Sermons

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Giving: Grace and Glory
November 11, 1990
Stewardship Sunday
Jeff Van Duzer
2 Corinthians 8:7-15, 9:1, 6-15

If any of you have been coming to Bethany for any length of time at all, I suspect that you will agree with me when I say that Stewardship Sunday is not exactly one of the church's high holy days.

In fact, if on the wrong Sunday in November you happen to have to get up to go to the bathroom during announcements, you may come back and find that you've missed our entire Stewardship Drive.

The drive is comprised of a brief message such as you heard this morning from the church treasurer and then a blurb in the back last paragraph of the bulletin. I noticed this week though we don't have it in the bulletin, so I think we are having kind of a "low profile" Stewardship Drive.

It's been this way ever since I've been here for 10 years. This has really been Bethany's approach to talking about stewardship and talking about giving to the church. There seem to be a number of reasons why is has come out that way at Bethany.

One of the reasons, frankly is that (by and large) the church has not needed to do more. In the 10 years that I've been here, I'm not aware of any instance where the church was really in financial difficulty. We've always had enough money to cover the budgeted expenses and we've had enough to give away the budgeted gifts that we intended to make. So, there's not been a sort of need for a higher profile Stewardship Drive in order to raise more money.

I think the real reason for our approach to Stewardship, though, has more to do with the character of the leadership of the church and the congregation as a whole. It's my sense that this particular congregation strongly desires to welcome people into our midst and is just frightened at the prospect that we would put anything in the way of someone coming here and meeting God.

In light of the unfortunate excesses and problems that have developed in Christian circles over the last several years, I think we have also shied away from talking on this subject for fear that we might communicate to newcomers that we are really interested in them largely because of what they would add to our coffers rather than welcoming them for what we genuinely want, which is that they'll come and find God. As a result, we have stayed a long way away from this subject. In many ways that's been good, but I think it has brought with it a cost to this congregation.

As I was getting ready for this morning, I was reading texts on money and giving. I realized that this notion of giving, tithing, or contributing to the saints - is a spiritual discipline that has been ordained by God. It is much like prayer, Bible study, or other disciplines that God has given.

Giving is something that God has set up for his people. Like all disciplines, if we practice it, it is intended to draw us closer to God. I think one of the costs has been that we have not encouraged one another to the extent that perhaps we should have in the practice and appropriation of this discipline.

Throughout the New Testament the giving money is mainly talked about as a privilege and it is a gift to be able to give. We have tended to shy away from sharing some of this privilege and gift with one another. So today I intend to reverse this trend and I'm going to talk about giving, giving money, and giving money to the church.

My text this morning comes from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, the sort of great giving passages chapters 8 and 9. I'm going to read some selected verses this morning. You should know that Paul is writing to the Church at Corinth and generally saying to them,

'Look I want you to put together a collection - a sum of money so that when I come to Corinth I can take that money and together with some delegates from Corinth, I can go to the church in Jerusalem and we can give the money to that church that needs it.'

That's the overall framework of what is trying to do in these two chapters (see links above).

Paul offers the church at Corinth four reasons to contribute to the collection he's taken up. I want to take each of these reasons in turn. They really have kind of a progression. They start from the ones he least emphasizes and work up to the reasons that he thinks are most important or most significant.

The first reason he gives is the one you might expect. There's a need. The church in Jerusalem has a need and the church in Corinth has some capacity to fill the need. At the present time Corinth's plenty will supply Jerusalem's want.

The focus here is that when you give money away, it is good for the person who gets it. It's good for the person who receives it because that person can then go take care of the need that (s)he has and that's a valid basis on which to give.

I want you to know about the needs Bethany will have in the coming year for money. We don't usually do this, but I think we should. This year the budget for the church was $366,000. That's what we expected to receive in gifts and offerings and that's what we expected to spend in both maintaining the ministries of this church and giving to other ministries through the church.

It turns out that unless we have some unusual events in December, there will be a significant shortfall this year in the giving. We anticipate that we will come in about $30,000 under what we had budgeted this year.

Now, that's not good, but there are a couple of silver linings that you should be aware of. One is, that this has been a year of transition for us. We are between permanent pastors, and it is typical for churches that go through transitions to see a significant drop in giving- in fact a far more significant drop than we have seen. So you could say we are doing well under the circumstances.

There is also another silver lining which I think you should be aware of and that's this; the church is running in the black. We are not going into the hole. While our receipts are down, our expenditures have come down as well. And the real reason that our expenditures are down is because this year, in contrast to our historical approach and our budgeted approach, we are way under staffed. We have far fewer staff this year than we have traditionally had. Now when you think about next year, I want you to know that is coming to an end.

In a month and a half from now, we will have our permanent head of staff, Dr. Bruce Murphy. We will almost certainly have a full-time CE director and within a short period of time, a part-time Associate Pastor.

Now that's not an unusual level of staffing, that's our traditional level of staffing, but that's much higher than what it's been this year and so we will need more giving next year than we have had this year.

You should also know that about 20% of the church's budget goes to ministries that are not the church's ministries. It goes to parachurch organizations and international ministries. There's no reason to expect that those needs will come down next year. In fact, they are likely to go up.

So we have significant need for money at Bethany and that would be a legitimate basis on which you could decide to pledge. Now having said all that, let me say this - it is interesting to me to notice how little focus, how little attention is given to this reason for giving in Paul's letter.

In these two chapters, Paul says nothing about what the real needs of the church of Jerusalem are, or how the money being collected in Corinth is going to be spent. Contrast that with the usual American Christian fundraising efforts. I don't know if you get them, I get these letters, "Could you give?"

They are perfectly appropriate, but they always focus on the nature of the need and what my giving will do to help fix that need. For example, you know there are people starving in Somalia and Ethiopia and if you give $500 you can feed a family for 2 years. It's what my dollar will accomplish for the recipient of the gift. A certain number of dollars will buy a certain number of Bibles to go into the Soviet Union at this critical time. What my dollars will accomplish for the recipient of the gift.

That seems to me to be almost the exclusive focus when we talk about raising money now. But it is given just a hand wave of attention by Paul in his letter. In fact, Paul is far more interested in the second reason than in his first. If the first reason is what is good for the person that gets the money, then Paul is far more focused on what is good for the person who gives the money.

See, I always used to think that if I had $100 in my pocket, and there was somebody there that needed $100, I could give them $100. That would be good for them, because they would be able to take care of their problem. It would be bad for me, because I would have $100 less in my pocket to go do what I wanted to do with it.

Paul says that's all wrong. He says - yea, it's probably good for the person you gave $100 to. I suppose they could probably go and do something useful with it. But the real thing that's good about it is that you got rid of $100 you had.

Isn't that great?

Now I admit it's a little counter-intuitive. But it's true, that's what Paul is saying. The true reason, the 2nd reason is not so much what is good for the person that gets the gift, it's good for the giver.

Now I think I understand why that should be. You can see it in the text. It says here's my advice - Corinthians - about what's best for you. You started to give last year, now finish it.

The reason for this is hard to understand unless we have a brief understanding of the biblical theology of money. And so I want to share that with you.

You may have heard the somewhat standard evangelical line, "Money is neutral - it is neither good nor bad." You can use money for good or for bad, but in-and-of-itself, it is nothing. It's just money.

And people that espouse this view generally quote that verse on the love of money as 'the love of money' being the root of all evil, emphasizing that it's really loving money that's the root of all evil, not having money. And if you have a bunch of money but you don't love it, it'd be ok because money is neutral.

I mean I think that's really the generally prevailing view. I also think it's wrong, or at least inadequate.

And I think in some ways, it may be at least in part infected by the idolatry and materialism of the American church more than it is a sort of biblical witness about money.

When Jesus talks to people listening to the Sermon on the Mount, he says,

Do not store up treasures here on earth, because where you put your treasures is going to be where your heart is.

He doesn't say,

Well, put your treasures anywhere you want, but guard your heart.

Instead, he says,

Do not stores up treasures here because where your treasures are and that's where your heart will be.

You see, I do not believe that money is neutral. I believe that money has power. I don't mean to tell you that money cannot be used for good - it can. It can also be used for bad.

But money inherently is not neutral. It has a power that-if you hold it- will tend to draw you away from God. It is a temptation. That doesn't mean necessarily that you immediately drop everything you've got, but it means that you need to be aware of that power in money.

I've been reading to my kids at bedtime, the Tolkien trilogy, Fellowship of the Ring. And if you've read this before, you'll know that the story begins. It begins with picking up the adventure that has come to completion almost the prelude to this book called The Hobbit.

In the Hobbit, the main character is Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo runs around and has all these adventures. In the course of his adventures, he discovers a ring, which proves very useful to him because he can put the ring on his finger and disappear. It gets him out of a lot of jams, so he carries this ring around with him and uses it from time to time.

Now it turns out at the beginning of this next book one of the main characters in this story, Gandalf, the wizard. Gandalf has learned some things about this ring and Gandalf knows that this ring is not as innocent as people thought. In fact, this ring is created by the Evil One and has a tremendous power to begin to such the holder of the ring in.

So Bilbo has agreed that he will leave the ring behind and Gandalf, because Bilbo got to go on another trip, Gandalf very much wants him to leave it behind. And I want to read a little bit about this exchange here.

"Gandalf looked again very hard at Bilbo and there was a gleam in his eyes. 'I think Bilbo,' he said quietly, 'that I should leave the ring behind. Don't you want to?'

'Well, yes and no. Now that it comes to it, I don't really like parting with it at all. It is mine, I tell you, my own, my precious, yes, my precious and I shall keep it I say.'

Gandalf stood up and spoke sternly, 'You will be a fool if you do, Bilbo. You make that clear with every word you say. It has got far too much hold on you, let it go and then you can go yourself and be free.'

Bilbo drew his hand over his eyes, 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but I felt so queer and yet it would be a relief in a way not to be bothered with it anymore. It has been so growing on my mind lately. Sometimes I have felt it was like an eye looking at me. I'm always wanting to put it on and disappear don't you know or wondering if it's safe and pulling it out to make sure. I tried locking it up but I found I couldn't rest without it in my pocket. I don't know why. I don't seem to be able to make up my mind.'

'Then trust mine.' said Gandalf, 'it is quite made up. Go away and leave it behind. Stop possessing it.

Now I believe that money is like Bilbo's ring. In the beginning you can take it and it can be used for good and you can take it and think that you are sort of in control of it. But the longer that you sort of play, nurture, think, hold and count it, the more it begins to take power over you.

Now, it does it in a lot of ways, let me just give you a couple of specifics.

a) Money can create in us a craving that it can never satisfy.

I call it a craving for a little bit more. I told you this example before but I think it bears repetition.

There was a survey done of people on an economic spectrum. All up and down the economic spectrum starting from the near homeless up to the CEO's of Fortune 500's companies, they asked these folks two questions:

Do you now make enough/have enough to be content?

If we gave you 5% more, then would you have enough?

And all up and down the spectrum, the answer was, yeah, that would do it, just a little bit more, a little bit more.

You know, I've seen it. I've seen it in my law firm. Until last year I was on the share committee that would divide up the profits that the partners would share and we would send them around a questionnaire asking them how much they thought they ought to get each year. And generally, the answers we would get would be something like this: what I got last year was about right, it was fine, but this year I think I should have a little bit more, just a little bit more.

And you know, I tell you that it's this continual emphasis in my firm I think on this 'a little bit more, a little bit more' that has caused us to begin to do some things that are not healthy. We've begun to ratchet up hours, we've begun to squeeze down expenses. People are less happy than they were before, even though they are making a little bit more.

And we will continue. And that's just not our firm. Frankly, I think this is across the board in business in America today. We will continue to crave a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more and if someone doesn't stop it, it will kill us. And that's one of the things money will do.

b) Money can begin to define who we are.

If you hold onto money, it works like any other idol. It begins to give you a sense of your real identity. What we say is, "How much is this person worth?" When we say that, what we really mean is, " What does their balance sheet look like?"

But our words communicate something. You know when you graduate from school, you don't get grades anymore. You get money, and we begin to use money as a way to evaluate what we are worth.

Increasingly, we begin to determine our sense of well-being by the amount of money we're getting. We put our trust in our pension plans, not in the providence of God. When we're restless and bored, we turn to money, we go shopping. Money begins to be the way to solve our problems and it gives us identity.

Now, if that's true about money and I believe it is, then what Paul says makes a lot more sense. Because every time you give money away, you are breaking the grip that money has on you. You see, if you give money away you're saying, 'Ha! Look at that! You don't define me! Who I am is independent of you. I give you away! Look at that. Ha!'

If you turn away from defining yourself with money and release your grip on it, you open yourself up. You turn instead to God and His grace and you open yourself up to receiving the generosity of God. That's why Paul can say, 'If you sow bountifully, you reap bountifully.' The second reason he gives is because it's good for you, it's good for the giver.

I have two more reasons but they're quick.

Third reason is this: By giving you glorify God. I don't know if you've thought about that before, but he says,

But of this service by which you've proved yourself, you will glorify God.

This word glorify means to reveal God's character. So, when you give you are glorifying, you are revealing the very character of God. Do you know why? Because our God is the greatest giver of all time. We get a God who is extravagantly generous. He just kind of hangs around on tiptoes looking for another opportunity to shower somebody with gifts. And every time you and I give, we show the world what our God is like.

I'll tell you one other part about giving. When we give at distances, I think it's very important to Paul that the Gentile church in Corinth would give to what is essentially Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, because by doing that they affirm that they were one body in Christ.

When our money goes and we help support folks in China, Africa, and Central America, we are affirming that we are one body and that there is a unity to us and that affirmation again reveals the unity of the Godhead - it reveals God's character. Another reason to give, the third reason to give, is that we glorify and show who God is.

Then, there's the last and really the highest reason. The basic message, in spirit of all these other reasons from chapters 8 and 9 in Corinthians is that we give because God gave to us. Our gift is a response to the great gift that we've received.

At the very beginning of chapter eight he begins,

And now brothers we want you to know about the grace that God has given us.

And at the very end of chapter nine he says,

Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift.

All of his talks to the Corinthians about contributing to the collection is bracketed on the front and the back by this great affirmation of the grace and giving of God. He says to them in the middle of this,

You, yourselves know of the grace of the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know that God gave freely, he stepped down from his divine providence and he became poor. He took on our human likeness and in that poverty that went to the cross, where he took our sins, he did that in order that we might be rich.

And at the deepest level, really I think the most mature level, we are to live our Christian life out of a response to greatness that has been given to us. I can't tell you frankly that I am all the way there or that most of my Christian life is just a response out of great sense of gratitude. But I think it's the right direction, and it's the direction I want to pray that we will all head...that ultimately, the main reason that we give is because we know how much has been been given to us.