In this lesson, Khaleef Crumbley examines what Christians can do with the money they have: spend, save/invest, and give. Khaleef Crumbley discusses how to biblically use money in each of these ways. For giving, Khaleef explains ten aspects of worshipful giving as seen in 2 Corinthians 8:1-7.
- Give in light of God’s grace
- Give even in difficult circumstances
- Give with joy
- Give with generosity
- Give in proportion to God’s provision
- Give sacrificially
- Give voluntarily
- Give as an act of worship
- Give in submission to trusted church leaders
- Give in love
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thank you Lord for providing for us thank you God for allowing us to enjoy your creation thank you God for giving us opportunities to be part of your Plan of Salvation through sharing the gospel and also discipling others ministering to others God I just pray that we will be able to see the practical ways that you work in us so that all these things will be accomplished help us God to align our thoughts about money to yours because we know that it’s all yours and we are just managers to help us to do it in a way that pleases you and that brings you honor and glory and we ask it in Christ’s name amen so what can we do with God’s money typically there are three categories that we would use to describe how we can um take God’s money and use it for his glory so the first suspend this is probably the biggest part of anyone’s budget the biggest part of of what we actually do with money we spend it that means we consume things and we’ll look at some of what the Bible has to say about the way we spend money um in a minute another thing we can do is we can save or invest it so we can either spend it now or we can put it aside for future spending or passing down what we’ll see all the nuances with that or we can give so those are the three things when we get money or possessions we can either spend we could consume it or we can save it save and invest or we can just give it away so first we’re going to look at spending and look at some of the things that the Bible says about spending and just remember that we’re still continuing thinking about stewardship we are still going through this we first looked at what it means to be Steward and the fact that God actually has requirements for how we manage his money not just the amounts that we give in church but all of the money belongs to him and we wanted to see what that means well how does he give us that money what does income look like um in different ways that we can earn income and what God has to say about the ways we earn income especially our character so now we’re looking at we have the money and what do we do with it so the first thing we see with spending is that we are to provide for the needs of ourselves and our family and that’s really the primary reason um why we should spend money is to take care of ourselves and our families take care of their needs to provide for them God provides to us to provide to our households so that’s that’s the primary thing that we see First Timothy 5 8.
says but if anyone does not provide for his own and especially those of his household he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever so here we see how serious this matter is for someone to have money have possessions and to not use it for this purpose they have denied the faith and are considered worse than an unbeliever because that’s something that even unbelievers do that providing for your household isn’t something that you just realize you’re supposed to do once you come to Christ this is just a basic thing that we see in life and we usually look down on those who aren’t willing to do it there’s another aspect of spending and also just keep in mind that with spending especially we’re going to talk about some of these things in Greater detail when we actually go through budgeting so we’re going to talk about we’re going to kind of give an overview now then you’ll see uh the greater detail next week we’re going to talk about budgeting actually go through um putting together a budget and some of the things to consider but another reason that God has given us money is to provide for our enjoyment so obviously we provide for our needs but First Timothy 6 17 which is actually instructions to those who are rich to those that God has provided much and it says instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their Hope on the uncertainty of riches but on God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy and I love that the message to the wealthy person is that even though you can afford anything practically speaking anything you can afford the things that will bring you enjoyment understand it’s still God who is supplying you God supplies the things that we enjoy definitely through his we even see it through his creation most things that we will provide us enjoyment that will provide us pleasure don’t take money and especially enjoying God and enjoying his creation and the things that do God even provides for that so again that’s even something that we’ll talk about in in Greater detail next week and also to provide for personal evangelism and Ministry and this isn’t giving it through church this isn’t talking about giving to the church so they can buy a whole bunch of tracks and you know you can go and hand out tracks this is talking about you and your personal life so God has provided you money part of of that is so that you are able to minister to people that you are able to spread the gospel in Luke 16 9.
this is part of the parable of the unjust Steward that we’ve looked at at least two weeks probably probably the first three it says and I say to you make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness so that when it fails They will receive you into the Eternal dwellings and if you don’t remember what he was talking about here he was looking at the unjust Steward who when he realized he was going to get fired he went to people who owed his master money and said how much do you owe you owe 100 bushels a week okay say you owe 80. you owe 50 okay say you owe 20. and he was giving everyone discounts so that when he got fired he would as he said he would have friends you know once he once he left that job and they would they would receive him he wouldn’t have any place to stay he didn’t know how else he was going to work so he said if I cut these guys great deals now when I’m fired they’ll most likely let me stay with them because they’ll owe me something and so Jesus then says that we are to do something similar that we are to use the wealth we have to use the money that God gives us and use his resources to earn friends that will receive us into Eternal dwellings and mainly that’s talking about sharing the gospel that people who actually come to faith in Christ when we get to heaven they’ll be there waiting to receive us when it says so that when it fails when it’s talking about money failing money fails when we pass through this life and so once we pass from this life to the next then we’ll be received by the people that we’ve ministered to the people that we’ve uh that God used us to bring them to Christ and we see that especially in in supporting missionaries that they’re going to be people that we have never met in this life who will be in heaven because of us supporting the work of missionaries who then brought the gospel to them and that’s one way but obviously in our personal lives we can use God’s resources our homes our vehicles even our jobs our finances to share the gospel and also to minister to those that have already been brought into the Kingdom so that’s something else that we are supposed to do and again this is in our personal lives and not just through the ministry of the church so there are two things to they’re they’re not waves that we spin but they’re things to avoid when we think about spending and I’ll just uh talk a little bit about the avoid legalism so what does that mean well and of course the passages that we look at when we think about uh someone being legalistic or thinking that you can earn uh favor with God or even some to some respects earn salvation through your Works through the things that you do or keeping a certain code things that you do or don’t do and it can be very easy to take something that is a conviction for for you or your family and then places that on someone else as cold that they are to do even though the Bible may be silent on that issue it’s a conviction that you have or it’s something it’s a way that you apply the biblical principle that is this is their areas where there are certain there’s leeways now we’re not talking about things that are illegal or things that the Bible clearly says that they’re things that shouldn’t be done or even things that are unwise I think it’s it’s it’s okay and actually the Bible expects us to God expects us to go to our brothers and sisters when we see them doing something that we think is unwise whether it be wasting money or wasting opportunity or anything so it doesn’t say that you never bring anything to someone but it does say that you don’t judge someone and say how can they be a believer and they bought a five bedroom house and there’s only three people in their family what aren’t they supposed to be a Christian I mean and honestly these types of things come up I don’t know if anybody knows Dave Ramsey but um he’s a financial advisor who who is a professing Believer I don’t know anything about you know how strong is Faith is or anything but um he bought a house and I think his house was seven figures it may have been a million or probably a little more than that I don’t know where he lives so I don’t know how he would help you know if it was huge or not or if it could have just been the town he was living in it was a regular home but he spent you know over a million dollars on it and there were so many articles written about it there were so many people who were judging his faith in Christ based on the fact that he bought a home that was more expensive than they would and then it came out that of course he used all cash to buy the home he gives away like 90 of his his uh income to his church and to other Ministries and it came out that while the sky you know lives on little of what he makes but he just makes a lot God has given him a lot and he actually gives away most of it into what people saw that was the only thing that they judged about and said this guy’s not even a Christian look at his house and I mean I I don’t see anywhere in scripture where the size of your house is one of the measures or tests of the ways that you examine your faith however what you think that says about you and we’ll look at that when we talk about evaluating expenses and creating a budget next week some of those things do matter where is your heart when you purchase it you can spend ten dollars in a wrong way and spend a million dollars in a righteous way so we we have to make sure that we’re not looking at someone and saying because they did this thing with their money they can’t be right with God but on the other side avoid overindulgence maybe spending a million dollars is way more than you need and it’s not a wise thing to do uh just because there is freedom in how we spend doesn’t mean we should just go and spend the money on every single thing that the world promises will bring us pleasure we are God’s stewards and God expects us to invest in his kingdom and to invest in what matters to store up Treasures in Heaven so even though we talked about Freedom we just talked about someone with a million dollar home understand we are managing God’s money our time here is is limited but the Investments that we make can be Eternal if we invest them in the Kingdom and just a warning there we see is Luke 12 15 and actually this passage goes on um from there probably the next 10 to 15 verses talks about this but Luke 12 15 says then he said to them Jesus be be sorry beware and be on guard against every form of greed for not even when one has an abundance thus his life consists of his possessions so I think that’s that’s a warning that many of us would give to people in this country especially your life does not consist of your possessions so when you’re spending money though that’s something to consider that’s not just to consider this would be the overarching theme your life does not consist of your possessions this is Jesus saying it he’s saying beware of greed be on guard and so we’re to do that no matter how much we have or how much we want we’re to be on guard against greed so just to list them all out so you can see them neatly um our spending is to provide for the needs of ourselves and our family we’re to uh it’s also to provide for our enjoyment and provide for a personal evangelism and Ministry when we evaluate the spending of ourselves and others we have to avoid legalism and definitely we are to avoid over-indulgence now let’s look at the next area we’ll spend a little more time here saving Proverbs 24 27 uh says prepare your work outside and make it ready for yourself in the field afterwards then build your house so the idea here is that you take care of setting up a financial Foundation including being prepared for for emergencies and then you begin to build many of us jump to the building stage many of us see the things that we want and this is about this principle is about anything but definitely is about about money just and just have this image in your mind prepare your work outside and make it ready for yourself in the field just imagine someone living intense and that’s where their family is that your your you have your family you’re living in a tent so that you can build up enough to then build a home not in in a modern day uh looking at it how many people graduate college say I need to prove that I’m an adult so I’m going to go out on my own and I’ll prove that I don’t have to be supported by my mother and father anymore go out on your own get a whole bunch of bills that you weren’t prepared for get into that and then say well I have to prove that I’m really an adult so I’m gonna go buy a home and then the cycle continues well I need a car this beater car isn’t working anymore you know I can’t keep spending 500 on the cards trying to fix them up so you know what I’m gonna spend thirty thousand dollars on the car and that’s how many of us can can look back and say wow we’re in this much debt and it’s for things that usually don’t last definitely things that don’t bring lasting pleasure and things that don’t even build up our lives because we don’t follow this this principle this idea of preparing at at a lower level preparing to move up to a greater level financially if that’s God’s will it may be that God provides enough for you to just stay outside and stay in the field and he doesn’t provide for you to ever build your house in in this sense thinking about financially this principle also applies in other areas preparing for a family um or other things preparing for a move anything where you have to prepare for something and you can put yourself in a better position in the future to do something rather than doing it jumping into it today but financially it’s definitely something that we have to keep in mind when we’re looking at doing something because most of the time when we go to a new level let’s say we buy a home and we have a home it’s and I what did when did people start using the term starter home that that I don’t I don’t know that annoys me we watch these housing shows someone in my home loves watching housing shows it forces me to watch them sometimes and so we’ll look and these people who have no money are talking about having a starter home having the places better than mine and I probably you know have a higher salary than them but they say hey I just have to start at home and once after five years I’m just going to to move up into a better home this is just to get me on the ground so why not rent why are you buying a home for four or five years just to say I own a home but I can’t afford a home that I really want or need so I’m gonna just spend a whole bunch of money now just to be able to tell people I have a house and then go up it’s it’s senseless when we kind of evaluated in that that sense but many of us makes those types of decisions and it’s it’s very unwise and saving and planning are the things that that the Bible extols as virtues when it comes to um using our money so he was just a general list of things to save for obviously it’s not an exhaustive list but there are some typical things especially in this culture that we save for emergencies large expenses sometimes medical expenses College tuition retirement giving and uh we actually look at saving for giving in a minute um when anything that doesn’t fit into your normal budget anything that pops up that you want to purchase that isn’t a part of your normal budget you should save for if you can’t afford to pay for it immediately so here’s a couple of Proverbs that um look at an ant and they’re probably Proverbs that that you know if not then we’ll talk about it and Proverbs 6 6-8 says go to the ant oh Slugger observe her ways and be wise which having no chief officer or ruler prepares for her God prepares her food in the summer and gathers her provision in the Harvest and then proverbs 30 verses 24 and 25 says four things are small on the Earth but they are sittingly wise the first one is verse 25 the ants are not a strong people but they prepare their food in the summer so you see both of these show that the ant is considered wise because the ant has no ruler in um the first one we looked at no ruler has no Chief has no officer but prepares a food in the summer and gathers her provision in the Harvest that that God has even provided and obviously the ant isn’t the only example of this but even in nature provided us examples of hard work done now in order to be able to reap a harvest later and when we think about saving the opposite of savings or is what we looked at before but a different word for it rather than spending its consumption so those are our choices when we have something we can either save it for later or we can consume it now you know ignoring just thinking about money and giving it away if you think about food you can say I’m gonna eat this right now I’m gonna save it for later you know there’s the the old saying that I didn’t understand until became an adult you can’t have your cake and eat it too and I never understood that because I always say well how can you eat it if you don’t have it like I always thought it just pictured you don’t own the cake and someone else owns it and it’s like well how can I eat it to someone else but you know it’s really talking about the idea that you can’t consume it and then still have it once you eat it it’s gone so you can’t do both you can’t eat the cake and still have the cake you have to choose one or the other and sometimes it’s wise to consume um and other times it’s wise to save and we’re the ones who have to examine Our Lives fly Godly principle get counsel and decide when to do what so let’s look at the idea of of avoiding excess consumption Proverbs 20 20 Proverbs 21 20 says there is a precious treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise but a foolish man swallows it up in Proverbs 13 18 says poverty and shame will come to him who neglects discipline but he who regards to be proof will be honored and this is really looking at the idea of of counsel and even ignoring Council um leading to poverty and shame uh someone who even lacks the the discipline or ignores the discipline remember discipline is to correct what you are doing and take you from this path and to turn you into the correct path and people who avoid that end up in in poverty and shame so again when we talk about budget and we’ll talk about even budgeting for saving and the different types of savings that we’ll talk about you know uh emergency funds retirement planning College Planning those types of things so let’s look at another aspect of saving which is investing and you know I put it like this because many Christians um for some reason feel as though investing especially the way it is done in modern times is something Christians can’t participate in so just give a disclaimer I’m not an investment advisor I’m not going to be up here telling you what stocks to buy not even telling you to invest in the stock market or anything else or bond market but we’re looking at investing and what does the Bible have to say about it so here’s a couple of definitions of investing the first one looks at actual investing in a company you know what we consider buying a stock uh investing to to participate in and benefit from the growth and earnings of a particular company through purchasing shares of ownership and obviously there’s other ways to look at this you know buying funds that have a lot of companies in them that are related in or buying a certain industry or buying a certain index but for our purposes we’re just thinking about a company and owning uh a company so this is the more broad definition putting forth energy effort time and or money today in order to create something of Greater volume for the future and that is really what makes investing different from gambling is that investing is about creating value and growth and you participating in that by owning the company or the thing that’s growing and creating value and it’s no different than if a person comes to you and says hey I have this great idea for a company but I don’t have the money to get it off the ground and you invest by owning a share in their company and say I’ll give you the money or give you part of the money and maybe you know we’ll both have 50 share in the company um you do the work I provide the money and we split the profits something that simple is considered investing because you’re now a part owner in that company so there’s some things that um we need when we think about investing the first is planning and preparation um proverbs 10 5 says he who gathers in summer is a son who acts wisely but he who sleeps in Harvest is a son who acts shamefully and another one that I think is the perfect picture of the the scope of investing this is David talking about building um the temple First Chronicles 22 5 David said my son Solomon is younger inexperienced in my house it’s not in a house that is to be built for the Lord shall be exceedingly magnificent famous and glorious throughout all lands therefore now I will make preparation for it so David made ample preparations before his death so David knows that he is not God told him he is not going to build the temple but that his son Solomon will be the one to oversee the construction of the temple but David’s still prepared he’s still playing he’s still invested in the building of the Kingdom so that of the temple so that when his son Solomon uh was able to take over and to build things will be easier for him so when we think about investing it’s not the idea of just opening up a newspaper and saying that company this is what I want or even saying you know what I went to Disney World and it was really really busy when I went there I’m sure they’re making a lot of money let me go buy some stock in Disney it takes more than that and we’ll we’ll see why um in a little while research um here’s one one kind of concept when it comes to that in order to invest invest properly we must have knowledge of the risk reward profile of the investment in other words based on all available information what is my projected return and how uncertain is that projection that person who who we talked about coming and saying hey I just need a little bit of help starting a business what else they don’t know anything about it what if it’s someone who can’t sing that wants to open a music school or doesn’t know anything about music I don’t think that’s going to go well I’m probably not going to invest in it or they have a great idea that’s already been done or they have this great idea but the the market your your location is saturated with it and they’re not willing to move anywhere else so there’s different things that come up and even with a company that may be profitable it may be that everybody that’s that’s buying shares of this company thinks it’s going to be profitable too things are going to be more profitable than you so the company is price expecting higher returns than you’re expecting and so you’re almost guaranteed that you’re going to lose money unless something out of the ordinary happens so these are the types of things that uh come up when you think about investing that like I said it separates it from from gambling because there was there was someone who actually you know came to me and asked about gambling we’re actually going to talk about gambling not today we’re going to talk about gambling um and look at that as we talk about investing we need to understand that it’s distinct because there are things you can do to lower the risk or to expose the amount of risk and to decide to walk away Proverbs 19 2 still thinking about uh research and the amount of effort we have to put in ahead of time also it is not good for a person to be without knowledge and he who hurries his footstep airs Proverbs 12 15 says the way of a fool is right in his own eyes with a wise man to see who listens to counsel and because of the just the way that things are structured especially in this country we do have uh people who have the time and the energy and sometimes it’s their job to evaluate companies and decide whether they’re worth it or not so you can also find someone that you trust and get information from them so it’s not that you have to know everything about a particular company or a particular index or industry but there are those who will get the information and be able to convey it to you you just have to find someone that you can trust for that um but the specifics of investing of course like I said are beyond the scope of this lesson but there like I said things that we must consider before we invest another thing we have to consider is we must be able to absorb loss so what does that mean there is uncertainty involved with investing and if you’re going to invest you have to be able to absorb that loss meaning that if the money that you invest disappears if the company completely folds are you going to be homeless if so don’t make the investment either don’t invest in that area or don’t invest that much you have to be wise in considering um the fact that there is uncertainty even something that seems like a certainty even something that seems like oh man this is this is a perfect opportunity it still comes with risk because of uncertainty and Proverbs 27 1 says do not boast about tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring forth Proverbs 27 12 does The Prudent man sees evil and hides himself the naive proceed and pay the penalty and especially considering this uh Proverbs 27 12. I thought it just painted this great picture of someone who sees evil or even sees Danger and they hide themselves but the naive person will just go right ahead without considering all the information without considering all the things that says wait this may not be a good idea and they just jump right ahead into it and so we see how you know um Proverbs classifies this they’re naive and they will pay the penalty so make sure that you research make sure that you understand what you’re getting into and make sure you’re able to absorb the loss and if you see that there is potential to actually uh hurt your General day-to-day life then don’t get involved in that you’re not at a place where you can God has not provided either the enough money or the opportunity for you to invest in that at that time so it’s two things to be careful of when investing um and I’ll just mention them profiting from sin so this is something that you have to be be aware of and you have to know for yourself how much you’re willing to get tied into a company if you’re buying stocks or even if you buy bonds if you buy bonds that means that you’re loaning money to whoever you bought the bond from if you buy a stock that means that you own whoever stock you own you own a piece of that company you are an owner so just consider all of the implications that that means and what business um they’re involved in how they make their profits and you have to know before you get involved how much you are willing to take on um as far as research I mean because there’s a lot that you’re going to have to do and if this can take you really far you can start thinking about suppliers that they use and you can think about who are even their uh biggest customers you can think about who’s on the board that happens on a different company that I mean you can really go really you can take this and it can grow really big so you have to really consider before you invest the types of companies you want to own or loan money to and um what you’re willing to be involved in the other that we see is trusting in riches and that can happen with at any time at any income level but it’s definitely a particular danger when it comes to investing especially when we consider retirement you know income and uh things about the future or someone has a 529 plan which is uh saving for the tuition for the children and if the market tanks and the value of whatever account we’re talking about gets cut in half overnight then what is your attitude does your heart sink now of course no one wants to lose money and if you think that you’ve done everything that you can to diligently plan for something and then that evaporates of course it’s going to affect you but understand that God is the one who provides no matter what plans we have no matter what accounts we have God is the one who provides he provides for everything and we have to remember that that it’s not the 401K that provides for our retirement and we’re going to talk about retirement what that really means from a Christian perspective um but it’s not the 401K that provides it’s God that provides and we have to remember that in every aspect no matter what happens no matter what the market does we still serve faithful and Powerful God so here’s the third thing that we are able to do with our money is give and I’ll just I don’t want anyone walking out but this is actually I’m summarizing a sermon that I preached about giving out maybe a year ago I actually don’t know when it was but if you go on the website if you want to hear the whole thing the the full version it’s not condensed then you can go on the website or there’s another way that you can get it so you can see me after and I can tell you an easier way uh to get it where you can have everything in writing with all the notes in the scripture and everything um so if we look at Second Corinthians chapter 8 and we’re actually going to be there for pretty much the remainder and I need to go look at it too so second Corinthians chapter eight I’m gonna look at the first seven verses and just a little background while you’re turning there this is this passage well in First Corinthians Paul when he wrote that letter he asked the Corinthian Church to take up a collection for the Church of Jerusalem because they were encountering great persecution and they needed help so he started collecting from the other churches um something he founded even once that that others found it and he asked them it had been at least a year they still hadn’t given anything and um he’s writing again and he actually sends uh Titus with the letter and tries to get him to collect the money that was owed and so what he does is he tells them about a group of churches that who had their own difficulty but still gave and gave greatly and so we look at this as a model of what it means to give so second Corinthians 8 1-7 um I’m actually going to go through it uh verse by verse so I’m not just going to read the I’ll read it in this entirety now um the first aspect that we see of giving and I try to live worshipful giving because that’s what outgiving is it’s an act of worship to God the first thing that we see is we’re to given light of God’s grace verse 1 says now brethren we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia now so Paul emphasizes two things here he says that the source of and also the motivation for the Macedonia is giving was the grace of God and we really understand God’s grace and we meditate on God’s grace in two main areas the first is we consider our Salvation we think about God’s grace and our Salvation that we wouldn’t be saved if it wasn’t for God’s grace that we wouldn’t have a relationship with God if it wasn’t for Grace because we could do nothing to earn it so we consider that and that is even fuel us when we get we’re to give in light of that truth and also as we experience our sanctification we see God’s grace and causing us to grow causing us to see our sin and want to uh correct our sin want to put our sin to death and as we see that we experience God’s grace even in that area as we grow and so those things when we give we’re giving in light of that truth we’re giving the light of the truth of God’s grace in our life the second is give even in difficult circumstances in verse 2 it says that in a great ordeal of Affliction their Abundance of Joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality so again we see that there are two things about the church uh churches in Macedonia it should have made it impossible for them to give and two things he says first is a great ordeal of affliction so they were being persecuted and Afflicted in ways that went far beyond their finances it wasn’t just that some of the members lost their jobs but they were experiencing intense uh persecution in Macedonia and you even see uh part of that as Paul is talking to the Philippians which is one of the churches in that area um the word Affliction the chance of the Greek word that means pressure um however what we see that’s so great about this is even in the middle of this great Affliction or great pressure this pressing in that they were experiencing they still gave they still looked at the needs of others and said we have to give they were still moves into action by looking at someone in need even though they were as we’ll see in a second they were ones who could have actually received support themselves so the second thing that he emphasizes is their deep poverty and it doesn’t just mean they will live in paycheck to paycheck and you know people we like to say that we’re broke or some of us will say we’re poor when we’re actually you know wealthier than most people walk in the face of the Earth um we’ll throw those words around but the word here used for poverty it talks about being a baker or having the lifestyle of a beggar and so that that’s where they were they were in a position where they could have been begging themselves uh for financial help but instead they gave because they were able to look at the circumstances of others and say that we need to be able to give and understanding where you’re giving goals understanding for what it does even through the local church and not a special collection like this should move all of us to give because we know that it’s to minister to the people here and minister to those abroad that we support and we’ll see that in detail in a minute there’s another thing that characterizes the giving here the gift with joy he just emphasizes their Abundance of Joy and as I said there are two main aspects that of this that we can get our joy but in second Corinthians you don’t have to turn there well you can this the next chapter next yeah um Second Corinthians 9 7. it says each one must do just as he has purpose in his heart not grudgingly or under compulsion why for God loves a cheerful Giver God loves a cheerful Giver we should have joy when we give and some of the ways we can experience that Joy or or at least that Joy comes out when we think about two main things supporting the spread of the Gospel that’s local and also abroad and building up the Saints building up this up the Saints here when you support uh even your local church and support the preaching of God’s word you’re supporting the building up of the Saints when you’re supporting the ability to come together and to worship together to sing together to learn together to even practice to one another’s you’re you’re seeing the Brethren being built up even something as Mercy Ministries when when people are actually experiencing need and we give so that those people can be provided with comfort and basic Provisions when they’re going through something we see great joy in that because we know we’re building up our Brothers and Sisters in Christ we’re building up the body of Christ so the fourth is give with generosity one of the things he says about their givings in the wealth of their liberality in Proverbs 11 24 and 25 it says there is one who scatters and yet increases all the more and there is one who withholds what is justly due and yet it results only in one the generous man will be prosperous but he who Waters will himself be watered and I love this picture of one who scatters one who has and is just freely Scott giving freely scattering what he has he is whatever I mean I picture money I just picture someone having money or even having you know I mean change would probably hurt right but you know having dollars and just throwing it and saying here taking standing on a building and just throwing money this person is generous and they have a heart that says I know this can do something for me but it can do more for other people and I’m just giving it here you can have some you can have something you have a need okay here I’m gonna try to uh fill that need but yet there’s one who withholds what does justly do this person owes and doesn’t want to pay what he owes and that’s the contrast of the generous person this isn’t something that he owes this is something that he freely gives because of of his heart and we as Believers should definitely have that heart to be generous in all things because we’re being generous with God’s money God who supplies us with everything it’s pretty easy to be generous when we know where it comes from but we also looked at other things and again like we always said the word is violence um there’s a there’s a case for being too generous and we’ll look at that actually at the end um so again this is talking about the heart it’s not talking about the amounts that you give or how often you give to someone this is talking about the heart you should have a generous heart that’s always seeking to give even if you’re not in a position to give in large amounts even if what you’re able to give is not money but it’s to give your time it’s to give your efforts here we’re specifically talking about money but the generous heart goes well beyond money opening your home to someone spending time with them are are examples of this Generous Heart overflowing into other areas of your life besides just your bank account so the fifth thing that we see is given proportion to God’s provision um in verse 3 at least part of it says so I testified that according to their ability they gave so when we consider that in giving of course we’ll look at sacrificial giving in a minute but giving here is seen as this Generous Heart that gives according to God’s provision it’s to be done in proportion to how God has provided for you and so it’s not based on a certain percentage and not based on an amount and sharianna were talking last night about a church we went to and I think we’ve told a couple people this that um basically lock the doors and wouldn’t let us leave until we uh each pew row gave came up with a hundred dollars to give in the offering and I mean we didn’t give anything I think we were just dating then right yeah yeah we were still dating and I actually took her to that church um you know just thank God that she’s still with me now she didn’t just leave me then wasn’t my church was a co-worker’s church but still we went there and that was the case and and you know I’ve been plenty of churches where they ask for a number and they ask for people to stand up and they’ll say who’s willing to give a hundred dollars right now and then everybody stands up with their hundred dollar bills or with their checks and say like I’m giving all right who’s gonna give 80 who’s going to give 70. it’s almost like this uh uh auction and the auction is for nothing you know you don’t get well they tell you things that you’ll get and make promises that aren’t biblical but you know this idea is that they’re coerced to giving a certain amount or even a percentage I mean there’s churches that tell you that if you don’t give at least 10 percent then you’re going to be cursed and everything that you try to do financially will be cursed if you lose a job you won’t be able to get a new job because you weren’t giving 10 and it has to be on Gross because you know you don’t want net blessings you want gross Blessings Now there’s some truth to some of that I mean you think about giving net one of the things that you’re really saying is that you know you’re letting allowing the government to take that piece so you’re actually putting your giving to the government above you’re giving to God and the only reason why they get more and they get it first is because they take it out your paycheck you know you don’t have the ability to write them a check like you do when you when you’re giving to God um but anyway those those are just some of the things that we see as far as um people who will have guilt laid upon them because they’re not giving a certain amount we’re to give in proportion of how God has blessed us um it also means though as God prospers us with more our given should increase and it should be absolute and relative so we just said don’t worry about the percentages but the percentage is real if you’re able to give if you’re making a hundred thousand let’s say and you’re able to give 10 percent then if you were all of a sudden making three hundred thousand you can probably get more than ten percent so the app the dollar amount that you give would grow even if you just stuck to ten percent but if you’re uh your salary just tripled you’re probably able to give more on a on a relative basis than you were at the lower amount so giving giving should increase as God proportions us and it’s really what it means um that they gave according to their ability what they were able to give they gave but as we see right now it’s not just in proportion and what we’re comfortable with but we’re to give sacrificially so they didn’t just give according to the ability but they said they they gave beyond their ability and this is what one of the ways um that we’re to look at our given so it isn’t enough to just look at our budget and figure out how much money we have left for God after we pay for everything else that we’ve committed to um but we’re expected to give in such a way that it causes us to make sacrifices there are some things that we can’t have or can’t do because we are giving and it’s not that we’re giving because we want to be able to brag and say I give this much but we’re giving sacrificially again because we’re moved by the grace of God and we’re moved by the needs of people and what God has called us to do um commentator rch Linsky made this comment about the Corinthians I’m sorry about the macedonians and they’re giving he said they made a joy of robbing themselves they made a joy of robbing themselves it’s such a great way to look at it is that they found joy in saying okay I’m not going to take part in this I’m not going to indulge in this this thing that I planned I’m not going to do because now I’m taking these my money taking my resources and giving it for this cause which is greater than the pleasure that I was going to get from this thing here one thing to note though um is that there’s not a formula for determining if you’re given falls in the sacrifice category this is something that you have to figure out so don’t let someone tell you you’re not given sacrificially because you’re enjoying some aspect of your life that involves spending money such as taking a vacation you know if you take your family on a vacation it doesn’t mean that all you’re giving is not sacrificial because you actually spent money outside of the church and if you spend money on anything other than food clothing or shelter that means that you’re not making enough of sacrifice for God so don’t let anyone tell you that um but it is it is something that we should be searching our hearts and we should be praying we should be asking God to reveal to us if there’s any sin or if we just are hesitant in any way in making sacrifices for God and his people okay the seventh thing we see is we’re to give voluntarily verses three and four we see they one they gave of their own accord and he says begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the Saints these people were begging to give the macedonians um there’s two things they were begging to give so it shows how much they wanted to and this word participation if um I don’t know if any of you uh remember us going through this and home group and a word study for uh one of the passages that kept talking about participation in Philippians and it’s the word that where we get our fellowship and so many times we’re called to have Fellowship in the sufferings of Christ and even in the sufferings of each other and this is one way we’re able to partner with people and do that is to be able to support them another thing we see again it won’t coerce or manipulate it into given no one locked the doors and said you’re not leaving until we raise x amount of money um you know but when when we looked at Second Corinthians 9 7 when Paul talks about giving air he said that it should not be done grudgingly or under compulsion so consider that your giving should not be you shouldn’t give out of a guilt trip unless it’s the Holy Spirit really convicting you of some sin that was blocking you from giving but don’t give because you think well I didn’t give enough because that family over there gave more which is why no one knows what other people give you know at least they don’t know from you know from our standpoint because there there is no comparing each situation is different we should give as an act of worship I think we hear just about every Sunday how our giving this worship either through uh Dwayne saying it before we give or actually through his prayers and it’s it’s our opportunity to give to God right we’re worshiping God through our giving if we remember in in Psalm 50 and we looked at that the first week and saying that God owns everything he was when God said I own everything he was telling them I don’t need your sacrifices I don’t need your offerings said if if I was hungry and needed something to eat I wouldn’t ask you to give me a sacrifice I own everything he says I own a cattle on a thousand people I want everything and so our giving to God isn’t because God is deficient in some way and and needs our giving in order to accomplish his plans he allows us to worship him through giving and allows us to take part in his plans what he’s doing on the earth through us giving it’s the same thing with our prayers God is going to accomplish his will either way prayer is a privilege for us we are to give him submission to The Trusted church leaders and I don’t have time to really develop that or even why I put trust it there um and you know but if you listen to the sermons there or if you like I said if you come see us afterwards you’ll get the full version um but it says first they they but they first gave themselves to the Lord and To Us by the will of God so we urge Titus that as he had previously made a beginning so he would also complete in you this gracious work as well and he’s talking about Titus actually coming to collect the the offerings um so we see that the giving is to be done primarily through the local church that doesn’t mean you can’t ever support a seminary or radio Ministry or something like that but our giving should primarily be done through the local church that is how God has ordained it um and we see that even in uh First Corinthians 16 where um Paul talked actually when Paul first asked them for the gift he said each one of you is to put aside and save and put aside and save is actually the Greek word when we get our word um thesaurus which is a collection um of excuse me a collection of or a treasury of words so it’s this idea that you should put up and save you should put in the treasury you should put in the the Old Testament puts it in the storehouse you should bring your guests bring your offerings to this one place and got us ordained uh institution and people to manage how that is spent and then give an account to the people which is why we have a annual meeting here at Calvary every year to to look at how the money was spent over the previous year and to approve the plan spending for the upcoming year and for you know for everybody to do that and have input and see it weeks in advance and know what’s going on um behind the scenes with their giving the 10th thing we see is where to give in love in verse 7 he says but just as you abound in everything in faith and utterance and knowledge and all earnestness and in the love we Inspire in you see that you abound in this gracious work also so we’re to give because of God’s love for us we experience understand God’s love for us and the more that we understand God’s love for us we have a greater love for God and a greater love for his people greater love for his church his body and that moves us together so gave you a bonus we said 10 but it’s a bonus one it should be done regularly in First Corinthians 16 2 again talking about this collection at least a year earlier he says on the first day of every week each of you is to put aside and save so again on the first day of every week and he said so and the rest of it continues so when I come you don’t try to make a big collection and a big off every week until I come or in this case sending Titus until we come to collect the offering just put aside every week you should be given so even if your giving isn’t done every single Sunday it should be done consistently and regularly it should be done whether you can make it to church that Sunday or you can’t make it to church this Sunday God’s program still continues even if you’re sick or on vacation so you are to to give regularly and you are to get most people give when they get paid you know most people you get paid every two weeks that’s when you give some people say I just need to give every week to make it a part of my routine so I won’t forget you know whatever it is just make sure your giving is is regular there are a lot of practical reasons for that as well but we don’t have time to really go through that also as we said you’re to have a generous heart um having a Generous Heart isn’t just about giving on Sunday but it’s about giving in your life and having that heart um there are a few verses that talk about that and then we’re going to be out of time Ephesians 4 28 says he who steals must still no longer but rather he must labor performing with his own hands what is good why so that he will have something to share with one who has need so it’s not just about giving to the church and the hope that the church and the deacons and you know the Deacon from they take care of everything is about us personally giving and having a Generous Heart and and working and part of that so we can share with someone who has need acts 20. this is Paul talking Acts 20 33-35 he says I have coveted no one silver or gold or clothes you yourselves know that these hands ministered to my own needs and to The Men Who were with me so he’s saying I work I worked hard as we saw last week he worked to be an example verse 35 in everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus that he himself said it is more blessed to give than receive in first Timothy 6 18 Again instructions to those who have an abundance um instruct them to do good to be rich in good works and be generous and ready to share and of course we must be wise in our out giving and our generosity as well because especially with Christians and and you know in the church as we talked about with bad business deals uh many people Target Christians because we just seem to be gullible because we want to be so trusting of everyone so just have wisdom when you’re sharing especially in your personal life and even get um get counsel from people when you’re considering sharing something again if you have any questions there’s how to reach us email us any questions anything you want clarified and again if you want the full thing about giving then come see me after all right let’s go to the Lord in prayer God I thank you that you have given us all that we need we thank you that you provide for us and that we don’t have to worry we asked God that you would help us to see all these things in a Biblical way that we would have a different perspective and that if we need to repent from any uh sinful attitude or practice that you would move our hearts to do so and to correct not only our thinking but our behavior and I pray God that you would be honored and how we manage our resources and our money here at Calvary and I just pray God for the service that you would speak to us that you will allow us to worship you through music and through hearing your word and being able to apply to our lives you know bless those who are in the back and and even the food that we have for fellowship and ask these things in Christ’s name amen foreign