The Vineyard Church of North Grand Rapids, MI

Are you ready to put the Thanks back in Thanksgiving? As perhaps your aware, we have a hard time being thankful around the holidays. In our country, thankfulness is not in high supply. Now, we could talk stats, but I’ll spare you the sociology lesson.

Here’s a quick clip to get us started.

Thankfulness is hard for us! Maybe it has to do with all the stuff, all the technology.

As I sat around writing this sermon this week, in and out of Biggby coffee, I heard several tables talking about how to “skip Christmas this year.” Or permanently. I heard several people complaining about Target running out of televisions, and a few more complaining about seeing all the relatives this holiday season. Just Friday night, I sat listening to a teenager argue with his parents for 30 minutes about the coffee they had just bought him saying, it doesn’t taste chocolately enough. Its coffee! Ingratitude is something of an epidemic and it seems to be contagious around the holidays. And the Black Friday ads don’t help. We found my three-year-old leafing through the ads on Thanksgiving day, he went straight to Toys-r-us, and thought, he’s three! Thanksgiving is not supposed to be about getting more stuff! (and then I realized I was holding the Sears ad).

We need to put the thanks back in Thanksgiving. And I want to propose to you that the way we do that is not shopping, its giving. Thanks that overflows into giving is the quickest path to a thankful hear.

This morning we’re taking a break from Galatians to talk about giving. We’ve been talking about Paul’s letter on grace, we’re going to switch gears to talk about Paul’s letter on thanksgiving, or section. 2 Cor 9 says, You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occassion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

You want to get your thanksgiving back? From the marketers, from the retailers? The answer is giving. You want to put real joy back in the whole Christmas season, the answer is not more shops, but thankful giving.

That’s why we’ve created all these opportunities you heard about this morning:

*Adopt a “forgotten child” of a prison inmate.

* Employ an Indonesian church-planter with a Xmas tree ornament.

*Invest in our worship experience with our worship equipment offering.

*That’s why we invite you every week to participate in worship by giving generously to the church God is building here in this place.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. “There you go again, the church asking for more money.” Its just like the retailers. The church always wants my money.

We’ve got some wild ideas about giving

Some of us have the idea that God is like the government, or he’s like the retailers, or the utility company. God wants his cut, God wants his 10%. 6% for sales tax, 12% for electricity, 30% for housing, 10% for God, keep the big guy on my side. I don’t need a pastor to remind me that God’s gotta have his due.

Others of us think God is like a vending machine. You put a dollar in, you get a candy bar. You put $1000 in, you’ll get a new house in the suburbs. You put $10,000 in, you might end up living on a sailboat in the Caribbean till your 150th birthday. We’ve got wild ideas about giving.

And some of us think of God like social security or the unemployment system. Oh, you’re not tithing, well, that’s shortsighted, sooner or later your gonna get behind on your bills, you’re going get laid up, be out of work and God is gonna say, “whoops, should’ve been paying into the system. What goes around comes around. Where do we get those?

Most of our ideas about giving don’t come from the gospel. Our ideas are quite childish, they come from simple, childish ideas about the economics. Pay your bills, get ahead, put a quarter in, get a gumball. 

And some of us will say, well Mike, “I’ve read things in the Bible like that:” God says, “Test me in tithing, see if I don’t give you a gumball.” “So I’m tithing and I’m believing for a really, really big gumball!” And I know that God is going to open the storehouse of gumballs and they’re going to roll all over the place. I’m going to dive in the gumballs, like one of those kids play areas that smells like socks and urine.

Or some of would say, look, right there in Malachi, God says, “you’re robbing me, you’re not paying the whole tithe.” Mike, you don’t pay your bill to God, sooner or later he’s going to turn the electricity off!

Now you’re right, these passages and ideas do come from the Bible, but they come from the Old Testament, the part of the book known as the law. You follow the law, good things, you break it, bad. And the law was perfect for God’s children to learn the principles of good and bad, right and wrong, life and death.

Most of our most common teaching about giving in the church come straight from the law. But as we’ve been learning in this Galatians series, we do not live in the land of God’s law. Because of Christmas, we are not saved by observing the law, we are not blessed by living according to the law, adhering to God’s old Testament law is not part of following Jesus.

The highlights from Galatians:

3:5 “Does God give his Spirit and work miracles among you by your observing the law, or by your believing what you heard?”

3:10 “All who rely on observing the law are under a curse...Clearly no one is justified before God by the law.

3:23 “Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law...now that this faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.”

Rules are a wonderfully useful when your 3 years old, just ask my son. He still hasn’t learned to cross the street. Now can you imagine a parent saying, daughter, its time to learn to cross the street, and there are no rules to this, just go for it, however you like, I want you to do what feels right to you. You want to run, run; skip, jump rope, you want to do it with your eyes closed – whatever, there’s no wrong way to cross the street, you just got to feel it out. Just do what comes natural, follow your instincts.

The law is a great teacher for the young! The inexperienced!

Back to giving: If we don’t give because of God’s law, because we have to, because its a requirement to ‘get blessed’, why give at all?

We’ve seen what Paul says about the law, let’s look at what Paul says about giving. The passage I quoted earlier is in the book right before Galatians, 2 Corinthians chapter 8. Turn there.

Here we have Paul, telling the church in Corinth, in some ways a very mature group of people, at least very experienced at going to church (just like some of us) how to think about giving. He’s not going to go back to the law, instead, he’s going to urge them to give, he’s going to point to another church in Macedonia, southern Greece, and say ‘give like them.’ He’s not going to command them from the law to ‘give or else.’ He’s not going to promise a bigger house or better car, he’s simply going to invite them into a richer way of living.

2 Cor 8 And now, brothers and sisters [of Corinth], we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. 2 In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. [what does poverty have to do with generosity?!] 3 For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, 4 they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege [or grace] of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. 5 And they went beyond our expectations; having given themselves first of all to the Lord, they gave themselves by the will of God also to us. 6 So we urged Titus, just as he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. 7 But since you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you —see that you also excel in this grace of giving.

2Cor. 8:8 I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others.

9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

Now, what’s going on here? This is a world apart from the commands to give we find all over the Old Testament. This is not a childish argument. Pay the bill or else. The theme of this passage is grace, pure undeserved grace!

Under the law, to get blessed by God, you had to give. Giving was a requirement to receive God’s blessing. Failure to give was punishable!

But grace is the opposite of this giving=blessing formula. What is grace? We sing about it: amazing grace, how sweet the sound. Grace is freely-given blessing. Its getting something you didn’t earn or deserve. You didn’t deserve God’s gifts, he just gave them. You didn’t earn forgiveness, he just gave it, that’s his grace.

Notice five times Paul refers to the grace that’s happening here.

“We want you to know about the grace that God gave Macedonia...that in their severe economic trials (not in spite of, like God took them away, but in the midst of), their joy and poverty welled up into rich generosity.” Poverty into generosity! They didn’t have to give (most people would’ve let themselves off the hook), they delighted to give! That’s grace. When you really can’t give as generously as you want, or maybe you shouldn’t, but you just want to. The joy in your heart and the poverty just mix in some mysterious way to produce a desire.

A. Giving is the overflow of experiencing grace

Paul says this same thing to the Corinthians: “since you in Corinth were previously planning to give, see to it that you complete this act of grace. Giving is an action brought on by grace. When you’ve received God’s free gifts by grace, they just flow out of you.

And that’s exactly what happens when we find the was the story of Pentecost, when Jesus left the earth and the power of his presence was poured out on the first church. In Acts 4, we see that in the wake of the Holy Spirit filling the church, saving the lost, doing miracles, Acts says “33 God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.”

I grew up in this church, and it was planted in 1992. The first 7 years there was so much grace at work in this church, we saw people coming to Jesus, our family, friends, neighbors, we saw so much of God’s wonderful power and presence that they put it in the newspaper.

And by the 5th year in, a small group of people began planning and praying and then giving – an enormous sum of money – to build this facility in 1999.

Back in 2 Cor, Paul points to grace again, “the Macedonians urgently pleaded with us for the privelege [lit. charis, grace] of sharing in this (lit) ministry!”

Giving is an experience of grace

There really is more joy in give than receive or shopping, or looking at Black Friday ads. Giving is its own reward. It changes us on the inside, and

And so Paul tells the Corinthians: “see to it that you also excel in this grace of giving” – now, that’s a long way from Deuteronomy – you better excel or there’ll be hell to pay.

See to it that you get all the grace (the freely-given blessing) of God that’s available in giving Don’t miss out on it! The fact that God would so work warm your heart, lovingly pry your cold dead fingers off your wad of cash, freeing your heart from greed, that’s grace (his free gift to you) – you might actually like it!

Wouldn’t you like some grace this Christmas!? To be free from the gnawing feeling of not having enough stuff? To be free from complaining.

Now, of course, there’s a cost to giving too. Its expensive!

I remember when I got my first job after college, and got that first big paycheck. And I said, “Oh God, I want to learn to give like a real grownup.” I got my first big paycheck, and I felt like they should’ve given it to me on one of those big card-board checks, like Ed McMahon should’ve been handing it to me. And there was so much paycheck in my hands that it didn’t feel like a very big deal to tear off a corner and give it to God. Until I got out the calculator. And I thought, well, if the people in the Old Testament had enough grace to give 10%, well maybe I should start there (after all, I’ve got this massive check). But then I realized that it would come out to like a few hundred dollars a month. And a few hundred dollars seemed like a lot of money! I could buy a new flat screen tv every month. Or a new mountain bike every other. Or take a second honeymoon vacation every year.

And then I didn’t want to give so much!

Suddenly, grace seemed too costly!

Some of you, like me, need the cost/benefit analysis.

You need reasons to give because the cost feels so high

Top 4 reasons to give generously

4. Giving opens the possibility of trusting God to meet our needs

That’s why the Macedonians were so joyful in giving. Their poverty and joy welled up into generosity. They’d experienced God’s incredible grace, their lives were filled with confidence that God could do anything. And so they weren’t worried about the what if’s. They were free from the stranglehold of fearing economic downturns.

Jesus said in his sermon on the mount: Matt 6:24 You cannot serve both God and Money. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

God wants to free you from worry, to trust him with all of your needs. And giving the way God instructs us to frees us from living our lives as slaves to the dollar bill. When you put the money in the offering basket, you’ve already surrendered the opportunity to stretch it to cover everything. Throughout the Bible, God tells us all to give, rich and poor, freedom is found in giving.

3. Giving breaks our addiction to consumption (greed)

Let’s face it, we have an addictive appetite for consumption. The stuff we buy is never enough.

In polls, they’ve found that no matter how little or much money you have, nearly everyone believes that with just 10% more, they’d be completely satisfied. And yet, those people making 10% or double what you make, still say the same thing. Greed is an unquenchable thirst. And consumption fuels greed.

ILLUS: Wesley’s constant income

great English preacher, who revived the church in England during the 18th century and to start the Methodist church movement. From Wesley we get some great ideas about money: Earn all you can, Save all you can, and Give all you can, that is right for a Christian.

Experience with giving to a poor woman at Oxford

1731, fix his income at 30 pounds a year, eventually rose to 1400 pounds.

Imagine that as a young person? I’m not going to chase.

2. Giving allows us to give our lives to God’s priorities

What are God’s priorities? We see them in the OT tithe. We talked about the tithe, its means 10% set aside, the firstfruits of our labor, given as a gift to God. In the Old Testament, there were 3 tithes, one annually to pay the priests, one annually to provide for the community worship celebration, and one every third year to provide for the poor. Those are three things God always provides for, and we see these same things reaffirmed in the New Testament.

The priests and the pastors

The support of a vibrant community life

The poor (esp. widows, orphans and foreigners)

This one is hard, sometimes people say, I’m ok with giving, but why the church? I don’t mind sending money charities I choose, where the overhead is low, and nothing will be wasted, all of it will go to only the most critical needs:

And I want to suggest to you, that might be your priority, but its not God’s.

God is the builder of the church. Its his plan, its his blueprint for changing the world. God is not interested in independent individuals giving to their own priorities; He’s building vibrant communities that both show and TELL the gospel of the coming kingdom. And Independent giving can actually hinder God’s plan. Well, how’s that? When we insist, no, its my money, I want to give it out as I see fit, when I see fit, to whom I see fit. I want to see the look of thanks on their face.

God would say, I don’t want them to thank you, I want to thank me, and my body, and know its part of my plan to save the whole world.

1. Giving forms the love of Jesus in our hearts

If there’s one way that the New Testament is different than the Old, its this: in the OT you might be led to believe that God’s concern is you keeping rules (now, that wasn’t even completely true in the OT), but in the New Testament Jesus reveals that it was never about the rules (rules are for kids who can’t handle the truth), Giving is only about one thing: the quality love flowing from your heart. Does your the love flowing from your heart look like Jesus?

That’s why Jesus could sum up all of God’s love like this: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. It all hinges on that.

God wants to set us to free to love to give. To be as generous as he is. To be as generous as Jesus who poured himself out for us. To have as much love as Jesus.

ILLUS: like a kid going into a jeweler to buy an engagement ring...like a parent buying presents for their first child’s first Christmas

And Paul would say, if you’ve received any of that grace yourself...it has to change you. It must change you. If you’re still giving under compulsion, you don’t get it. If you’re not giving generously, you don’t get it, you don’t get grace.

That’s what Paul was telling the Corinthians, you remember Jesus, “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”

There’s only one really troubling thing that the New Testament says about money, if you go through life and you notice that there is no love growing in your heart for giving, no generosity that is overflowing with compassion for the poor, no desire to please God, then Paul would say, you probably don’t know Jesus. You probably don’t have the Holy Spirit living in you. Jesus, if you walk by the poor...

If you look at your life and the love that is flowing (or not flowing) out of life in tangible, financial ways, if your spending habit don’t bear any family resemblance to the generosity of Jesus, then you may not be part of God’s family yet. You need to meet Jesus, to have an experience of grace.

But how do we step toward Jesus, its never by passively waiting, sitting back wait to see if something happens. Test out this act of grace.

You don’t find much joy in serving the poor, ask God to transform your feelings about the poor. And then take an act of grace: adopt a family in need, one of the forgotten children.

If you’d say, I don’t mind charity, but I don’t really feel much about giving to the church. Well, ask God for a new heart and make an act of grace like John Wesley, start with just 10%.

Paul isn’t opposed to borrowing good ideas from the law. He would say, the law is good if one uses it well. So take a cue from God’s Old Testament plan and give 10% of your earnings and presenting it as an offering to God. It will change you, because its grace. If will free you from the grip of greed. And when you develop a joy in giving, the percentage will become irrelevant.

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