Jesus is Practical: Giving
This is possibly the most important talk about finances of the whole series.
Just like the engagement and marriage talk was the most important one in the relationship series
– this one is really the entire point of the financial series.
– If you miss the point of this talk you will miss the point of the whole series!
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If you follow the stuff that Dave Ramsey teaches
Baby steps:
If you get serious about saving up a $1000 emergency fund and actually do it – happens very fast
If you pay down your debt in full and refuse to go into debt again – avg. person/couple 1.5 yrs
if you build your e-fund to 6 months of expenses – takes a few months max.
If you then go on [all @ same time]...
– 15% of income in retirement
– Save for College for your kids [or continued schooling for yourself]
– Either pay-off house or save up for a house – Avg happens in 6-7 yrs [according to D.R.]
– Be frugal and don't let a realtor talk you into more house than you need!!!
Not going to cover these Baby Steps in detail
– if you want to know how to do those, save up and buy DR books or dvd/cd's with all the lessons on them
– some great stuf in there and you will never be the same financially of you follow his financial plan
– All hinges on if you actually do the things he says and follow God's financial plan
If you do these things in succession...
make the hard decisions
sweat
work hard
get gazelle intense about it
YOU WILL BUILD WEALTH
– it's only a matter of how long it will take, NOT “if”
May take a bit longer for some rather than others, but it will happen eventually
I can personally attest to that
– not that I'm wealthy by any stretch
– But we are out of debt [except for house] and able to plan for the future!
The end Goal is not to be a selfish hoarding jerk that is incredibly wealthy
– lot of pple preaching a health and wealth Gospel out there
– giving people all the reason they could ever want to be rich and get everything they could ever want
– not what Jesus came to die for!
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The end goal of building all this wealth is to GIVE like almost nobody else is able to
PRAY
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Group Question: What are some attitudes you have heard about giving?
Tell story about how I learned about giving to God – cynical beginnings
I had grown up as a Preacher's kid [pk]
My experiences with that taught me that people gave so my dad and my family could put food on the table
so we could have a roof over our heads and
so the church building could have some work done on it
I'm sure the church was also giving to reach the needs of the surrounding community, but I never saw that side of it.
Later I learned from my family that we were supposed to give, but I never really understood why.
So for a long time for me, giving just seemed like it was this mandatory obligation born out of tradition
and ultimately was just a business transaction for goods and services
– how boring is that, right?
I thought God was selfish!
Plus I just saw it as a way to pay for the salary of the Priest/pastor and meet the needs of the church.
- essentially I saw it as a get rich program for priests and pastors [don't know why i thought that cause we never had any $]
I had the gift of cynicism starting out!
I figured you Pay-off the church
Pay-off God
and you live like a noble upstanding citizen
– kind of like paying your taxes
– you do it b/c you have to and you want to look good to your neighbors
This is life as a pharisee at it's best!
you follow the rules and it's all about the rules
you become a “christian boy scout!” [as dave ramsey puts it]
the other thing that shaped my view of giving was watching TV and seeing numerous televangelists getting up there and preach heart warming sermons only to land on a plead for cash
– I smelled a scam a mile away
– this unfortunately was a reason I came to believe it was a bad idea to give
– scams and scandals abound even today and I was determined not to feed liars and thieves.
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Group Question: What are some good reasons to give? What are some good reasons NOT to give?
Lets take a look at what the Bible says about Giving::
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[Assign people go to the verses on screen]
Turn with me to Gen 12
Pretty early on in the Bible God is searching for people to follow Him.
He searches the land and finds almost nobody
Finally He finds this guy named Abraham
-maybe you've heard of him?
– has many sons :)
God realizes that Abraham is just as interested in a relationship with God as God is with Abraham
- Knowing He can trust Abraham to follow Him, God says the following
Read GEN 12:1-3
Abrahamic Covenant = Blesses us to bless others
In other words, “I LOVE YOU.”
– so I'm blessing you
– the blessing isn't just for you
– calls Abraham to a higher calling
– to be like God
– What is God Like?
– He loves to bless!
– It's like he just can't contain Himself!
– Then he calls Abraham to bless others
– Bless them in every way!
–
The overlying principle here is that we are blessed by God
– not to hoard it
– but to be stable enough and provided for enough
– to bless others!
Turn with me now to Proverbs 21
Solomon wrote Proverbs
– this is a man who the Bible itself says he asked for wisdom from the Lord and was granted it
– Many of the verses contained in Proverbs have to do with the use of $$
– and making decisions about money and
– how to relate with others in financial decisions
What does Prov 21 say?
Prov 21:26
“they” in this verse is a reference back to the verse before it talking about lazy people
– notice what he says about the righteous...
– they give without sparing!
– In other words they follow after God
Turn with me to Prov 11
Prov 11:24-25
There is a logical problem that goes on in our minds when we give...
– It's a paradox that we tend to believe that if we hold onto all our money, we will have more!
– Tendency is to think selfishly that if we hold on tightly we will have MORE because it doesn't get away from us
– for some, Holding onto money actually feels like security!
– that is really a strong indicator of a lack of spiritual maturity!
– It's Easy to fall into this thinking.
– b/c God's economy is so foreign to us
– It seems illogical and counterintuitive to our minds
– That's not how it works
The paradox is that as we give we receive even more!
Fist is International sign of anger/aggression
Open hand is the international sign for peace
If you have an open hand you can lose money, but you also can't get any more in
sounds wrong looking at it from a math perspective
sometimes some leaves, sometimes some comes – never really know
But if you hold $$ in this kind of a spirit it changes the way you will view $$
also changes the way you treat it
Your entire thinking about $$ changes.
Jesus after His Resurrection
Appears to the Disciples a few times
one of the last times he gives what's called the Great Commission
– essentially = I got some stuff I want you to do
– Says
– Go
– make disciples
– Baptize and
– teach them to “do all that I have commanded”
So the question becomes, “What did He teach?”
Turn with me to Matt 10
In Matthew 10 Jesus has hand picked His disciples
– He is giving instructions before He sends them out to the surrounding area towns
– He is basically giving them some real hands on experience right from the start!
– These are a few of their marching orders
Read Matt 10:42
– The assumption here is that those receiving the Disciples are to
– that they should provide for their needs give to disciples and followers of Jesus
Look back with me just a few verses earlier at vs 8
Read Matt 10:8
– Here He is suggesting that not only are we to those in need
– Giving is much more than just $$
– It's a holistic act of healing
Does this sound familiar?
– Abraham is told that He will be blessed and that He in turn is to Bless others
– Jesus is telling the Disciples “Freely you have received; freely give!”
We are blessed to bless others...
There's over 2500 verses in the Bible on Finances
- one of the most talked about subjects
– Just over 2300 verses on God's heart for the poor and the oppressed and Marginalized/outcast/abused/less fortunate/etc.
Maybe there is a message in that...
– Maybe God is trying to tell us something about the financial resources we have and where to put it
– Maybe He has an opinion [a plan] for how we are to conduct our finances
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What does the Bible teach about - How we should give?
Abraham that we discussed earlier
– after being blessed by God had to go and bail out his nephew Lot [got into some trouble in Sodom and Gomorrah]
– The kings of those cities along with a bunch of other cities teamed up against Abraham
– God delivers all of them in defeat to Abraham using only 318 men
– rescues Lot and Family
Gen 14:17-20
This is where we get the word “Tithe” from
Tithe = 10%
gave tithe to Melkizedek
This is one of the first models of giving a tithe in the Bible
This is followed up in several places including...
Prov 3:9-10
Prov was written to an agrarian culture that understood the blessing of harvest
First fruits = Giving God from first and best of what you have received
there is a debate about whether that is on the gross or the net income
– It's off the Gross according to the Bible!
In the O.T. they would also give various Offerings at feasts and festivals and other events
= Above the tithe
Total giving in the O.T. after it was all said and done was around 25-30%
2 Cor 9:7
– cheerful giver = hilarious
– doesn't give an amount – could be all of it!
We are called to give to God
The first priority in your budget should be giving!
Then saving
Then the normal bills.
Even if you are in debt, we are still called to give.
If you can't do a tenth right away, there is grace, but the goal should be to get to even much more than 10%
Pray about what God would have you give
- needs to be between you and God
The whole reason we've been talking about finances is to build up you as the Body of Christ to be able to give generously to those in need and those doing God's work!
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We are all Asset Managers for the Lord:
Illustration from DAVE Ramsey - BANKER ANALOGY:
Pick 2 pple from the crowd
one person is a banker
other person us you and I –
Work hard
Sweat
Finally save up $1000
Get an idea to put the $$ in the bank [guy makes dep in the bank]
Legal Definition: Just been a “Fiduciary trust” placed in the Banker
you and I have placed a trust in this bank and those who work in it.
Suddenly you have a need for that $$
decide to go back to the bank to get $$
when you get there,
Manager calls you into the office
Say's “ I have some bad news, please sit down!”
Tells you that he and his wife “needed” some stuff
needed a new car
needed a bunch of clothes
needed a motorcycle
needed to go out to eat
– so we took your $1000 and used it, “is that ok?”
This banker has stolen this guy's money! Is that alright?
Do we just let him get away with that?
What are your feelings right now?
I didn't actually tell you the truth at first.
These positions aren't really a Banker and You and I
These positions are really God and You and I
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God owns it all
It's all His and you and I manage it for Him
It's not the other way around!!
We get this so confused in our culture!
We forget who is owner and who is manager.
When we do that we start making mistakes spiritually and mistakes in how to handle the money we have
We struggle with this issue because we love having stuff and we think after a while that we actually own it!
Really it's all on loan from God!
Beautiful part is...
Once you finally come to the place that you are not an owner and you are just a manager
It becomes incredibly easy to give money away!
It's very easy to give other people's money away
It's also extremely freeing to give
It changes something inside of you
You are forced to accept the truth of the situation
you are not as important as God and His will
We are forced to humble ourselves and put others before our own selfish desires
this is maturity
It's realizing our job is not to acquire stuff and $$
but to give and serve others in many ways – including with $$
If I was to give you $1000 right now and told you that you had to divide it up and give it out to several people in the next few minutes