Sermon for August 22nd (Sent Out To Give)

I have a single goal today. When you leave church this morning, I want you to be focused on the freedom you have in Christ. I want you to leave this building today with a smile on your face knowing that your Lord Jesus Christ became poor so that you might become rich. My dad used to say that there are two states of wealth: no money and not enough money. I’d like to propose a third state: rich! Sometimes that involves lots of 0’s and often it does not. As Paul points out about the Macedonian church, “Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.” “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” I want you to leave here today rich and free.

Not so that you might feel bad, or guilty or wrong for being rich, but so that you might really and truly believe that God can provide and has provided you with everything that you need or want with 0’s at the end! Because God loves you that’s why! I want you each to have the knowledge that you are leaving here today rich and that God has given you the freedom to use the money he has blessed you with—no strings attached. Is it dangerous to say that? Yes.

This is not your parents’ stewardship sermon. It’s much more dangerous than that. My goal is that you will leave today free. I do not want to put any burdens on you or make demands on your money because God does not. Is that dangerous to say? Yes. If you do not feel that you HAVE to give, this church may fall into disrepair. The lights might be turned off. Ministries might end all because you heard that your salvation is not dependent on your giving.

If you knew that you didn’t have to do anything to be saved, you could do anything, couldn’t you, including never getting a penny and yet continuing to hear that God loves you unconditionally? Is that dangerous? Yes. So let’s dangerous today. Because it is the truth and I pray that this truth sets you free. The danger is worth it because you might finally realize that just as salvation is free of charge so is church. It’s free. You don’t HAVE to give, you CHOOSE to. Jesus Christ didn’t HAVE to die for you; it was necessary for him to die on the cross because he CHOSE to love you and forgive you. And when you leave today knowing that you don’t have to give anything, what will you do? You’ll have the opportunity, the choice to give, so that others might hear the promise of salvation. And it won’t be about just today’s offering plate, but about how you want to live and give the rest of your life. You don't come in to give, you are sent out to give.

I believe that Jesus has a much bigger goal in mind for your life and for your money than a ten percent tithe. He referred to a widow who gave all she had, two pennies, as a model to be followed. He demanded that a rich young ruler give all his possessions to the poor. In the gospel of Luke, he said, “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” You think God wants 10%? You are wrong. He wants everything that you have. 100%. It’s not about your money, it’s about your faith. When you live your life in faith, every dollar you have is an opportunity. To enjoy the life God gave you, to bless your children and to be sent out in mission for Christ.

There are two main issues when it comes to giving: Having the tools to give and having the faith to give. What do I mean by tools? Having a plan and sticking to a budget for example. Giving you the tools to give involves a lot of things: helping you make good career choices, encouraging hard work, supporting good pay practices, helping you make a budget, looking at long term financial planning and getting out of debt.

Over the next thirteen weeks, you can learn some tools and techniques for managing your money in a program we are holding here called, “Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.” There are no doubt many great ways to get control of your money that I don’t know of, but this is one that I know works and so I encourage you to do it. If you are having trouble in your life because of money or if you simply want to use your money more effectively to carry out your goals, come to this course and get the tools. You’ll hopefully find the freedom to live and give like you’ve always wanted to.

Why are tools important? Well, even if you desire to do something you need the right tools to get r’ done. Last week, on the way to breakfast, I had a flat tire (the first of three that morning by the way) and I wanted to change it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the tools to do it because the bolts were rusted stuck. Thankfully, one of the men in the men’s Bible Study had an impact wrench. Without this tool, it wouldn’t have mattered how much I wanted or desired to change that tire. I simply would not have been able to. I know that some of you want to give, but you can’t figure out how you would be able to with the way your finances are going right now. What might you do with the right tools?

When Kristy and I first started ministry in Connecticut, we wanted to tithe, but we were using our credit card even to go out to eat. We didn’t have any money to do what we wanted! We decided to tithe anyway, but that credit card bill made giving seem like a huge sacrifice. Once we started this Dave Ramsey thing, got on a budget and told our money where to go, we put the money into tithing BEFORE the month started. When we made a budget, got on a plan and stuck to it, we found there was more money there than we thought. We finally found freedom and that made giving a joy and not a curse. We could start living according to what was important to us rather than feeling “poor”.

However, giving is not just about tools—it is also about faith. I want to expose you today to something Dave can’t give you—the faith to give. Faith comes from God alone. Not from feeling guilty about not giving. Not from feeling shamed for not giving enough in the past. The faith to give comes from God and only from God.

How many of you are excited about Tax Day? Not many. And yet, when the moment is right, you’d give all you had for a friend. You’ll never find joy in being generous by following particular laws or commands. That’s why the apostle Paul points to an impoverished church in Macedonia as a symbol of hope for us saying that when this church found freedom in Christ they became rich in generosity. When you hear and believe what Jesus has done for you, I believe that you will find yourselves rich and generous as well. You won’t be able to help yourself.

Why? Because freedom alone leads to generosity. Only when you realize that you are free can you feel the joy of generosity. But the Devil doesn’t want you to know all this, you see. He wants you to stay away from hearing God’s word, from sharing God’s love and involving yourself with a church or with ministry because of those little offering plates over there. He wants you to feel poor whether you’ve got a little or a lot. He wants you to believe that you don’t have enough.

The Devil makes us believe that a 10% tithe is impossible, a ridiculous demand, even though through the abundance of God, many of you might spend that much going out to eat each month. Stewardship is not about money—it’s about having the faith to give and learning the tools to put that faith into practice. Paul told the Corinthians, if you have the desire (the faith) to give, then finish the work (find the tools) so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.” It’s not about how much, but having the faith to give.

But the Devil wants you to believe differently. He wants you to believe that your faith has nothing to do with your money. The Devil wants you to believe that you can be a Christian on the inside and never let it show on the outside. But faith involves everything you have: your heart, your mind, your actions and yes your money too. The Devil is a liar. But what does God say? “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, Says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” Give me ten percent and I’ll give you 110%. Test me and prove me to be a God of abundance in your life.

Giving is not a salvation issue. Jesus’ death on the cross gives you eternal life with God. Your trust in that gift seals the deal. There is nothing left to be done . . . so what are you going to do? Giving is not a salvation issue for you, but your gifts are used for God’s ministry. We are called in to be sent out. We don’t come in to give, we are sent out to give. Let me say that again, We don’t come in to give, we are sent out to give. To share the gift of salvation with others, to feed those who cannot find food, to heal those who are sick

It’s only by faith that you can give, when you believe that being a Christian is more than just a name, but a way of life. When you start realizing that you really are free from sin, death and the power of the Devil. Then your money becomes a tool that you can use to do what you think is important in this world, whether it is to build a hospital to care for those that are sick, pay for your child’s college education or send out missionaries to the ends of the earth. It’s your freedom, it’s your money and it’s your choice. By His death on the cross, Jesus has give you freedom, and by His poverty He has made you rich. Amen.

Sermon for May 16th (Legalism)

In the last few weeks, we’ve talked about a lot of things. We’ve discussed the Bible, why it’s important and how to read it. We’ve looked at the difference between what you are called to do by God and what God does for you. We’ve discussed the purpose of rules and laws and how they help you to avoid sin and show you your need for a Savior.

But all of this talk is really about one particular thing: giving you faith. God wants you to trust in Him, in His Word and in His purpose for your life. He wants you to hear how His Son Jesus died on a cross for you so that you might be forgiven. But when we start believing all this, it is important for us all to be aware of a big pitfall Christians tend to fall into: It’s called legalism.

When you start believing that Jesus Christ forgave all your sin, destroyed your death and saved you from a meaningless life you find yourself free. The chains are gone. You know that following the rules God gives isn’t going to save you or make you look more holy, but, surprisingly enough, you find ourselves living according to God’s laws anyway. It’s like you can’t help yourself. Once you know that you don’t Have to do anything to save yourself, you have a lot more time to take care of others and love them. As a professor of mine once put it, “now that you know that you don’t HAVE to do anything, what are you going to do?” Once you don’t HAVE to do anything you CAN do a lot of things.

Jesus explained once in the gospels that a good tree must produce good fruit and that a bad tree must produce bad fruit. When God starts working on you and gives you faith, you start following God’s will. It’s only natural. God doesn’t just talk—he transforms. You are a new creation. God has made you into a good tree, so to speak, and a good tree must produce good fruit. So, you may find yourself praying for help even though you never used to pray. You start caring for people in a way you never did before. You might even find coming to church “fun” despite the stories you hear from your unchurched friends.

A good tree must produce good fruit. On the one hand, that sounds very demanding, “What do you mean!? Do I HAVE to produce good fruit?” Well, no, you don’t HAVE to . . . but when you’ve been transformed by God’s forgiveness, you might just end up doing it. A corn plant probably isn’t too offended when a farmer comes at harvest time expecting it to have produced corn because that’s what a corn plant does, that’s what God made it to do. In the same way, a Christian is made and created by God to do good works. It’s not about what you are told to do anymore . . . it’s just the natural thing to do.

But as soon as you are freed from having to trust in your own works and abilities for your salvation, it’s easy to fall into a trap. You start expecting the fruit to come without paying much attention to the tree. It would be like going out into the field at harvest time and getting all bent out of shape when you’ve found nothing growing there (even though, no one ever tilled the ground, or planted the seeds, or irrigated). You can’t expect the fruit to come at harvest without paying attention to all the steps beforehand. But that is exactly what we do at times in church.

Many of you have gone to church your whole lives and you know that, when you come to church, there are certain expectations. Most people don’t think about these things much, but when someone who has never been to church in their entire life comes THEY notice. Maybe a visitor looks differently, or acts differently, talks differently or has a different background from most of the others at the service. Maybe they are struggling noticeably with some sinful behavior that you usually just don’t see much of in a church. And they feel judged because of these differences. Truth be told, they are probably being judged.

But why!? How can this be? Isn’t the church the place for sinners to come and hang out with others of their kind? Isn’t the whole point to be forgiven and to tell others about their forgiveness? I mean, if anyone in here was without sin, there would be no need for Jesus Christ and his cross. So then, how can we, sitting here in the pews, judge others as more messed up than we are?

I’ll tell you part of the reason: We forget that freedom only comes from Jesus Christ. We expect the changed life before someone steps inside the church doors. We expect the good works right away. But people don’t need our unfair expectations . . . they need to hear and experience God’s love, nourishment, and forgiveness. They need to hear God’s forgiveness just like you. A person needs to be given faith so that, according to God’s good pleasure, they might be transformed into a new creation. For apart from Jesus Christ, none of us can do anything..

As the body of Christ, we are supposed to know better. We know that good works don’t save anyone. But the temptation of legalism is that we expect people to follow certain rules and traditions that we’ve already been freed from. What is very scary, though, is that when we start expecting perfection from others, we are actually putting the chains back around our own ankles. We forget what forgiveness in Christ is all about, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

A professor of mine once explained that if I believe I am preaching to people who are already free to do good works on their own, then I will always end up trying to chain them up with rules and laws to keep them in line. But, if I believe that I am preaching to people who are already bound up in their sins, unable to follow God’s will on their own, then I will always seek to free them with the gospel of Jesus Christ. When people enter this church, shall we blame them for their bad choices or seek to free them with the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ?

In the gospel of Mark, Jesus spoke harshly about some people who had placed more importance on doing something a traditional way instead of following God’s commandment. It is our habit, as humans, to fall into this trap because it is comfortable. Some of you may have heard this old joke, “How many Lutherans does it take to change a lightbulb?” “Change!” And then there’s the story about a woman who was asked why she always cut off the end of the chicken before roasting it. She explained that that’s the way her mother had always done it. When she called her mother, her mother explained that she had learned to do it that way because HER mother had always done it that way. But when they called grandma, they found out that she had needed to cut off the end because her roasting pan was too small to fit a whole chicken. Jesus expects us to always be aware of WHY we do things, not just focused on HOW we do them.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that this just has to do with contemporary versus traditional or old versus new. Legalism has to do with the heart. Humans look on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. We have traditions for a reason and many are still going for a purpose. We do certain things at church each week that we think are important such as reading scripture, confessing our sins, hearing God’s forgiveness, receiving the Lord’s Supper and singing songs of praise—sometimes our traditions follow God’s will for our lives. Some people can get as addicted to changing things are others are to keeping them the same. Legalism tempts us to focus on visible and invisible rules rather than on the heart of worship.

What are you enslaved to? What prisons have you created for yourself and others? Legalism is an easy temptation for you and I to fall into, but, thankfully God has the key to unlock us from this prison. You and I enter the church in chains, but here is your key to freedom: in case you didn’t believe it the first time, I’ll tell you again. You are forgiven in the name of Jesus Christ. It may sound like a simple promise, but it is the power of God. You may trust in God’s power to transform your life, make you new and start producing fruit. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”