These are Holy Hands: Growing Through Giving

Pastor Burcham's Sermon

 Sunday, November 20, 2005

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Over the last few weeks, we have been looking at God's Word for guidance on everything financial and possession-wise. We've been seeing God's holy hands, first His hands outstretched and His blessings flowing down to us, that is, we recognize everything we have is from God and yet God has graciously gone way beyond what we need and given us many of our desires.

That's caused us, then, to lift up our hands, if you will, in gratitude to God, in gratefulness for all He's done for us and that gratefulness really translates into faithfulness, being faithful, faithful stewards of everything God has entrusted to us.

This morning, we finish up the series of messages and we finish it up with the message that could well be the most beneficial message or the most misunderstood message. Today, the hands are shaping and forming and cultivating and causing something to grow, causing a relationship with God to grow. You see, I personally believe a powerful way in which we can grow in our relationship with God is through our gifts and our offerings we give back to Him. Let me say it again: I believe a powerful way in which we can grow in our relationship with God is through our gifts and offerings back to Him and, because of that statement, I fear this message could be misunderstood. It would be easy to misunderstand this is nothing more than the preacher is looking for another fundraiser. He's looking to make sure the offerings are set for the next year. And, frankly, if we misunderstand giving, that could be true. If we misunderstand what our gifts and our offerings are all about, then it could seem like nothing more than a fundraiser. But when we understand what God's Word has to say and the blessings God has in store for us through our gifts and offerings, it's not a fundraiser. It's a faith raiser. There's a powerful way in which God can use to grow a relationship between us and Him.

The key to the whole matter, though, is to look to God's Word for direction on how we are to give back to Him. A lot of it centers around why we give back to Him, who we give our gifts to, to make sure we have the right attitude about what we're doing. You see, it was Jesus who said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Now usually we think about that as we exchange gifts and I'm guessing each one of you has experienced the fact that it's more blessed to give than to receive. Right now my thoughts go to Christmas. It's just not that far away. Already, in my household, we have to start buying Christmas presents and hiding them all over the house. You know what happens every Christmas? And I bet it happens in your house. There are some gifts that are given that you can't wait to give them. There are other gifts that are simply obligatory gifts. Let's be honest about it. There are obligatory gifts. Those are the gifts you give because either you suspect they're going to give you a gift; therefore, you don't want to get caught off guard. You want to be able to give them a gift. There are those gifts you give because you just feel like you should and you'd feel bad if you didn't give them something, but you give them out of obligation. In that case, is it really more blessed to give than to receive? I don't think so. It's just something we do.

But there are some gifts you will spend a lot of time picking out over the next six weeks, carefully choosing them from all the rest, making sure it's just the right gift you want to present to that other person. And when the time comes, whenever you do your celebration, you won't be able to wait for them to open up that gift. In fact, you might even have a little bit of an argument. “No, you open your gift first.” “No, no, no, you open your gift first.” The only reason you'll open your gift is because you want them to open their gift. You can't wait to see the expression on their face, the joy that fills them to make sure you got exactly something they wanted. Then, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Because when you give those kind of gifts, you could care less what you're getting. It's all about giving to the other person.

The same is true when we give our gifts to God. If we give them with the wrong motivation or with the wrong attitude, it becomes nothing more than an obligatory gift. And there is no spiritual benefit in that. But when we look to God's Word for direction and guidance on how we are to give our gifts back to Him, it can be a powerful tool to grow our relationship with God.

The first thing God tells us is the gifts we give are given to Him. It's an important point that sometimes we miss. Our offerings we give, we give to God. Unfortunately, I think that's been lost in our current culture. We think we are giving our gifts to an organization. Here, you're giving your gifts to Gloria Dei. You're giving it to your home congregation, if you're visiting with us this morning. But you're giving the gift to an organization. I think part of the misunderstanding, although I'm not complaining, is because of the IRS. The IRS says if you give a donation to a church, then it's considered a charitable donation and there are certain tax breaks you get with that. I'm not arguing with that. I think it's good stewardship that we take advantage of that, but I do think it has led to a misunderstanding of our offerings, a misunderstanding of our gifts. We look at them as nothing more than a charitable donation. We're giving to an organization when, in reality, we are to give our gifts to God.

We go back to the Old Testament, Numbers 18:24, giving instructions to the Israelites in how they're supposed to handle their givings, it says, “Instead, I give to the Levites as their inheritance, the tithes the Israelites present as an offering to the Lord.” The people of Israel were to give a tenth of everything they had to God. They gave that tenth then to the Levites. The Levites are the ones who gathered it in. The Levites are the ones who took care of the Tent of Meeting. The Levites were spaced out in all of the different tribes. If you will, they ran the congregations in those tribes. The people presented their offerings to them, but the gifts weren't given to the Levites. The gifts weren't given to the Tent of Meeting. Eventually, when the temple was built, the gifts weren't given to the temple. God is very clear. “Present your offerings to the Lord.” The Lord then took those gifts and used them for building up His kingdom. The Lord then took those gifts and gave it to the Levites so they could take care of the Tent of Meeting or eventually take care of the temple in Jerusalem . But the gifts the people brought, they were given to the Lord. Then the Lord used them for His work. It's a crucial point. Because if all we're doing is giving to the church, then all we're doing is making a charitable donation. But if we're giving to God, it's an act of worship. That's a big difference. If our gifts are given to God, it's an act of worship. That's why we take an offering every service. There are all kinds of ways we could do that. When it's part of our worship service because it's part of the way we worship God, it's one way in which we recognize all that God has given to us and, in thankfulness, then we offer back to Him and it is an act of worship as we take our offering. It's an act of worship as we present them to God. We give our gifts to God. It's an important focus. And when we give our gifts, we give them with the right attitude. Obligatory gifts to God are of no use to us. They are of no benefit to us. In fact, God says He's not really interested in obligatory gifts. If you take a look at 2 Corinthians 9:7, it says, “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. God says, “If you're going to give a gift to me, don't give it reluctantly. Don't give it as if you were forced to do it.” In other words, we don't make our offerings because we feel that's the thing we should do, that's the thing we have to do, or we're going to feel guilty if we don't do something. There's no spiritual benefit to giving our gift that way at all. 1 Corinthians 13 really points this out, 13:3 says, “If I give all I possess to the poor, surrendered my body to the flames but have not love, I gain nothing.” Can you think of a bigger generosity than to give everything you have to the poor? My goodness, how could you do anything better than that? To liquify everything you have and give it all to the poor. But if you give it with the wrong attitude, you gain nothing. It doesn't mean anything to you if you don't give it with love.

Let me break it down to be really practical. If you dread offering time in worship, if you just dread these stewardship sermons, if when offering comes around, you're pulling out your checkbook and saying, “I guess,” or you're reaching for your pocketbook saying, “Well, I'll find out what's in there,” and I mean this seriously, you probably shouldn't give. I really mean that. You probably shouldn't make an offering. Our offerings are supposed to be worship, and they're supposed to edify our relationship with God. If all it's doing is causing resentment in your heart, then that's the opposite of what offerings are supposed to do. Offerings are supposed to be given in love.

God set the example, John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son.” God has loved us and showered us with so many blessings that we, in turn, love God. We display that love in any number of ways. One of the avenues in which God gives us to display that love is through our offerings, but those offerings are to be given in love. They are to be given freely, willingly, with a smile on our face. Joyously, we give back to God. Then, it is truly more blessed to give than it is to receive. When we give our gifts, they need to be given to God and they need to be given with the right attitude. And, if that happens, I truly believe it's a powerful way we grow closer to God, that our relationship with God is enriched.

God even goes so far as to give us practical ways, a pattern in which we are to give back to God. He sort of spells it out for us. It's in 1 Corinthians He spells out for us, this is the pattern in which we are to give back to God. He says, “On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside of money in keeping with his income, saving it up so when I come no collections will have to be made.” There's a lot packed into that verse right there. Practical advice. When we give to God, when we have the right attitude, now God gives us the mechanism, the pattern which we are to follow so we can gain the greatest blessing from that active offering. The first thing He says is offering is personal. He says, “Each one of you.” Our offerings are deeply personal. What we give back to God is a matter between you and your creator. Each one of us, from the youngest to the oldest, needs to make a decision on what we're going to give back to God. And even beyond that, each one of us personally needs to experience the joy of giving. As we make a personal choice and a personal decision, as we make our offering, then also personally, we experience the joy, the joy of giving back to God. Giving needs to be a personal matter.

The second thing God says to us is we're to give a percent back to Him. God doesn't set an amount He wants us to give back to Him but what God says is, “Give from which I've given you, not from what I haven't given you,” which means God has asked for a percent of what He's given to us. Now, in the Old Testament, it was a tithe. In the Old Testament days, God mandated. He said a tenth of everything you have. In fact, in some years, it went up to as much as 20% and 30% of what the people of Israel had. But on a yearly basis, it was a tenth of everything they had, they were to give back to God. In the New Testament, there is no such mandate. In the New Testament, it never teaches us what percent we're supposed to give back to God. He leaves that to our discretion. Now I will add a personal note, and my personal note is I think the tenth, the tithe, is a good gauge. I just simply do. I think it's a good gauge because, for some of us, that's something you're shooting for. That's a goal you're heading towards. For others, the tenth is the base and it goes up from there. It all depends upon your situation in life and God's blessings in your life. God doesn't mandate, but what God does say, though, is you take a portion of it. You take a percentage of that.

For the last couple of years, and this year is no different, you received it when you came in. There's a handy chart so we can take a look at that, because it's important we know. So in the envelope you received when you came in, you can trace down and you can find out, “This is my income, this is my giving. This is the percentage I'm giving back to God.” We need to know that information because that's how God desires us to give back to Him.

The third thing this passage tells us is our gifts back to God have to be planned. It's something we plan for, something we think about. We put a lot of thought and a lot of prayer into it. Our giving back to God should not be a weekly decision. In fact, I don't believe it should be a monthly decision. It has to be much more serious than that. It's so deeply personal, and it's such a way in which God can work in our heart, I believe it has to be planned in such a way that we take a look at all God has given to us, that we are good stewards of everything God has given to us and, from that, we make a prayerful decision of how we're going to respond back to God, what percent we're going to give back to God. Again, the chart that's in the envelope I think is just a practical way of doing that. It's a way of saying, “This is where I am.” And then to take a look inside and to say, “Is that the response I want to make to God? Does that display my gratefulness, my faithfulness to God? Is this the gift I want to offer back to Him? Is this the gift I can offer with joy in my heart and thanksgiving for all He's done or isn't it?” And if it's not, then what is the goal? Because that's planning. What's the goal? Where is it you want to be with your giving? Maybe the chasm between where you are right now and where you want to be is so great, you're going to not make that leap. Planning says, “Okay, then I'm going to step it off. Maybe I'm giving 3% and I want to give 10% but, you know what, I can't bump up 7% so I'm going to look at 4% or 5%.” But you make plans. You plan how you're going to give back to God. It's not a weekly decision or a monthly decision. It's probably a yearly decision as you look at what God has blessed you and you decide what is my response back to God. And does this display my gratefulness to Him?

I said at the beginning this could be the most understood or the most beneficial message, and I still hold to that. I believe it can be the most beneficial because what I believe is, through our giving, it is a powerful way to enrich our relationship with God. And though I hesitate for a moment, I'll share with you personally. So this is from Ron Burcham and my experience. Three years ago, I preached on the same subject matter. Three years ago, I handed out the handy, dandy chart. And, during those series of messages, I became convicted. I became convicted we were not giving back to God a proportion of what He'd given to us. Michelle, my wife, and I sat down. We looked at the chart. We saw what percent we were giving, and we weren't happy. We set a goal for ourselves of where we wanted to be. The chasm looked pretty big to me. It looked even bigger to Michelle, I think. So we started setting a goal, and we talked about, “What are we going to do? What are the steps we're going to take?” And don't take this wrong, but we made a decision to over double the percent we were giving for the next year. And don't think that was an easy decision in my household, because it wasn't. But we really felt convicted and pulled by God to step out in faith and do that. Now mind you, we looked at all God had given to us. We looked at all the budget. How was that going to happen? I want to tell you we have never regretted that decision, and we continued to grow in this grace of giving God has allowed us to partake in. In fact, when we first looked at that, we thought, “Man, things are really going to be tight but this is what we should do.” I want to be honest with you. Things never got tight. God doesn't ask you take food off your plate and put it in the offering plate. God doesn't ask you not to pay your bills so you can give to Him. It was incredible as far as how God blessed us and how we never even really felt the pinch of what was happening. Now me being me, mind you, we made that pledge a little bit frightened. I said, “Well, if we're going to do it, we're going to make it real.” So I filled out the Simply Giving form at the same time, which meant, unless I filled out another piece of paper, on the 1 st and the 15 th , that offering was coming out. The best decision we ever made. Because the first thing that comes out of my check is the gift to God.

I don't want you to misunderstand my sharing that with you, but I want to tell you it has caused my relationship with God to be stronger than ever. It has caused our relationship as a couple to be stronger in our relationship to God than ever it was before. And that's why I feel it's so important this morning I wish you would understand so you could experience the same grace and the same growth we have. Because I firmly believe the powerful way in which we can grow in our relationship with God is through the gifts and the offerings we give back to Him. Amen.

Copyright 2005 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church