Stewardship

It seems that God blesses generations with defining sermons, with defining moments that calls out their particular idols and calls them to a specific obedience. My generation received such a sermon, such a message in the year 2000, when John Piper, and I'm just going to read a very short, brief section of the sermon, gave a sermon that called us away from our idols, called us to obedience to Christ. This is John Piper. I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider a story from the February 1998 edition of Reader's Digest, which tells about a couple who took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago, when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball, and collect shells. At first, when I read it, I thought it might be a joke, a spoof on the American dream. But it wasn't. Tragically, this was the dream. Come to the end of your life, your one and only precious God-given life, with the last great work of your life. Before you give an account to your creator, be this, playing softball and collecting shells. Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment. Look, Lord, see my shells? That is a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. Over against that, I put my protest, don't buy it, don't waste your life. Piper's giving a very weighty challenge. Christ does not call us to be consumers. Christ does not call us to live an American dream where we seek comfort. Christ calls us to see that everything we have been given is meant to be used to glorify His name and to bless others. And the big picture here, the focus, we ought to live life thinking about that final day when we have to give an account to Christ, this is what I did. This is what I said. This is how I used this one and only life you've given to me. The way we live our life should be changed when we remember we're going to have to give an account. We will be held responsible. Christians, those who believe in Christ, we will have to give an account. This is why we're going to look at this very important, oftentimes overlooked and forgotten topic of Christianity, stewardship. This is a key word. This is a key idea, an important idea that goes throughout all of scripture, stewardship. This is stewardship. To recognize that we are entrusted with great gifts from God, and that we are called to manage those gifts according to His plan and His purpose. To recognize that we are entrusted with great gifts from God. He is the good and perfect giver of every good gift. And that we are called to manage those gifts according to His plan and His purpose. This is what we were created for. This is what Christians are redeemed for. All of life, every aspect of life, we are supposed to see it as a responsibility. Every relationship, every bit of time, every resource, every bit of love, every ounce of worship, it's all responsibility. We have to think God's thoughts after Him. We have to train ourselves to think like this because this does not come naturally to sinners. We can go back to creation and see the framework already established for how we're supposed to live, how we're supposed to view the stuff we have. God is the one absolute authority. We were created by Him for a task. God took Adam and Eve, placed them in the garden, and gave them work. Here's the garden that I'm giving to you. Work it. Keep it. They had a responsibility from the very beginning to reflect God's glory and order in creation. Not only that, but man and woman, Adam and Eve, they had a responsibility towards one another. We see this most discouragingly in the fall, when Adam was supposed to be there protecting his wife, providing for her, and yet he let Satan lie to her and let her believe the lie, engaging in the sin himself by being present, but not protecting. A husband and wife, when they have children, that's taking on another responsibility. A child is a responsibility. Siblings, you have a responsibility towards one another. Yes, you are meant to be your brother's keeper. Here's one of the lines we have to press against and fight against. We're not independent. We're not sovereigns. We are created to see everything in life as a responsibility so that we take it for what God says it's supposed to be and live according to his plan. Stewardship is where we recognize the great responsibility we have towards God and man. The beauty of this is it actually comes down to the two most important commands. Love God, love your neighbor. Those are responsibilities. Those are things that God has said, this is good. To love God means we worship him, we obey him, we submit to him. To love our neighbor means we honor him, we care for him, we help him. This morning, we're going to talk about stewardship. And we're going to talk about one that makes us Americans really uncomfortable. We're going to talk about the stewardship of money. The reason this makes us uncomfortable is that as Americans, we are consumers. God doesn't call us to be consumers. He calls us to be managers. He calls us to be held accountable and good stewards, to be managers of what he gave us. And we are sinners. We don't seek to manage what God has given us. We seek to use it for ourselves. Money is our comfort. our power, our balm, our security. Sadly, it's oftentimes our identity. Money is our idol. We're all rich. It's hard to see sometimes because we put the standards so high because we corrupted the idea what money is. Now, here's how you can know it's an idol. You know it's an idol based upon how uncomfortable you are that we're going to talk about it. You know you put your finger on an idol when you start feeling discomfort. And so don't let your sin tempt you to think, I don't need to hear this. We've got it under control. No, this is a mysterious, pressing, important idol that we all have. Your level of discomfort demonstrates the danger money has as an idol. Because here's one of the things that we are constantly pressed in on by our world. We believe the lie that one's worth is related to a dollar amount. We believe the lie that one's worth is related to a dollar amount. We're either too proud about what we have or too embarrassed about what we don't. This is why the picture of that New Testament church is so powerful. It's not actually that they had all things in common. It's that they recognized that common identity of being a new child in Christ that was worth giving up everything. That's the powerful picture of that New Testament church, that that identity, it wasn't about loving money. It wasn't about a status in life. It was about Christ. We will either love God or we will love money. For those of you who like to take notes, Here is the one point that I will make throughout the sermon that doesn't have an outline. So I'm giving you one thing while you don't get another. We have been purchased by the blood of Christ so that we can use God's gifts for His glory. We have been purchased by the blood of Christ so that we can use God's gifts for His glory. Will you pray with me? God, we thank you that you are the giver of every good and perfect gift. You are the good God who gives good things to your people who are sinful. We thank you for the grace that you redeem us while we are still sinners. We thank you for the grace that you continue to pour out your blessing. We pray that you would give us grace to repent to see all that we have and to thank you for it and to honor you with it. We thank you, God. We thank you that your word is clear. We thank you that your Holy Spirit empowers that word. Convict us, correct us. Help us, Lord, to have a proper identity in Christ and to live that life out. for your glory, in Jesus' name we pray, amen. So you should be asking this point, why are we talking about money? Well, the first reason we're talking about money is that the Bible talks about money, a lot. Secondly, Jesus talked about money, a lot. 11 of 39 parables involve money. He talked about money more than heaven and hell combined. Third, more practically, this is where we are in Deuteronomy, believe it or not. Sam has preached the last two weeks. If you go two weeks before that, I took an ambitious piece of text from Deuteronomy 12 to 16 and had to skip two chapters. And so I'm going back and recovering that lost opportunity. We're gonna be in Deuteronomy 14 and 15. If you're using a pew Bible, that can be found on page 158. Here's a few principles. Again, not an outline, but a few principles that are going to guide the way we want to think about stewardship. God blesses us abundantly with good gifts. That has to be the beginning point. God is the one who blesses us with good gifts. Secondly, God gives us gifts for his glory. That's over against ours. He gives us good gifts for his glory. Third, in our sin, we neither thank him or honor him with those gifts. That's what's wrong. In our sin, we neither thank Him or honor Him with those gifts. Fourth, God calls us to repent and be good stewards and give us the grace to do so. He calls us to repent and be good stewards. Finally, God has redeemed us so that we can be cheerful givers. He blesses us with good gifts. He gives us those gifts for His glory. In our sins, we neither thank Him or honor Him with those gifts. He calls us to repent. He redeems us to be cheerful givers. We have been purchased by the blood of Christ so that we can use God's gifts for His glory. Let's start with the text in Deuteronomy. We're not going to remain here long, but we want to look at what God's word said to Israel right before they're about to enter the promised land. He's giving instruction to these Israelites so they know how to worship him. And we see here in chapter 14, beginning in verse 22, it's about tithing. Here, God's word, Deuteronomy 14, beginning in verse 22. You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. And before the Lord your God and in the place that he will choose to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain and your wine and your oil and the firstborn of your herd and flock that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. And if the way is too long for you so that you are not able to carry the tithe, then when the Lord your God blesses you because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money and bind it up, the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses. And spend the money for whatever you desire, oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice. You and your household, and you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you. At the end of every three years, you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns. And the Levite, because he has no portion of inheritance with you, and with the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled. The Lord your God may bless you in all the works. of your hands that you do. A few high points, or a few just clear observations, they're called to tie the year after year. One of the most amazing things in this verse is, this passage is, verses 23 through 26, a good portion, a large portion of this, it's already trying to take away the excuse not to obey. God knows his sinful hearts. our sinful hearts, God knows our sinful hearts, and he's already trying to keep away this excuse, well, I live too far away, God, it won't keep. Well, no, this is what you're going to do. There is no excuse for not obeying. Something else that needs to be explained here is that twice we heard the Levite who's within your towns, he has no portion. All the other tribes, they got land. We'll see that when we get to Joshua about a year from now. All the other tribes, they got land. The Levites, they didn't get land. They are called to minister before the Lord on behalf of the people. The people are called to care for them because they're not the ones who are doing the agricultural work. They're the ones who are doing the ministering before the Lord on behalf of the people. So we see some explanation there. Let me just pull out a little bit. First, the tithes of the feast, the tithe of the poor, and the tithe for the Levite. These are three different tithes. Now, if you add that up, I'm not a math major, that's 30%. We usually think of a tithe as 10%, and there's actually three different tithes. There's a tithe of the feast, which we see in verse 22 through 27. It's a great celebration that the village and the tribe and the nation, they gather together to celebrate what God has given them. This is part of keeping a corporate identity. To come together to bring everything you have to celebrate. We're the redeemed people of God. We're going to celebrate His name. We're going to celebrate what He has given us. It's a reminder to fear the Lord always. That's a corporate responsibility. Then you see in verse 28 and 29, there's a tithe for the poor. This one's every three years, and it's not that the poor only got food every three years, they would be staggered, different people would tithe every three years. But here you see the call to care for the poor, those who don't have an inheritance, the Levite, the fatherless, the widow, those who aren't able to provide for themselves, the corporate nation, the tribe, the village, they're supposed to care for them. The third is actually found over in Deuteronomy 18. If we look at verses one through eight, this is the call to make provision for the Levite, and you see the key verse in 18.5, for the Lord your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons for all time. So we see three different tithes, three different 10%s that the Israelites were supposed to give to the poor, to a feast to those who are ministering before them on their behalf. God wants to give us a reminder constantly. God wants to give Israel a reminder that he is the one who blesses them. He's the one who's delivered them. He's the one who gathers them. That's why there's a celebration. There's a tithe because they need to realize the poor among us, that they're part of who we are. We must care for them. And then the Levite, those who are ministering. Now, before we move on to think about tithing as Christians, we need to look at Deuteronomy 15, because this is connected to stewardship. This is talking about the sabbatical year. I want to give you kind of some heads up before I read the whole chapter. Verses one through six, these are introductory rules. If you're a creditor, you have to forgive debt. Verses seven through 15, this is how you think about the brother who you have put in debt and how he is to be freed. Verses 16 to 18 is what happens if that brother wants to remain under your care as a servant. So the structure is one through six, seven through 15, 16 through 18. Now, I want you to listen for two key words. Hand and heart. Hand and heart. At the end of every seven years, you shall grant a release. And this is the manner of the release. Every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the Lord's release has been proclaimed. Of a foreigner you may exact it, but whatever of yours is with your brothers, your hand shall not release. Notice there, your hand shall not release. But there will be no poor among you, for the Lord will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess. If only you will strictly obey the voice of the Lord your God. being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today. For the Lord your God will bless you as he promised you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow, and you shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you. If among you one of your brothers should become poor in any of your towns within your land, then the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother. but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. Take care lest there be any, be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, the seventh year, the year of release is near. And your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother and you give him nothing. And he cried to the Lord your God against you and you'd be guilty of sin. You shall give to him freely and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him. Because of this, the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. For they will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore, I command you, you shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor in your land. If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman is sold to you, he shall serve you six years and the seventh year, you shall let him go free from you. And when you let him go free from you, you shall not let him go empty handed. You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of your threshing floor and out of your wine press. As the Lord your God has blessed you, you shall give to him. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. Therefore, I command you this today. But if he says to you, I will not go out from you, because he loves you and your household, since he is well off with you, then you shall take an awl and put it through his ear and to the door, and he shall be your slave forever. To your female slave, you shall do the same. It shall not seem hard to you when you let them go free. For at half the cost of a hired servant, he has served you six years, so the Lord your God will bless you in all that you do. We see some principles. One, money can be enslaving. He says the other nations are not to rule over you. You're not to go in debt to them. You can rule them by letting them borrow. But the household order is what's important. That the tribe and the village and the nation, the corporate identity, God's people are not meant to be indebted because He has freed them. That grounding in verse 15. You were redeemed from slavery. This is why you do not keep your brother bound in slavery. You were redeemed. That's why I command you this today. The gospel redemption has a fact. It has consequences. Let's think about this hand-heart connection. I hope you heard it. We can see it most clearly in verse seven. The hard heart leads to a shut hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to lend him sufficient. The hard heart has a closed hand to a brother. The heart that realizes we've been redeemed has an open hand. The heart leads the hand. The heart, what we love, leads the hand. Now another way of looking at it is the hand reveals the heart. The heart leads the hand and the hand reveals the heart. Remember, you were slaves who were freed. The gospel changes the way we live. Now, these instructions are for a nation, primarily agricultural, many, many miles away, many, many thousands of years ago, hundreds of years ago, not hundreds of thousands. How are we supposed to think about this? Well, first, we don't live in an agricultural world. We live in a college town, and there's some gentlemen farmers among us, but most of us, our primary medium of exchange is money. How do we think about this in terms of just the difference of life? But secondly, and more importantly, we're the redeemed church. We're not the nation Israel. Now, this is where we need to make sure there's clarity. Israel was a religion and a nation. Christianity is a religion. Yes, we are the holy nation of God as God's people, but we're not a nation that has a human king with our own different laws. No, we're a people redeemed of all kinds of nationalities. We're not connected by birth, being born into the nation, where the people have been given new life from every nation in Christ. What we're focusing in on is how we as Christians relate to money. How do we have an open heart with an open hand instead of a closed hand with a hard heart? Really, I'm approaching this like we did the Ten Commandments a while back. We first need to see what the command means. We just did that. We're supposed to give 10% three different times. They're supposed to have an open hand because they realize they're the redeemed people of God. Now we wanna go back and we'll say, what is the ground of this command? What is the basis? Where can we see this in creation? Because everything God says, it has some root in creation typically, creation of the fall. So we're gonna go back and look at that first, and then we're gonna ask the most important question, how did Christ fulfill it? Now, if we go back to Genesis one and two, we're gonna ask, was there money there? What would have happened if there was no sin? I don't think there will be money. That's a hypothesis. I don't think we would have money because we would all have such abundant fruit from the ground that did not require sweat that we would be freely giving it away. Whatever we didn't grow ourselves, we would give away. Therefore, everyone would be sharing all things in common because there'd be so much abundance that we didn't have to labor for with sweat to simply working and keeping. There's no thorns, there's no thistles. What a glorious, what a glorious world that would be. No need for money because we would all have so much. We would all have so much to give. Now, money is necessary in a fallen world because the ground produces little and it takes a lot of work. So money is necessary in a fallen world. Money is necessary because of the curse and our sinfulness. However, money is not necessarily evil. It's very important. Money is necessary in a fallen world, I believe, but I don't think money is necessarily evil. We are sinful and we simply take God's good gifts and we corrupt. Paul says that money is a root of all kinds of evil. It's not the root of all evil, it's a root of all kinds of evil. It shows us money can be a symbol of our false sense of security. or a false identity, or not being content. That's why it's a root of all kinds of evil. It is not the root of all evil. One of the ways to challenge ourselves with how we think about money, how much do we think about what someone else has that we wish we had? How much do we think about what someone else has that we wish we had? Secondly, how much do we think about what we have that others do not? There's all forms of idolatry regarding money. Money is necessary. We just take it and corrupt it, just like everything else that God gives us is good. So before the fall, I'm not convinced we would have had money. But one of the ways I actually want to think about money is, The call to tithe, the call to recognize this portion I'm giving to God, I think it was kind of like the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden. The tree of knowledge of good and evil was a constant reminder, yes, you have free reign here, but you're not sovereign. That tree is a reminder someone else owns the garden. Someone else establishes the rules for the garden. It's not you, it's God. That 10th, the 30%, I believe is a reminder, all that you have, it's not yours. It's God's. You're not sovereign to do whatever you want with everything you have. It's God's. We actually see the first tithe or sacrifice. The two brothers, Cain and Abel. Abel brought his first fruits, Cain brought some. Cain did not seek to worship with his gift. He was envious that Abel did worship and God accepted it. And therefore he murdered his brother. Now the most pressing question, how did Christ fulfill the command? We see in creation that the tie, I believe it is tied to the sense that we do not own what we have. We're managers. There's a reminder that it's God's to be used for his purpose. Now how did Christ fulfill the command? We can go to one passage to find how did Christ fulfill it and how did Christ heighten the command. Yes, the call of Christ is heightening the call, the command to tithe. Go to 2 Corinthians 8. Or you can just go to your bulletin and look at the verse that we read before the offering. 2 Corinthians 8, 9, I encourage you to turn in your Bibles, it's page 968 if you're using a pew Bible. The context here is that Paul is commending the Macedonians for being joyful. They have a wealth of generosity. The context is they're saints in need, they need relief, and these brothers, they wanted to give and they have been giving, and so he's commending them. We get to verse eight, verse nine of chapter eight, 2 Corinthians. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. Tells us very important things about ourselves, about Christ, what he does for us. What we see about Christ is that he is rich, He in himself is glorious, rich. He became poor. He lowered himself. He emptied himself. Why? So that he could make us rich. Christ is rich. He became poor for our sake. So that we could be rich. So that he would make us rich. Christ is rich, we're poor. He empties himself, he impoverishes himself so that he can give us the riches of his glorious inheritance that we sing of in Be Thou My Vision. This is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have nothing and he gives us everything. This is worthy to commit to memory. What does it mean that he's rich? He's a son of God. He's worthy of all praise. He's worthy of all glory. He's worthy of all honor. He became poor. He took upon himself a lower nature. Instead of being the glorious God who's being worshiped, he takes upon himself humanity. Think about it. The God who is rich and provides us with all food, He now suffers hunger. The God who is rich and provides us with all water, He's now thirsty. The God who is rich and controls all the planets and the tides and the weather, He suffers heat from heat and needs the shade of a tree that He created. He suffers cold and needs warmth from a fire. He is rich. Being praised as He is glorious, He became poor. Not only does he need the things of the earth that he created, he wasn't esteemed even as a man. He was despised. He was a sovereign of all people, yet he came to serve. He even washed the disciples' feet, an act that a servant would not be expected to do. Almighty God kneeled down and washed the feet of his disciples. He came down to be the light into the darkness, the truth in the world of lies. He emptied himself. The poverty ultimately demanded his life. He gave his entire righteous life in place of our unrighteousness. He gave us the richness of his righteousness, being treated as if impoverished like we are and sinners. He died for us, pouring out his life as a substitute for our sins. Now let's think about this. The creator, to tell his creatures, you need to give us a portion. You need to give me a portion, the creator to the creature. That seems fair. A redeemer to say, I've saved you, now give back. That seems right. But this is the grace of Jesus Christ. God came to give His creatures, His sinful creatures that hated Him, all of His life, all of His love. It's unimaginable. That's the grace of Jesus Christ. He's the power of God to save every kind of sinner. so that we take our poverty. We trust him with our poverty and sin, and he gives us the righteousness of his life. If you're not a Christian this morning, I can only tell you one thing about yourself. You are poor. You're in poverty. you're spiritually bankrupt. But here's the good news. Jesus Christ says, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God. We cannot accumulate a righteousness or a richness that's going to impress God because everything we do, everything we say, it's tainted with sin. That's why we're in poverty. The beautiful thing is if God lets you see how poor you are, That means He wants you to see how rich He desires to make you. You first have to recognize that you are poor. You have nothing to bring to God that can in any way impress Him, to make Him want to accept you. That's the sinner. The only thing we bring is sin, which is disgusting and gross before God. We must first recognize this is our poverty and that if we look to Christ who died to wash away the gross sin, who died to remove our poverty, to fill us with his righteousness, then he accepts us. based upon what Christ has done. Christ dying on the cross to forgive us of our sin, Christ dying on the cross and rising again to give us new life. If you're not a Christian this morning, that's where you need to hang. What am I going to bring to God that I think's going to impress Him? I can tell you, the only thing you can say before God is that I believe in Jesus Christ. who died for me, who rose again, I'm coming in His name based upon what He has given to my account. I have nothing but Christ. Christian, this is what God has done for you. He's emptied Himself. He's given Himself so that you can have life. our value, our worth, our identity, are bound up in Christ and is more glorious than all those other idols that we continue to try to capture and embrace. Here's the difficult truth for us. We are all unworthy. The last song we sang captured it. What a glorious mystery. We're unworthy, but counted as worthy. We are completely unworthy to come here and worship together. There's nothing about any of us in particular that makes us more worthy. We all come together, unworthy. We come only because Christ has declared you're worthy. He has given us his worth. Our worth and identity must be bound up in what he has said about us, what he has done for us. This is important about the way we think of each other. No one's more worth than anybody else. We're equally worthless. That's encouraging. It is when you've been treated poorly. It is when you were tempted to think, I am always the victim. The truth is, we're all completely unworthy, coming to lift up that one name who is worthy. And we have our identity, a truly worthy identity in Him. Christ has purchased us with His precious blood. That's what makes us who we are. That's what makes us rich. And we all have that same gift if we believe in Jesus Christ. And now He calls us to responsibility. Because He has made us rich, He calls us. He calls us to use that richness. He calls us to use every gift for His glory. Let's look at how Christ heightens the command to tithe. The Old Testament saints, they had it easy. It's a very simple numerical number that they had to meet. Christ always heightens the command. Let's go to chapter nine, verse six. It's always helpful when somebody gets to the point, so let's get to the point. Chapter nine, verse six. This, the point is this, Paul says. The point is this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. It's important to realize that chapter nine follows chapter eight. The richness of Christ is what leads to being a cheerful giver. The heart leads the hand. The hand reveals the heart. This is not a call to tithe three different ways. It's also not a freedom from tithing. It's a freedom to be generous because we realize everything we have has been given to us. to manage, not to be a consumer, not to boast of what we think we've gained or earned. It's God's. I actually believe this call to be a generous giver, a cheerful giver. It's from Deuteronomy 15, that the free giving to your brother after you're releasing him from his debt, the free giving is the foundation of this. The gospel must guide our giving. It's not begrudging. It's not stingy. Let me make an analogy. Just as the gospel guides our forgiveness, it guides our giving. If we are constantly thinking of the long list of grievances somebody has and not applying the grace of Jesus Christ, that reveals a heart that recognizes very little forgiveness from Christ. This is how the gospel plays out. If we are constantly keeping an account of our other sin against us, it shows a heart that recognizes our sin little and God's grace very little. So too, a hand that gives little shows a heart that recognizes the richness from Christ little. If we are stingy, selfish, How much do we understand or how much have we received from God? A closed hand shows a hard heart. An open hand reveals a renewed heart. This is the beauty. We get to rejoice in the giving, the gifts from the Heavenly Father, the riches of eternity. It means we now get to give freely. This is why the offering is an intentional part of our worship service. We're giving freely as a church for the purposes of God. We're coming together to encourage one another, to corporately unite our gifts so that we use them together for His glory. This is why it's important to be part of a like-minded church. A church that you see is promoting the gospel of Christ, building up one another into the maturity of Christ. There's another heightening. that we need to think about. It's not just being a cheerful giver because of what God has given to us. We are called to invest in eternal treasure. We heard this in Matthew 6, but I think we actually see this in 2 Corinthians 9, 6. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Now the prosperity gospel says this. If you give today, you'll receive tomorrow, literally tomorrow. I believe the gospel says, if you sow today, you'll reap when you die. You'll reap a reward that does not rust. It does not destroy. It is eternal. By faith, we trust that Christ is risen, which we're celebrating today and tomorrow, or next Sunday, and he's coming back. The return of Christ has to affect the way we're spending our time, our energy, our money. Are we investing in that which is eternal? Matthew 6, do not lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where they can be, do not lay up for yourselves treasure on earth, where they can be destroyed, but in heaven where they're eternal. This isn't saying build up a righteous account so you impress God. If you are a child of God, you live differently knowing that there's going to be an account for every Christian. How did you live your life? It's going to end in either reward or rebuke. Christians will be rebuked in heaven when they give an account for all God has given them and what they did with it. A passage that I hadn't seen before Philippians, turn to page 982. Paul is speaking of offering again. He's ending his letter to the Philippians. He's talking about how an offering's been taken up. There's an opportunity. Verse 11 is key. Not that I am speaking of being in need. I have learned that whatever situation I'm to be content. This is part of stewardship. Whatever God's given me, I'll praise him for. Look at verse 17. Not that I seek a gift, Paul says, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. Paul pastoring his people, he's telling them, I want to encourage you to give, not because I need it, because he's content. He's encouraging them to give so that they increase their credit. Again, this isn't, to be accepted by God because that's only what Christ gives to our account. This is speaking of how Christians will live in eternity enjoying, praising God with the heavenly treasures they possess. He's calling them to enjoy a fruit in eternity by what they give to the purposes of Christ. Now, this isn't a call to not own things, or it's not a call to not own nice things. It's a call to realize you've got two ways to invest. Today, seeking immediate gratification, or forever praising God with all that He's given you. You can accumulate nice things. You can accumulate a nice collection of shells, and it will mean nothing for eternity. or you can use everything you have, your life, your time, your energy, your resources, and say, God, how can this be a heavenly treasure? How can I invest in what you desire for my life to look like? So what do we do now? Well, it is beloved tax season. It's a good time to consider how do I spend? The hand reveals the heart. The first thing I would encourage you to do is look at your last year. How much was spent investing in the things of God versus consuming? That shows how much of a consumer or a manager you are. Use this season to consider what has your hand revealed about your heart. Do this with your checkbook. Do this with your calendar. Those two resources are connected because most of the time we're spending too much time getting too much money to not spend time with people we're trying to get money for. We always want those job promotions. They're gonna take us farther away from family, farther away from church. We're pursuing the happy life and it's ending in misery. In our pursuit of the happy life, we usually end up in misery. I was so blessed by a member of the church. He's got an opportunity in the business world and he said, I don't think I'm going to take it. It'll demand too much of my time. It'll be too much of a headache. I want to be free to spend time with my family in the church. Another gentleman I was just speaking to, he was reflecting on how the business world had changed from the time he's now retired to when he started. Businesses used to be family friendly. His observation was that now they actually prefer you to be miserable at home so they can have your complete allegiance. It's sad. The fact is we have to make hard choices to prioritize what's most important. The wise life is prioritizing our love. And it's just too easy to justify that next promotion that's going to take us further away from the people we really love. If you're young, one of the greatest blessings I've had in my ministry here is to be interviewed by two high schoolers as they were deciding on where they're going to go to college. That's an intentional life. I don't want to go to school where I'm not going to find a church where I can be invested in and invest. It's a 17-year-old wisdom. That's wisdom. To make a life decision not related to how I'm going to worship with the body of Christ is foolish. When you look at our calendars, when you look at our checkbook, Now, giving is not natural for selfish sinners. So let me give you the four healthy steps to a giving life. I don't like to do to-dos, if you haven't noticed that. Four things that I think will help you grow to be a cheerful giver. First, give regularly. Give regularly. Don't just wait till the paycheck comes. Give every week as that discipline reminder, this isn't mine. If it's just a dollar you put in the plate, just to make sure you're remembering, this is God's. This is an opportunity to worship. It's a good reminder to give regularly. So secondly, give regularly. That'll help pattern giving. It'll help create a cheerfulness. Secondly, Faithfully give. As Paul said, set your mind. Make a decision on what you're going to give and prioritize that giving. 10% is a fine place to start. Give faithfully. Set a standard and don't change it. Decide as Paul commands the church in 2 Corinthians 9-7. The third step. Regularly give. Faithfully give. I pray that you would begin to have a heart that generously gives. Not just what you set aside as a standard, but generously. What kind of gift can I give? Have eyes as always looking out. Who needs? How can I fulfill that need? This is good for both time and money. But seek to regularly give, faithfully give. Lord willing, that will lead to a generous giving. And the ultimate goal is to sacrificially give. The ultimate goal. is to model our lives under Christ, who though he was rich, for our sake, he became poor. The command to sell everything you have is not a universal command. The command to give generously is. We should seek to give like our Savior, sacrificially, denying ourselves for the purpose of promoting the gospel. Since we looked at the sabbatical I want to, or the Sabbath of freeing debt, I want to just give two simple points on how we should seek to think about relieving the poor. First, we should see that we are most responsible to care for those who are closest to us. As you think about relieving poor and the matter of relieving poverty, we should be most responsible for those who are closest to us. So in 1 Timothy, Paul actually says a child who doesn't care for a parent, they're worse than an unbeliever. So first you see that family unit, there's a responsibility for a parent to care for the needs of a child, and then at a certain point in life, for a child to care for the parent. Let me say that again. The parent has a responsibility to provide for the needs of a child, and then at a certain point in life, the child is responsible according to God's design to care for the parent. When that child or that parent does not do so, it's the responsibility of the church. We see this in Acts 7. Let me read two passages that I pray will challenge you to think about the responsibility to care for the body. First, Galatians 6, beginning in verse 9. Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. So then, as we have the opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. You see there, those who are closest to, those who are in the church are the ones we should prioritize in terms of who is in need. And then 1 John 3, very challenging. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. What Christ did sacrificially should affect what we do sacrificially. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, and yet closes his heart against him. How does God's love abide in him? A closed hand reveals a closed heart. Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed, in truth. So there we see the call to be most responsible for those who are closest to us. The second rule for how we should think about caring for the poor, we should see that we're most responsible to care for those who are most helpless. We saw that in Deuteronomy, that giving for the fatherless, the widow. We see in James, true religion is to care for the orphan and the widow. Friends, God has given to us so abundantly. We could talk about stuff. But if we actually think about what God has given us in Christ, life instead of death, forgiveness instead of sin, life abundantly, having the inheritance of the firstborn son rather than wrath, we're rich. Let us begin to think about how are we going to manage all of the things God gives us so that we reflect his glory in creation, in this church, in our home, in our work. Let's pray. Father, we praise you for your abundant grace. We thank you that you give us so many good gifts. Forgive us for how we have been consumers rather than managers. Forgive us for how we've refused to honor you or give thanks to you for all that you've done for us. Help us to lead a life now, recognizing that we come unworthy, but we've been given such a worthy name, Jesus Christ, to praise. Help us to freely give, because you've given to us so abundantly. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.