- Fifth Week of Five Practices
- Going to do one more week next Sunday to tie everything together, and look at why the Five Practices are so important for us as a congregation.
- Based on a book by bishop of the Missouri Conference of the UMC.
- These practices are things that have been observed in vibrant, thriving congregations.
- If we want to be a fruitful and thriving congregation, then these practices that we have to be intentional about cultivating in our life as a congregation.
- We’ve looked at:
- Radical Hospitality
- Intentional Faith Development
- Risk-Taking Mission and Service
- Passionate Worship
- Our final practice today is Extravagant Generosity, and it is going to form a bridge into our next series, which is a series on faith and finances.
- Finances in Worship: Why does it matter?
- Objections to finances in worship
- “All that guy talks about is money.”
- When I was a kid, I remember very vividly one Sunday when a guy got up and left in the middle of the sermon, muttering under his breath, “All that guy talks about is money.” It left an impression on me as a young child, and finances tend to be one area that I do not touch on all that much in my preaching.
- However, since I arrived here in November 2008, I have literally been gone more Sundays on vacation than Sundays that I have spent talking about finances in worship. It may not seem that way in a few weeks, but that is the case.
- Meddling.
- I know that by simply bringing up the issue of finances in worship, I’ve crossed over from preaching to “meddling” for some people.
- As a general rule, people do not like to hear about “money” when it comes to worship. It’s a hot button issue for some people.
- However, it is an important spiritual topic that has to be discussed, especially if we want to be disciples of Jesus Christ.
- For us to say that Jesus Christ is Lord, we have to really mean it, and to really mean it means that Jesus Christ is Lord over everything, including our finances.
- We can’t say that Jesus is Lord in every area but…[fill in the blank: personal relationships, finances, what I say when I’m watching the game]
- It doesn’t work like that. If Jesus is Lord, then Jesus is Lord in every single aspect of our lives.
- At its best, preaching is meddling.
- I don’t want people to walk out of here week after week, and think that everything is just fine, and that the Christian faith doesn’t make any demands on their lives.
- Yes, at times, preaching is uplifting. Preaching is educational. But if nothing in your life changes because of an encounter with the word of God, then I have messed up somewhere along the way.
- If you don’t leave here completely wrecked from time to time, then I have failed you. To be perfectly honest with you, at times I feel wrecked after I’m done preaching, and I wrote the sermon.
- Talking about finances in worship is important because it is an important topic as we look at Scripture.
- Throughout the Old Testament and throughout the New Testament, the topic of stewardship, finances and money is prevalent.
- If a topic is important enough to be addressed in multiple locations in Scripture, then it is important enough for us to explore it from time to time in the context of worship, even today.
- Roots
- Old Testament
- The idea of giving the first fruits of what we have to the Lord begins all the way back in Genesis 4 with Cain and Abel.
- The two brothers bring an offering to the Lord. Cain brings some fruit from the ground, while Abel brings the firstborn of his flock.
- The Lord is pleased with Abel’s offering, and is not so pleased with Cain’s offering.
- One of two things is going on here:
- The first option is that God does not like vegetarians. While, personally, I find vegetarianism to be odd, I don’t think this is the case. God loves all people the same, in spite of their flaws.
- Second, and more likely, Cain just brought whatever he could find. He didn’t give the best of what he had, but Abel did.
- God wants the best of what we have. He doesn’t want us to hold out on Him for our own benefit. He wants us to trust in Him to provide.
- As we continue in Genesis, we see that Abraham gives a tenth of all he has in chapter 14, and later on, in chapter 28, he grandson Jacob does the same thing.
- When the twelve tribes of Israel were in the Promised Land, they were instructed to give a tenth of all they had to the Levites, who had no land and were spread among the tribes to serve as priests.
- In Malachi 3, the Lord says that the people are robbing him by not bringing the full tithe to the storehouse.
- New Testament
- Once we hit the gospels, we come across more stories from Jesus’ teaching that highlights the importance.
- Jesus teaches that the woman who put in two copper coins, but gave out of her poverty did more for the kingdom of God than the rich person who put in significantly more than her.
- In Luke 12, Jesus tells the parable of the Rich Fool (that’s the actual title of the parable). A rich man decides to tear down his storehouses and make bigger ones to contain all the wealth that he has. He works and stores up so that he can live out his years in comfort, but all that work goes for naught when his life is required of him before he can truly enjoy it.
- In Acts 2, we see that the members of the early church sold all their possessions and shared with one another as the need arose.
- In Paul’s letters, we see that he was taking up a collection for the Jerusalem church, which was under more persecution than the church in most areas at the time.
- Wesleyan
- In our own theological tradition, we see that giving and generosity were critical.
- One of the major functions of the class meeting was to collect an offering that was used to help the poor. In some places, those offerings were used to establish an orphanage.
- Wesley wrote extensively about money, the potential danger of riches and the importance of giving, and many of those writings are still available even today.
- Wesley once wrote, “Earn all you can, save all you can, and give all you can.” If we’re honest with ourselves, we like the first two parts of that saying, but we struggle with the last one.
- Transition
- Part of the reason why we struggle with the topic of giving is because we don’t always understand why giving matters.
- Yes, the church runs on the offering. If nobody gave at all, we would eventually have to close the doors. But giving so that the doors stay open, the lights will turn on and the heat will keep the place warm on days like today is no reason to give.
- Why does it matter?
- Giving helps congregations thrive
- A thriving congregation gives because the vision and call of the church is important to them.
- The truth is, people don’t want to give to keep the lights on, they want to give to see ministry happen.
- People want to give so that they can have a part in what God is doing.
- People want to give because lives are being changed by the gospel.
- Giving allows us as a congregation to do more than the bare minimum, and this requires not only finances, but the giving of our time, energy and creativity.
- Giving changes us inside
- In our giving, we start to develop generosity in our lives.
- Generosity is not something that you gain by hanging on to everything that you have. Generosity is only gained when we give away what we have.
- We cannot be generous and cling to the things of this world. Generosity is something that is seen by our giving.
- When we become generous, we naturally become less self-centered, self-absorbed; less greedy and concerned about our “stuff.”
- Katie and I were watching TV the other day, and there was this lady who said that she didn’t just have an attachment to things, but that those things also had an attachment to her.
- That’s not healthy, folks!
- Your car doesn’t care about you. Your television doesn’t care about you. No item that you have purchased in your life ever has or ever will have feelings for you.
- In our giving, we are changed from within, and we begin to realize when we have an unhealthy attachment to the stuff of this world.
- Giving mirrors God’s nature
- As people created in the image of God, we have to realize that this doesn’t mean that God looks like me, or you, or anybody else that you know.
- We are made in the image of God because we are made to reflect God.
- When we give, we mirror the image of God in our lives.
- As we read through Scripture, we see that God is a God who gives.
- He tells Abraham to go to the land that He will give to Abraham’s descendents.
- He gives victory to the people as they enter the Promised Land.
- And, we read in John 3, that He gave His only begotten son that we may have eternal life.
- God gives, and when we give, we reflect God’s nature.
- Giving fosters a healthier relationship to money
- In our giving, we begin to realize that we control our money, and that it does not control us.
- We relinquish our desire for material goods, and in doing so, our material goods have no hold over us.
- We start to look at our money and where it is going because giving requires some intentionality on our part. We have to know how much money we have and where it is going in order to give consistently and generously.
- I came across a short story this week by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. It is called, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?”
- First off, it’s not like I just happen to be reading Russian writers. This is a story that is described in Schnase’s Five Practices of Fruitful Living.
- The main character, a man by the name of Pakhom, is given land by his father. He spends years saving and sacrificing to get more land, until one day he hears that there is land for sale in another region that is much cheaper than in his homeland. So, he moves his family across the country to this new land.
- In spite of the fact that he now has a lot more land than before, he is still not happy. One day, he hears of a place where the king will give you as much land as you can walk in a single day.
- You first had to pay the king all of your money, then put a stake in the ground, and you had until sunset to walk around the property. Whatever you could encompass belonged to you. However, if you did not make it back to the stake by sunset, you would not get anything.
- So he sells everything that he has, goes to the kingdom, pays the money, gets his stake and starts walking the land.
- He goes as fast as he can, but he is always seeing something more that he wants to obtain. As you can imagine, the time gets away from him, and he has to push the limits of even the most trained runner in order to get back in time.
- He ends up pushing himself so hard that he collapses and dies with the stake in sight just before the sun went down.
- The story ends by asking the question: How much land does a man need? Six feet from head to heel.
- The man had an unhealthy relationship with his possessions, and in the end, it consumed him.
- Transition
- There are three important issues that we have to think about when it comes to extravagant generosity in our personal lives.
- Like most things, even if we don’t realize it, giving is a theological issue. So, the first issue that we have to explore is our theology of ownership.
- Second, we have to explore what it means to be content.
- And, third, we have to explore what it means to develop a habit of extravagant generosity in our personal lives.
- Issues in Extravagant Generosity
- Theological issue of ownership
- On the most fundamental level, we really have two options when it comes to a personal theology of ownership.
- First, God owns everything, and we are stewards
- As we read the creation story, we see that humanity is given creation and is charged to be a steward of creation.
- A steward is not an owner, but a person who is put in charge of taking care of something for a set period of time.
- In the book of Leviticus, there is the concept of the Year of Jubilee.
- Every 50 years, the ground was supposed to be given its rest.
- No crops were to be planted.
- Debts were to be forgiven.
- And all land was to be returned to its original owner.
- This was all to be a reminder that God is the one who ultimately owns everything. It is not ours to buy and sell. It is only ours to manage for a period of time.
- By understanding ownership in this light, we realize that we have what we have only for a short period of time. Ultimately, we cannot take it with us because it is not ours to take.
- The second approach in a theology of ownership is that we own everything and God, and consequently the church, should be grateful for whatever it is that we give to help His purposes in the world.
- I don’t know about you, but I actually feel a little icky just saying that sentence.
- We may not say it like that, but when we decide to hold onto everything that we have, that is what we are doing. We are saying that what we have is ours, and the recipient, even God, should be happy that we are giving away just a little bit of what we own.
- So, again, the first issue that we have to deal with is: who owns the stuff that we claim to own?
- Contentedness
- What does it take to be happy with what we have?
- Did you know, regardless of current income level, people seem to think that they would be just fine if they made 20% more than they make now?
- Think about that for a second.
- People making $50,000 would be all right if they made $60,000.
- People making $60,000 would be all right if they made $72,000.
- No matter what that person’s income level, all they think they will need is another 20% to be happy with it.
- But you see the problem, don’t you? We are always going to want just a little bit more in order to be happy.
- When that is the case, we find that our pursuit of happiness becomes just an endless series of “just one more thing, and I’ll be happy.” But happiness is not found in material possessions.
- Happiness is found in being content with what we have.
- Contentedness does not come from owning more stuff. It is formed within us from the practice of generosity.
- Contentedness comes from being happy with what we have instead of feeling distressed by the things that we lack.
- By giving away what we have, we are saying, “Yes, I could spend this on myself, but I choose not to.”
- By doing this, we break the chains of greed and desire in our lives, and we begin to find contentment.
- Contentedness also comes from a deep sense of gratitude. Generous people tend to be thankful people.
- Contentedness derives from a spiritual awareness that we have already been given everything that we need by God.
- Sometimes that is easier said than done, without a doubt.
- God’s grace is sufficient to get us through anything in our lives, and God’s provision is sufficient to support us in our lives.
- Developing the habit
- Third issue in extravagant generosity recognizes that giving is not easy. It has to be a habit that is cultivated.
- Like all of the other practices, extravagant generosity is not something that we can just flip on, like a switch.
- Extravagant generosity means that we have to be intentional about what we do with our money, and we have to be intentional about developing a pattern of giving in our lives.
- People who are serious about extravagant generosity teach the principles to others as well. They hand it down to their children. They are open about it, not because it makes them look better, but because they have nothing to hide.
- It takes time in order to develop extravagant generosity into a habit. It is not easy, and it may not seem natural at first, but as with all things in our spiritual lives, we must cultivate a discipline of giving.
- Conclusion: While finances are not a topic that most people are excited about when it comes to worship, there is no doubt that it is an important topic that needs to be addressed. Extravagant Generosity is a practice that we need to cultivate because we are merely stewards of the things God has entrusted to us; because happiness is not found in hanging on to the things of this world; because we want to be a part of what God is doing through the ministry of this congregation. Personally, I’m excited about this topic because for many people it is the one area of their lives that they haven’t completely given over to Christ, and any time people give parts of their lives over to Jesus – well, that’s something worth being excited about.
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Pastor Swish
I'm a United Methodist pastor in Vincennes, Indiana. This blog is just about ministry, life and other stuff.
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