Message: Giving

Series: Christianity, It`s not Rocket Science

SE092709
ROCKET SCIENCE
3. GIVING

Many people in our society feel strongly that all churches are money grubbing institutions. Recently, Senator Grassely from Iowa launched a probe of 6 TV ministries citing abuses of their tax exempt status.

Ironically two of the Grassely 6 never complied with the Federal probe. They have something to hide. In so doing they violated not only the law but also their own Scripture – Paul lays this out, we should be totally transparent about money handling in church (Extended).

So here we are, a little bit cynical about the whole MONEY and CHURCH thing. But, while I totally understand coercion, and scandal, there is something in the whole GIVING TO GOD picture that we talk about much less. Do you know what that was?
MOTIVATION...

IN other words, if we get past our concerns about where the cashola goes we must eventually ask, from what HEART does it come?

MASLOW
I’d like to use an odd tool I picked up from another teacher to help us evaluate this issue of motivation in GIVING. Does anyone remember MASLOW'S PYRAMID? If you took INTRO to PSYCH in college, or sociology you probably studied it. Maslow’s premise is this:
people don't pay attention to higher needs until our lower needs are looked after.
Well the reason I bring up MASLOW'S PYRAMID is that motivations, when it comes to giving to God, work in a similar way. 1. NO MOTIVATION.
So, let's start at the very bottom of the GIVING PYRAMID. The VERY BOTTOM, a place that most people are at, is NO MOTIVATION to give to God.

Statistics show that until God gets in your picture, motivation to give remains really low. In his book "Who Really Cares" a Syracuse University professor Arthur Brooks crunched all available data on U.S. charity. He was shocked by what he found:
believers are far more generous than non-believers in donating money, time and even blood.

Politics aside, he discovered that on average, Americans who spurn religion are "dramatically less likely" to donate than religiously active citizens, whether conservative or liberal. But, you say, oh that’s just people giving to their own religious causes, How does that actually meet needs? Well, get this:
Brooks found that those with a God motivation not only give more to religious causes.
"Religious people are more charitable in every measurable nonreligious way - including secular donations, informal giving, and even acts of kindness and honesty - than secularists."

That’s probably important information for some of you. You might have bought into the idea that religious faith lacks moral impact, or actually harms society. That’s been the claim from best-sellers atheists Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris. If you’ve accepted that uncritically, you should know the truth.

So the fact is, those who do not see giving as in some way an act of giving to God, give less or not at all. These people who have NO MOTIVATION for giving to God may have a variety of reasons for being in their situation. Some of them don't understand the concept at all. They're like the person who says,
OK God, people how do I give to an invisible being? Here's what I'll do: I'm going to throw all this money up to you and you just keep what you want and whatever falls back down, I'll keep for myself.

It's not a shock to me that many thousands of people have no motivation to give to God.
So once you get into church, the exploration of faith might have the effect on you it does on others which is to warm you up toward giving. So you might graduate from “NO MOTIVATION” to the next level of motivation with is…

2. SELF INTEREST.
I met a women at AC3 several years ago who relayed to me how her church leaders had specifically encouraged her SELF INTEREST motivation. Of course, before too long, living with that meager motivation, she just gave up on giving together. Here's what happened:

She had attended a small church where the pastor had called her up and wanted to talk to her about being a “MEMBER”. Whatever THAT meant, she thought. So in that conversation the pastor went over a statement of theological truths which she was supposed to affirm. When she said she didn't understand it, he responded,

that's OK, you can just say it anyhow.

Then he said, “now, everyone needs to ante up to keep the church going, so we expect you'll be chipping in now to the church coffers.”

Well, she left that meeting dazed and confused. Was the church like a rotary club or something? Were there DUES to pay? A few months later, when she hadn't been to church in a while (I wonder why?) she received a little thing in the mail from the church - A BILL! This was the level of motivation that church leaders were encouraging –
YOU PAY TO PLAY.

Total self interest.


Of course, we join all sorts of organizations and support them for self-interest purposes.
Well as much as paying helps you keep playing, the Bible knows nothing about PAY TO PLAY. There no verse in the Bible that would give credence to this bottom level motivation. And yet many churches use it all the time.

SO if you’re down at the NON-EXISTENT level this morning, you might want to consider skipping that step. Some people have to go through it; it's a maturing thing, but it's scary to see people here because sooner or later, if they don't move up, they're going to move down. They're going to get burned.

The Bible starts talking about motivations the next level up.

3. GRATITUDE
In Psalm 116:12 it says,
What shall I return to the LORD for all his goodness to me?

Biblically, the starting point for giving to God's work in this world is ALWAYS a response to God's Love. As Christians we see the gift he offers through the death of Christ to forgive us and give us a new family and a new future and our hearts expand. When you’ve been remade inside because God has washed you, and loved you enough to cover the eternal consequences of your own choices… when you truly understand the MAGNITUDE of what God has done for you… Because your heart just starts filling up with gratitude.

A while back in downtown Chicago, there was this woman dressed in a shabby coat soliciting spare change in front of an old brick church. One lady named Pam gave her some cash every day. After almost a year of this routine, she disappeared. Pam wondered if her gifts had made any difference, you know, like maybe this was a con woman. She still would have done it, but you can't help but wonder.

Then, a year later, the bag lady was in front of the church again, still wearing that shabby coat. Pam reached into her purse, but the woman said. “Thank you for helping me all those days,” she said. “You won’t see me again because I’ve got a job.” And then she reached into a bag and handed Pam a donut.
She had been standing at her old spot waiting, not for a handout, but for all the people she recognized so that she could give each of them a doughnut.


You know, Allen Creek, love draws out a response of gratitude.

And when God applies His grace and love to your own situation, you feel grateful. And your heart starts to melt and you say,
WHAT CAN I GIVE BACK TO GOD FOR ALL HE HAS GIVEN TO ME?


You see now why we don't put money up front around here? In fact, if you give before this grace encounter happens, it might be counter productive and I’ll tell you why. You might begin to think that you were doing God a favor. Like you were earning heaven with your donations. It can’t be done, no matter how big the gift*.

The reality is, it's the other way around - he's the one who's given you a portion of His stuff. He’s the one who’s done YOU a favor. Once you realize that, you get grateful and you want to respond.

4. OBEDIENCE
This level is where you say, because you Jesus have rescued me, you call the shots. Just say the word.

And so this gets into HOW a Christian ought to give, how much, when, in what way? This is not about earning salvation or favor, of course, since we addressed that… this is about just a heart to do whatever God asks even if it doesn’t make sense at times.

The thing is, you can’t read the bible, from Moses all the way through the teaching of Jesus himself and not see what God asks. He expects his people return a TITHE of all they earn. That’s 1/10. It’s sort of “minimum giving benchmark.” The prophet Malachi describes God’s expectation like this:
Mal 3:8: bring the whole tithe into the store house.


Here’s what goofs people up… they don’t get the math. God lays this out and says, 2 Cor 9: “I’ll make all grace abound for you so that in everything having all that you need, you may abound in every good work.” But they’re not sure they get it. Friends as you move up the motivation levels, getting here isn’t about duty or being a better performer than the next guy.

It’s about your faith. Will you trust God enough to obey God? You understand trust and obedience go hand in hand! Will you get to the place that you say, “even when the math doesn’t add up, because you’ve saved me, I trust you’re good… so just say the word.”

5. VISION
Lastly, we get to the last level, VISION.

Sometimes in giving we try to mix this highest motivation with lower ones. BAND-AID was the huge and lengthy rock concert in the 80's that raised millions of dollars for starving children in Ethiopia. A vision was presented of changing our world for the good. But mixed in was a healthy dose of self interest.
Listen to these great bands. Ride a wave of emotion. Feel like you worked off some Suburban guilt.

And so the vision died and guess what? The money stopped coming in. But Christ followers who reach this fourth level understand the power of vision. And they have been given the most compelling vision of all! And when they get it, they think, what if some of my resources were strategically applied to that vision? God could change the world through me!
That's makes for some serious motivation!

Have you been captured by the vision of the church?

Some of you don’t get the vision, frankly. You don’t see a problem with giving per se but you think giving to a church is a waste or selfish even. Why prop up an organization, with a philosophical agenda when there’s so many real needs in the world? What good is it? That light for example, probably cost several hundred dollars… did it put food in someone’s gut? No.

Ah, not directly.

But let me net this out for you: as long as God’s people have been God’s people, they’ve collected their donations to God into a pool, as Malichi called it, “the STOREHOUSE.” The storehouse simply means into the place where you learn about God and where God’s purposes are prioritized and carried out.

For the ancient Jews funding God’s “Storehouse” meant funding And so the Bible has always taught God’s people to not separate the funding of God’s Gospel, from the funding of God’s Good Works. They are part of one Kingdom vision and to explain it, let’s go back to Maslow’s Pyramid of needs again:


When you give to church I’d like you to imagine Maslow’s pyramid, but working upside down. Instead of bottom to top, imagine one of those pyramidal champagne glass fountains at weddings… non alcoholic of course! The champagne is flowing from the top to the bottom. 

You see, it’s true the first part of the Church’s mandate is philosophical/spiritual: we are to about making disciples of Jesus out of non-Disciples in this world. When you give to a church you’re pouring resources into that primary mission.

But when you do, those resources don’t terminate in the machinery of church. Listen, I believe this down to my marrow – when a person comes into a right relationship with God through Jesus Christ, they are a new person!

So when that spiritual tank is full because a person has been fully equipped and fully instructed in their faith, it begins to spill over into their esteem needs. Why? Because a person who knows Christ has a new identity. I used to be that, but now this; I’m accepted, a child of God, I have hope, my soul is secure in Christ.

When that esteem tank is full, it just naturally starts to spill into our social tank. You can’t realize your own special place as a child of God without realizing how much you need and rely on and are one with, the FAMILY of God.

And when the social/community tank has filled, the flow is toward security… how? Through open accountability. In transparent relationships the Family of God asks, are you wise? Are you living the God Life which in the long run, will safeguard your money, your home, your parenting, your retirement, your relationships?

Finally, when a person has applied God’s wisdom, in the community of Christ, then the bodily needs tank starts to fill because we have something to share. Like gravity, the love of God that’s pouring into the top will make it’s way toward…
Friends, this is the trickle down economics of the Kingdom of God. And it works. The following is an email from a formerly totally unchurched young lady we baptized several years ago. I want you to see if you can identify the different levels of need in her life that were met… as you do, note how it all flowed from the STOREHOUSE of church being well funded

“Hay who ever reads this. I was reading in the bible the other day and it told me to give thanks to my church. So hear I am. To Rick; Thank you for taking the time to talk to me, and me and my husband. Things are looking better for us and our whole family.

I've been praying, probably not as much as I should, but I'm praying and I try to ask God about a lot of things in my life and ask him to help me and to do for me what's best in His eyes. And I've never done that before in my life. And things are going good. (spiritual)

I feel more confident about decisions I make. And I don't stress stuff as much anymore because I know things are not in my control and God will do what is right if I ask him for his Word in my life (esteem). It's great to know you have someone to trust all the time.

And Rick thank you for helping me find the women of my small group. They are so cool and real. I love being able to call them and be able to talk to them and be able to tell them what's going on in my life or whatever. (community) I'm just really grateful for Allen Creek and the way you guys do things. You guys helped me find Jesus and God and to find a new me. And a new life and I love it. Praise the Good Lord! Thanks…

P.S. thanks to the girls that take such good care of my children so I'm able to go to the services and for Seeds of Grace and help with rent…(body)

CONCLUSION
Nothing motivates me to give like a biblical vision of the local church.

This is the vision: that we are a safe place where irreligious people can become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ… and following him fully, they will extend a cup of cold water in his name wherever they go.