Looking forward 6 - Investing in God's work

2 Corinthians 9: 6-15, Luke 12: 13-21

I have to say that one thing that really winds me up when I go to my parents house is their fridge.

When you look into it you will always see little pots with things like a tablespoon of peas in it.

Why? Because my mother having grown up in the war is very good at making sure she doesn’t chuck anything out – the problem is she is also not very good at making sure she uses up all these leftovers.

Now I have to say I am not very good at keeping left overs because I have grown up with apparent plenty.

This shows my differing attitude to things to my own mother.

Why start with this because today we are yet again looking at money as we come to the end of our looking forward series and we will be looking at our attitudes to our possessions and money and how we see giving as giving God our leftovers or our first fruits.

So let’s look at the passage from 2 Corinthians 9 and see what we can see from it to help us on this difficult subject today.

Firstly I want to look at what our attitude to giving should be and then move on to see how we should give.

So firstly our attitude to giving. And very starkly I want to say that our attitude to giving is directly related to our attitude towards God and our trust in him.

We saw that last week when we looked at priorities but I want to stress that again- we show the importance of God in our lives by how we see giving to his work.

We spend time and spend money on those things that are important to us – and we do that with God too.
But often unfortunately for a variety of reasons our attitude to God can be a bit like the leftovers in the fridge.

We save a little bit and then we give that away – because we can’t make any better use of it.

If a close friend was coming to dinner would you give them the leftovers or would you cook a new meal – most of us would cook something new and if food was a bit short it would be family hold back – hospitality dictates this doesn’t it.

So why   should our reaction to God be in this category of leftovers.

A story is told of a family that arrived at church and the father was obviously not having a good time.
The seats were too uncomfortable, the service was boring, the sermon well – you should have heard the comments he made over Sunday lunch. He was brought up short though by his son who had observed his reaction when the collection plate came round.” Dad I don’t know why you are complaining about it” he said –“ it only cost you a pound!”

Then this passage from 2 Corinthians 9 shows us clearly how we should see giving as sowing.

Now I think most of us don’t see it in this way.

Most of us think of giving as somehow loosing – we give away and so we can’t spend that money on what we want to – so we loose out.

But Paul here clearly says that this is not the right attitude at all, because he sees giving in terms of something much more positive.

He sees giving as sowing.

We all know the farming terms. What happens when you sow? You reap. You take a whole ear of corn and strip all the kernels off it, put each of them into the ground, and what happens? From one ear of corn, how many rows of corn can you plant? Each of those kernels will grow a stalk, and how many ears of corn are on each stalk? This concept of sowing is amazing. It is not something that is lost and gone forever. It actually multiplies.

This is what God says about giving. Giving is like sowing seed or planting a tomato plant.  One tomato plant can grow an amazing number of tomatoes. That’s like giving. Every time you give, you need to remember that you are sowing seeds and a harvest is coming. This whole concept of sowing and reaping is built into the very fabric of life.

By sowing through giving you are investing in God’s work and that has a tremendous harvest as we see changed lives, changed attitudes, peace and wholeness, community development.

So we need to think about our attitude to giving – how does it relate to the priority of God in our lives and do we see it as sowing or are we still thinking about what we loose out by giving.

So that’s the first challenge today.

Then I want to move on from our attitude to think about the practicalities of giving and how we should give.

In the old testament it is very clear that we should give a tithe or a tenth of our income to God.

It was expected that this would be the case, and it wasn’t just a tithe of the income but also the first fruits the best would be given to God.

Proverbs 3:9-10,
Honor the Lord with your wealth,
    with the firstfruits of all your crops;
¹⁰ then your barns will be filled to overflowing,
    and your vats will brim over with new wine.

What are those “firstfruits”? Just imagine that you went out to pick strawberries and you wanted to pick a basket full of berries. If you were to take the best berries in the row and put only those into a single basket and then when that basket is full, that is the tithe that you owe to the Lord.

This is what was expected in the Old testament.

What does the New Testament say about giving? The New Testament doesn’t mention a percentage. The reason is that because they felt ten percent was too limiting. People wanted to give more than ten percent, and they gave what God placed upon their heart.

But the New testament rather than giving us a legalistic view of 10% gives us clear guidance to giving: We are to give freely, we are to give generously, we are to give regularly, and we are to give cheerfully.

But I want us to look today at what this passage says about giving in terms of how we should give.

And firstly – clearly it says we should be conscious in our giving.

Verse 7 each should give what you have decided in your heart to give.
This isn’t about putting your hand in your pocket and pulling out what comes out and putting in the plate but this is about consciously planning what your giving is to be.

Bearing in mind our attitude to giving we should sit down in the cold light of day and prayerfully consider what we are going to give.

This will obviously be very different for each one of us because we all come here in different financial situations with different demands upon us. But God calls us to consider this prayerfully and consciously.

In the light of this it is good then to pledge to the church what you decide you can give – and if you are able to give by standing order then this makes the process so much easier for the church in terms of planning our ability to carry out mission and ministry here.

But even here in verse 7 it challenges us to think about how we give in terms of our attitudes—because we should give what we have decided but we do this not reluctantly or under compulsion – so we do this as a free decision.

Secondly we should give cheerfully- God loves a cheerful giver it says in 2 Corinthians 9.

So how do we give cheerfully – well basically we give with a smile on our face – not a grimace! – Again it’s about our attitudes but this comes deep from the heart.

We give cheerfully not expecting anything in return but knowing and trusting that God will bless us in return. We don’t do it because we are expecting God to somehow bless us but we do it in response to the blessings we have received and will continue to receive.

When you love someone you want to give of your best to that person because you know what you have received from them. And the same is with giving.

The cheerful heart doesn’t look at the five pound note going into the collection plate and want to hold on to it – or squeeze the pound coin until the queen’s face is almost obliterated – a cheerful heart gives freely and thankfully for what they have received from God and in trust of how God is going to continue to bless them.

So we are to give consciously we are to give cheerfully and then thirdly we are called to give in faith.

Our attitude to giving is a good indication of where are faith is. On a practical level if we consider giving cheerfully in faith then we can ask ourselves the question - how much can I give and still be grinning?

Then it pushes you and causes you to consider if you can be happy giving more.

Can we trust God enough to know that he will sustain us and provide for us or we still reliant on ourselves and our possessions.

 Can trust him at a level to give a little bit more? This standard meets me where I am and what I can give at this point in my life. It also challenges me to go one step farther and to trust God for this. 

So giving isn’t easy when we see it in these terms because it challenges us at very deep levels in our relationship with God and our relationship with our money and possessions.

But in the same way giving can challenge us to deepen that relationship with God as we use it to help us to step out in faith.

So to recap this morning – we give in response to God and our relationship with him.  

We give because we are sowing = we are investing in God’s work for the future and for others to receive the blessings that we have of a relationship with God and we give to invest in the mission of reaching out with God’s love into our community and the world.

But we are to give consciously – not just our leftovers but the first fruits – consciously planning what we can give thoughtfully and prayerfully.

We are give to cheerfully – not begrudgingly but with a heartfelt smile on our faces.

And we give because it is linked in with our faith journey and helps us to develop and deepen our faith, trust and dependence upon God.

May God help us all to take these steps of faith and move on in our thinking about money and possessions for the future.

Amen