have left over, you can have it.” That isn’t an act of love. This is the problem we read about in the book of Malachi. I believe God is please when we give something to Him which is important and valuable to us. Then it is a sacrifice pleasing unto the Lord.
I think of Mark 12 where Jesus sat and watched the Jews as they gave at the Temple. And then along came a poor little widow. All she only had was two mites, hardly worth anything.  And yet the Lord said she gave more than everybody else when she gave them.  Why? Because that’s all she had. It was the essence of her sacrifice that made her offering significant.
There’s a 3rd principle. Giving is never related to how much you have. People say “If I had more, I’d give more.” In Luke 16:10 it says He that is faithful in little will be faithful in much. And He that is unjust and little will be unjust in much.” Giving is not a matter of how much have, it’s a matter of where your heart is and where your commitment is. You can have a lot and be stingy or have just a little and be just as stingy, or you can have a generous heart whether you have a lot or just a little.
#4 How many spiritual blessing we have will be in direct proportion to our attitude about giving and how generous we are.  In other words, if you’re not faithful in what you do with what you have, God’s is not about to give you the true riches. In Luke 16:11-12 it says “So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? 12 And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?”
What are true riches? Spiritual things, Things of God; people, their souls ministry, and God is not about to give a strategic ministry to somebody who can’t handle money or other thing He has given them. There are many men who never made it through Bible school or seminary, some have even left ministry because they were poor stewards and the Lord didn’t want them in a position over His flock.  So depending how you handle what God has given you including your money, God may withhold some true spiritual responsibilities from you if you are not wise. So learn to be a good steward of what you already have now.
5th, What you give is up to you.  In  2 Cor. 9:7 it says, Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver..”  Whatever you purpose in or decide in your heart to give, that’s between you and God.  We read in Corinthians that the Macedonians gave abundantly out of their deep poverty. The Philippians gave because they chose to give out of a heart of love. There is no NT law on how much we should give. It is a freedom we have in Christ.  It’s your personal decision..
6th, We should give in response to particular needs. So then we should be sensitive to and listen to needs that come our way. In Acts 4 and Acts 5, the early church shared its resources because there were people who had a need. Paul went all through Asia Minor collecting money from the Gentile churches to give to the saints of Jerusalem because there was a need due to famine.
#7 Giving demonstrates our love, not law. As I already mentioned, there is no New Testament law commanding us to give a fixed sum. We’re not giving to please some legal system. Our giving should be an act of love and devotion to God and His children. That’s why it’s to be given cheerfully, not grudgingly . It’s not a law. It should be an act of love; a gift of love.
And I might sum this all up with number eight by saying that our giving should be generous, that’s right generous. And I believe how generous we are will be determined by all of these other factors.
It will come down to (How much do you want to invest with God?)
& (How much you willing to sacrifice for Him who sacrificed all for you?)
& (How much spiritual riches do you really want to be worthy of?)
& (How many needs do you really want to meet?)
& (How much love are you willing to demonstrate?)
So the point is God is not saying give because He needs your money.  He’s saying give because it’s a spiritual exercise that blesses your life. Now these principles cover our giving to the church and our giving to the needy, but let’s go to the giving to the needy because that’s the text we’re studying.
The Old Testament made it abundantly clear that the people of God were to give to the poor. In fact, in Leviticus 25:35 it tells people to give to the poor whether they’re a travelers or somebody who belongs in the land. In Deut. 15,  it says if you come across a poor person, make sure you meet his needs.
You can read it in Psalm 41:1, Proverbs 19, Proverbs 21, Proverbs 29, again and again. It says when you give to the poor, you give to the Lord.    Why?  Because this kind of giving put us into the cycle of blessing.
Such giving is investing with God, because this kind of  giving is directed to His children who cross our path who are in deep need. And so the Lord teaches on this matter of giving, because obviously the scribes and the Pharisees and the people following them were not giving with these principles in mind. They weren’t giving  self-lessly or out of a pure heart. They were giving to put on a show.
That’s why in the Sermon on the Mt. Jesus addresses that attitude. He said, “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.  “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
So what is He saying?   – Give, but don’t do it to toot your own horn. Don’t do it to show off in front of others to get their praise. If you do that then Jesus tells us that’s the only reward you’ll ever get.
Rather He said, ‘do it in secret,’ in such a way that the person you are helping won’t be embarrassed or humiliated. Do it in such a way other won’t see what you did and pat you on the back. Rather, do it out of love, and then Father God who sees what you have done in secret, will reward and bless you so that you will even be able to help others.
I think this teaching is pretty simple and to the point.
As we study the Sermon on the Mt., more than anything Jesus wants us to know that God is concerned about our heart, and the attitudes we have when we do things in His name.  And He lets us know right up front that there is no room for phony showoffs in His kingdom. Rather He wants His disciples to be humble, and motivated by love…So much so that we are will to make sacrifice in His name. Then He in turn will bless you by multiplying your blessings.
For more lessons click on the following link: http://granvillenychurchofchrist.org/?page_id=566

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