Living the Dream
11/26/2006 - Investing in the Kingdom
This morning we climb the hill once again to listen to Jesus as he continues to deliver his famous Sermon on the Mount. These are teachings that Jesus gave on more than one occasion. They're also found in Luke 6 in a passage that's often referred to as the Sermon on the Plain, not a sermon that Jesus gave on an airplane, but on a level, flat piece of ground. Many scholars believe that this sermon that we've been unpacking in this series was the core message of Jesus that he delivered over and over again in various settings on hillsides and on beaches and in synagogues and in bars.
And really, so far anyway, it's been all about love and how the love of Jesus gets expressed through his followers. That's how we bring salt and light into this world. That's how we best reflect our heavenly Father by living a life of love. The word Jesus uses for love is the word "agape."
In the New Testament there are three Greek words for love … romantic love, brotherly love, and agape love which is an unconditional, self-sacrificing kind of love. Agape love is the kind of love that says, "You go first." It puts you ahead of me and your interests above my concerns. It's the love that Jesus talks about the most. It's the kind of love that shocks the world.
And so far Jesus has taught us how this love gets expressed in response to our anger and to our lust and to truth telling and commitment keeping and even toward our enemies. These have been some pretty heavy teachings. And I understand that. They mess with me all week before they mess with you. They cause us all to take inventory of our souls and hopefully to rearrange our understanding of what it means to be a Christ follower and to live out the dream of God right here, right now.
After our last teaching on loving our enemies that took us out into the deep end of our faith, some one in the church sent me an email about love just to lighten things up a bit. It was great and so I want to share it with you.
Apparently, a group of four to eight year-olds was asked the question, "What does love mean?" And their answers were pretty insightful. Listen to a few of them.
An eight year-old girl named Rebecca said, "When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love."
Billy, age four said, "When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth."
Five year-old Karl said, "Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other."
Chrissy, age six said, "Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs." Now that's agape love. I'm not there yet!
A seven year-old named Danny said, "Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is okay."
Bobby, age seven said, "Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen." That's cool.
Noelle, age seven said, "Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday." I'll wear the same shirt everyday even if no one tells me they like it!
Four year-old Mary Ann said, "Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day."
Mark, age six said, "Love is when mommy sees daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross."
Six year-old Nikka said, "If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate." Love your enemy's right, even if they're your friends.
One more comes from a contest that author Leo Buscaglia was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. And he chose a four year-old boy whose elderly neighbor had just lost his wife. When the little boy saw the man crying next door he went over into his yard and climbed up onto his lap and just sat there. His mother watched the whole thing and when he came home she asked him what he said to the man. The little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry."
That's love. Agape love takes all kinds of forms, but every time it's expressed it brings a little bit of heaven to earth because God is a God of love. So Jesus has been talking about love and how it gets expressed by his followers, but now he shifts to the motives that drive our actions. He's still after our hearts, but now it's not so much our actions but our motives that he goes after.
And he chooses to focus on the motives that drive the spiritual disciplines. These are the habits that he wants his followers to practice, but with the right motive. Today he's going to talk about giving. Next week he's going to talk about prayer. And then after that he'll discuss fasting. So this morning we're going to continue our series called Living the Dream with a teaching I've called "Investing in the Kingdom."
If you have a Bible turn with me to Matthew 6:1-4 ,
Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before others, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
In this passage and the ones that follow, Jesus talks about "acts of righteousness" that he wants us to practice. Notice he doesn't say stop doing them. Instead, he says be careful how you do them.
All throughout Scripture there have been certain spiritual disciplines that God has encouraged his people to observe so that he can do his work in and through our lives. Just like a seed needs to be placed in a certain environment so that a healthy plant can grow, so we need to put ourselves in certain environments so that our faith and love can grow.
Jesus is going to mention three of these spiritual disciplines … giving, prayer, and fasting. But there are others as well. We're practicing one right now, the discipline of listening to the Word of God. There's the discipline of worship that we've already enjoyed and the discipline of rest and of solitude and of serving and of celebration.
God has made lots of ways available to us so that we can all experience a closer, more intimate connection with him that enables us to better live out God's dream. I love the way Henri Nouwen describes these spiritual habits when he says, "The word disciple and the word discipline are the same word—that has always fascinated me. Once you have made the choice to say, 'Yes, I want to follow Jesus,' the question is 'What disciplines will help me remain faithful to that choice?' If we want to be disciples of Jesus, we have to live a disciplined life."
"In the spiritual life, the word discipline means 'the effort to create some space in which God can act.' Discipline means to prevent everything in your life from being filled up. It means that somewhere you are not occupied, and certainly not preoccupied. In the spiritual life, discipline means to create that space in which something can happen that you hadn't planned on or counted on."
Every one of us created space in our life this morning to encounter God in worship and teaching and community. We could all be doing something else right now. We could be sleeping in, reading the paper, raking leaves, playing golf, shopping at the mall, tail gating. They're not bad things, but we chose to say no to them so that we could meet with God and his church this morning. That's practicing a spiritual discipline. And if you're here with the right motive God will reward you for that in some way.
But like anything else that religion gets a hold of the spiritual disciplines can be misused and abused. We can practice these things as an end in themselves, check them off a list to make us feel good about ourselves. "Look at me, God! I went to church today. I even put a check in the box. Did you notice? That should be worth something, right, maybe an A on my test tomorrow or a deal at work or a few strokes off my golf game." Or we can practice these things so that we can look good in front of others, to impress them with how spiritual we are. And that's what the Pharisees were doing when it came to the spiritual discipline of giving.
The giving of alms to the poor was a deeply held Jewish value. In fact the rabbis said, "Greater is the one who gives alms than the one who offers all sacrifices." It was at the top of the list in the catalogue of good works.
And the Pharisees knew that. So they loved to announce with trumpets the gifts they were giving to the poor. They loved to toot their own horn. "Look at me!" they said, "Look how generous I am!" as they held their hands high and dropped their coins one by one into the cups of the needy.
And Jesus said, "Fine. If that's what you're into you already got your reward. If you like the spotlight and the applause, the pats on the back and the ooh's and aah's then that's all you're ever going to get. But if you want to be rewarded by my Father in heaven then do your giving on the Q T. Don't even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Be content to serve an audience of One."
One of the ways we connect with God and open ourselves up to his blessing is through the act of giving. Giving is a spiritual discipline that helps prevent everything in our material world from being filled up with us. It's one way we make room in our life for God to act, for God to do something we hadn't planned on or counted on. Giving is an act of worship that when done with the right motive brings the reward of God to our lives. When we give to the poor or to the church or to other expressions of God's work we're investing in the kingdom.
This week my mother turned 86 on Thanksgiving Day so we spent time together celebrating her life and reflecting on what she's meant to us. And as I look back on my life I'm so grateful that my mother was a generous person. She embraced this value of Jesus and practiced it and modeled it to my brother and me.
I learned to give by watching my mother give. She's always been a model of quiet, disciplined, generous, consistent giving. And from the time I can remember she taught us to do the same. It started with giving us a nickel to put in the offering plate at church and later on with encouragement to give a portion of the money we earned cutting grass or shoveling snow and then after that a portion of our pay check to the Lord.
My mother was a person who always lived well within her means. If she was discontent about anything I never saw it. I can remember when my father wanted to buy a bigger house with a lot more property my mother said, "No. We don't need that. We're fine right here." And to this day she still lives in the same house that they built in 1948, almost sixty years ago.
She's been a model to me of what Jesus is talking about here. When you give, do not let your left hand know what your hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Many of you know the story of Valley View and how our church started under an oak tree in Valley Forge National Park. We didn't have a building or a budget or a bank account to draw on. In fact, we didn't even have a name. All we had was a vision to help people become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ who make a difference in this world. And there were enough people who believed in that vision and who loved Jesus enough to give quietly, faithfully, consistently so that God blessed us. He blessed us first with a barn to meet in over at the Fairview Village Church of the Nazarene, free of charge. And then with the Audubon YMCA to use at a nominal fee over these past ten years and soon, hopefully, a seven acre property on Sunnyside Avenue that was given to us for nothing two years ago. Those are the things God can do that we hadn't planned or counted on when we make room in our wallets for him.
I want to finish today by just going over some basic investment principles I think will affirm many of you who already open your wallet to God and may encourage others of you to start to do the same. These are principles that we go over with every couple that we marry in our pre-marital counseling and also with those who come into our home for something we call "Walking with Jesus."
Notice, Jesus says, When you give not If you give. Jesus assumes that his followers are going to get on board financially with kingdom causes. In this case, it's giving to the needy. That's part of bringing heaven to this earth which is why we keep rolling out opportunities like Operation Christmas Child and Operation Joy and serving Thanksgiving dinners to the homeless through Partners for Families and on and on. Giving our resources to relieve need is what it means to live out the dream of God. It's an investment in the kingdom.
I love God's promise in Proverbs 19:17, Those who are kind to the poor lend to the Lord, and he will reward them for what they have done.
We have a Community Fund at Valley View that's distributed over $7,000 this year to help people with food and shelter and utility bills. Some of you give to it regularly. That's great! We want to be a generous church and a generous church is full of generous people. And God rewards generosity to those in need. It's like making a loan to God that he promises to repay.
Investing in the kingdom is a huge part of what it means to be a Christ follower. And when we give with the right motive, not to be noticed or to get applause or to receive a plague with our name on it, God will reward us. But make no mistake about it giving is an act of faith and it's often where the kingdom dream and the American dream collide. Because the kingdom dream says, "give, give, give," and the American dream says "get, get, get." So at some point we all have to make a choice. Who are we going to listen to?
From cover to cover the Bible makes it clear that our first financial obligation is to the Lord. Not because God wants our money. God doesn't need our money. God wants our heart. He wants us to trust him to take care of us. He doesn't want us to trust in ourselves or in our stuff. He owns everything we have. And when we give we acknowledge that. Giving is what delivers us from greed and the tyranny of money that can so easily enslave us.
In the Old Testament, God commanded his people to give a tithe. The Hebrew word "tithe" means "tenth." The Israelite was to give 10% of his or her income to the temple each year. In the New Testament the word "tithe" does not appear. Instead, Christ followers are encouraged to give generously and proportionately to our income. For some that may be 10%. For others that may be more than 10% and if you're just learning to trust God with your wallet that may be less. But over time let it grow. Every year I think it's important to revaluate our giving and consider upping the percentage.
In the Old Testament your gifts went to the Temple to care for the priests and the supplies and the maintenance that was needed. But in the New Testament our gifts go to the church that we call home, the place where we're cared for and nurtured spiritually. And for most of us that's Valley View. And we give our gifts consistently. For some it's weekly and for others it's monthly because the New Testament teaches planned out, consistent giving.
You may have noticed that we don't take an offering around here. Instead, we have the infamous "black box." But that's not because we don't value giving. Instead, it's because we want to honor these words of Jesus and don't want anyone to feel pressured or compelled to give or to give simply to be seen.
Over the years I've talked with many people who have stayed away from church because they feel like churches are always asking for money. Well, we want those folks to know that's not the case around here. In fact, we spend way more time thinking about and talking about and praying about how we give money away to kingdom causes. From day one we have treated finances with the utmost integrity. Every gift is receipted and every penny is accounted for in our financial statements which are available every quarter along with monthly statements in our Events & Opportunities. Full disclosure of the finances of this church has always been our policy.
You will never get a bill from Valley View Community Church. No one will ever call you up or come knocking at your door to collect membership dues. Instead, you'll be encouraged to worship God through your giving and to experience the joy that many of us found in Jesus words when he said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."
One of the verses that has motivated me to give over the years is found in 2 Corinthians 9:6-7, Remember this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
Giving was always meant to bring us joy, not pressure and guilt. And God loves it when we open our wallets and give hilariously. That's the literal Greek word Paul uses here. And when we give generously and consistently and cheerfully God will reward us.
It's always astounded me that every passage of Scripture that deals with giving is attached with a promise that God will bless us. His blessings may come materially, relationally, spiritually, emotionally, physically or in a thousand other ways. But he will reward us to the degree that we give.
Investing in the kingdom is what God wants his followers to do.
Don't miss the blessing of giving. It's one of the ways that we live the dream, one of the ways that we're salt and light in this world, one of the ways that we bring heaven to this earth. Make the choice to give. Nobody drifts into giving. It's always a choice that we make. And when we make the choice to give, with the right motives, our heavenly Father who sees in secret will reward us.