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 23rd (Fruits of the Spirit)

“Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.” Have any of you read the book, Lord of the Flies, or seen the movie. That iconic story portrays what happens when people are left up to our own devices, without guidance or rules. They end up trying to kill each other. It’s in our nature, what the apostle Paul calls our sinful nature. God created us good, but we choose to do things that are not good. It’s not that we aren’t able to do good, but each one of us is driven, compulsively, to follow our own desires rather than to follow the desires of God. We want what is best for ourselves—not others.

Paul says that our sinful nature and God’s Holy Spirit, are in conflict with one another. There is an ultimate fight going on within each of us, all the time. Some of you might experience this as anxiety, or guilt, or just plain indecision. God sends us his Holy Spirit in order that we might follow God’s will despite our temptations to do just the opposite. When the Holy Spirit starts working in your life, the effects are what the book of Galatians calls the fruit of the Spirit.

The apostle Paul gives us nine examples of this fruit in Galatians chapter 5. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I will be focusing on three of them this morning. I want you to better understand both how God creates these fruits in you and how you and I can cultivate this fruit in our lives. I intend on planting seeds this morning, seeds of faith, so that you might realize that this fruit comes from God alone for, as Jesus put it, “Apart from me (apart from God) you can do nothing.” But I also want to equip you with ways to nourish this fruit in your life.

Today I will focus on just three fruits of the Spirit, namely: peace, generosity and self-control. So let’s get started.

The fruit of Peace

In the movie, “Under the Tuscan Sun”, the main character, Francis, has recently gone through a bad divorce and is trying to put her life back together. She is struggling especially with how to deal with romance and finding new love. Another woman speaks to her about being at peace in her life until the time is right for love to come her way. She explains, “Listen, when I was a little girl, I used to spend hours looking for ladybugs. Finally, I'd just give up and fall asleep in the grass. When I woke up, they were crawling all over me.” The fruit of peace grows, and it’s impossible for us to know exactly how. Many a couple has explained the fruit of peace in this way when it comes to finding love, “When I stopped looking, love found me.”

Psalm 46 puts this a different way, “Be still and know that I am God.” The fruit of peace starts growing without any effort on your part. People often find peace only when they stop working so hard at finding it. You already have peace with God because of Jesus’ death on the cross. No matter the battle you are fighting in your life right now, Jesus has already defeated it for you. One day you will see that victory face to face. The stress in your life doesn’t get the last word. God says, “My peace I give to you.”

So then, how do we cultivate this peace? Well, to start, it is very difficult to find peace when you are always striving for it. I believe that this fruit is constantly trying to grow on us, but, instead of enjoying it, we find some way to ignore it. I often create stress for myself. Are any of you like that? What I do is, instead of enjoying my life, I keep striving for more. I’ll be sitting at home enjoying my family and then, suddenly, I am in angst about whether I am REALLY doing enough with my kids to be a good father. Am I playing with them enough? Should I be home more? And, soon enough, I’ve got myself and my kids upset about whether I am a good dad or not. One moment I’m enjoying family time, but because of my selfish ambition to be super-dad, our peaceful home becomes miserable.

Cultivating peace is your life is often about just letting God take care of your problems without trying to do his job for him. You’ve no doubt seen the signs in mechanics garages that give the price for labor per hour and then higher prices if you want to watch or if you want to help. God is the master mechanic and cultivating peace often means letting go and letting God do his thing. In the gospel of Matthew Jesus says, “Do not worry. Do not worry about what you will eat or what you will wear, for your Heavenly Father knows that you need these things. But, seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

What are some practical ways to cultivate peace? Take time out at the end of each day to pray. Use one of the Portals of Prayer books or just say the Lord’s Prayer. You could write down your worries on a piece of paper as they come into your mind and stick them in your Bible next to a passage about God’s power and leave them in God’s hands. You might be amazed at how well he does with your problems without your help. Don’t make finding peace into another goal; focus on how God has already given you the fruit you seek.

The Fruit of Generosity

Dave Ramsey, a Christian financial planner explains that the amount of money one has does not affect how one wants to use it. If you are a jerk when you are poor, you will be a jerk when you are rich. Money doesn’t change the heart. In fact, all that will probably happen when you have more money is that you will become MORE of whatever you already are. This fruit of generosity, like the fruit of peace, comes from the Holy Spirit, not from the amount of money you earn or how hard you work for it. AND generosity doesn’t come from being told to give more, but from having a change of heart.

For many, the world seems based on a rule of scarcity while God promises that the world is actually full of God’s abundance. A worldview based on scarcity leads to desires such as jealously and envy. When it appears that the world does not have enough money, or food, or housing, or love to go around, it makes us believe that we must take what others have or horde what we have before someone comes to take it away.

Perhaps that is why being rich in today’s society is viewed as a sin to many people—a sin that needs to be punished. Instead of seeing one’s money, no matter how much or how little, as a blessing given by God, wealth is seen as an unequal distribution of limited resources. And so we are tempted to all kinds of sinful behavior when we believe others have what should be rightfully ours. However, the fruit of generosity is planted when you start realizing that all that you have, and all that others have, are gifts from the same God. And he is a God of abundance. God uses all people, rich and poor, to care for his creation.

But how might we cultivate generosity in our own lives? One of the best ways, I believe, is by doing something as simple as making a budget. As the motivational speaker Zig Zigler puts it, “If you don’t tell your money where to go, you won’t know where it went.” Even if the fruit of generosity has been planted in our hearts, it can often seem like we CAN’T give like we want to because we never have anything leftover at the end of the month! But once you see where your money is going, you have the opportunity to cultivate your generousity.

You can decide to spend more time eating at home with the family for instance instead of going out. Or, you can plan to build up money for Christmas gifts all year long instead of putting it all on a credit card as if it were an unexpected emergency the night of December 24th. Most people who want to give 10% to their church can’t find 10% leftover at the end of the month, but, by using a budget, you can plan to give before the month even starts. Often, a simple step like planning a budget can help you cultivate the fruit of generosity that God has already placed in your hearts. It’s a tool that helps you live out your faith.

The Fruit of Self-Control

Richard Wurmbrand wrote this in his book, “Waiting on God’s Will” about his 14 years in a Romanian prison being persecuted for his faith in Christ. He wrote, “I remember the chill that went down my spine when I read the secret formula disclosed only to initiates during the third degree of Masonry, “Let my will happen in all things.” The formula was not new to me. It tapped the huge drive for self-assertion which we all have in us. It is just the contrary of the teaching of our Lord: ‘Whoever desires to come to Me, let him deny himself.’

In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray to God, “THY will be done.” When in all things OUR will is the most important aspect, life becomes all about our wishes, our dreams, our desires. It feels so good to do whatever we want! By ourselves, we are slaves to sin, but when God makes us new creations, He sets us free. When God gives you faith, he also gives you hope for self-control. Not by trusting in your own power to resist but in God’s power to strengthen you.

Self-control is cultivated in two particular ways: learning God’s will for your life and waiting for God to act in your life. You may have heard the story where a little boy gets in trouble again and again for leaving his bike in his parents’ driveway. After being chided one last time for his lack of self-control, the little boy finally cries out, “OK, I’m sorry, but what’s a driveway!” When you read the Bible, you find out how God wants you to live your life and that gives you an idea of where you need to control yourself. If you have never heard God’s laws, it’s tough to follow them.

The second way you can cultivate self control is through prayer. When temptation comes your way, ask for help from God himself, “Commit your way to God, trust in him until he acts on your behalf.” If you’ve ever been to an AA meeting, Alcoholics Anonymous, you’ve heard this exemplified in the opening steps, “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. Step two: We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” Everyone’s temptations are different, but cultivating self-control is a fight that we all must take one day at a time.

“Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.” The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. When God gives you faith, the Holy Spirit plants the seeds in your heart; however, as long as this sinful nature of ours exists we will have to contend with the temptations to let these fruits die on the vine. But you are not alone.

My prayer is that, as a community, we might cultivate these fruits in one another. There are portals of prayer books and a sign-up sheet for more in the parish hall if you are struggling with finding peace in your life. There are copies of a budget that you can work through to help you live our your generosity. Finally, there are Bibles to take home if you don’t’ have one and Bible studies between services as well as a list of support groups for those struggling with self-control. Most importantly, as you continue to cultivate these fruits in your life you may trust that God is at work within you, enabling you to both will and work for his good pleasure. He who has called you is faithful and He will do it. Amen.