Word & Deed: Obstacles to Generosity

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Word & Deed, We are Stewards: Obstacles to Generosity
with Glenn Power

This sermon explores the topic of giving and generosity from a biblical perspective, addressing common questions and concerns about tithing and financial stewardship. The message emphasizes that giving is not primarily about a set amount, but about a heart attitude of trust and obedience to God.

Key Points:

• Giving is a heart issue: The Bible teaches that our attitude and motivation in giving are more important than the amount we give.
• God owns everything: We are stewards of God's resources, and He expects us to manage them wisely and generously.
• Tithing is a starting point: While the New Testament does not explicitly command tithing, it is a reasonable starting point for our giving, based on the Old Testament principle and Jesus' teaching on radical generosity.
• Generosity is a response to grace: We give out of gratitude for the grace we have received in Jesus Christ.
• God is able to provide: We can trust God to meet our needs when we are obedient to His commands regarding giving.

Obstacles to Generosity:

• Trust issues: Find a church and leadership you trust, and remember that ultimately we are giving to the Lord.
• Sloppy theology: Avoid the trap of dismissing the Old Testament or lowering the standards of Jesus' teaching.
• Materialism: Cultivate an eternal mindset and focus on the true riches found in Christ.
• Control: Recognize that everything we have belongs to God, and He has the right to direct our finances.
• Human reasoning: Don't let fear or logic dictate your giving. Trust in God's ability to provide.
• Fear: Believe in God's promise to supply all our needs according to His riches in glory.

The sermon concludes with a call to examine our hearts and overcome any obstacles that hinder our generosity. It also invites listeners to receive communion and to pray for freedom from anxiety and a greater understanding of God's provision.

Transcript

Alright, let's get started. This year, this school year at Radiant, we're talking about different components of walking with Jesus. So last month we talked about discipleship. This month we're talking about generosity. We're talking about giving. 

So it's a money sermon. Alright, so get ready. That means we need prayer. Serious prayer. Okay, so I'm going to pray. Should we just ask you, Lord, just for clarity, we ask you for a spirit of wisdom and revelation. We ask that Jesus would just be big in our eyes and that you would just disciple us where we need it. 

Amen. I used to love money when I was little. When I was in kindergarten for a few years there, my favorite thing to do was to count money in my room. So for hours, I would just count my ones, my fives, my quarters. I would just stack them and count them. Three hours later, my mom checks on me. I'm still counting and recounting my money. 

I don't know if you guys ever did this when you were little, but my parents would do the, kind of like a baby book, you know, where you mark little details about their lives and who their teacher was in first grade and who their best friends were. The last line was always future occupation. What do I want to be when I grow up? For four years, I wanted to be a banker. Because I thought, that's the dream. 

You just count money over and over again. I wanted to be like Scrooge McDuck, you know, where you just dive into the money. That was the ultimate dream. 

So my goals have changed a little bit. But specifically in talking about money today, I want to talk about what God expects from us. So does God want a tithe? Does he want less? 

Does he want more? What does the Bible actually teach about this? And I have to say that when Travis asked me to talk about this, my first thought was, we're in the middle of an Amigo Roe campaign and I have to talk about giving. This is the worst. I immediately had all this PTSD of driving the car, listening to the K-Love pledge fund. They're like, another challenge, 15 seconds left, $1,000, come on, get it in there. God's going to bless you. And I'm just like, ugh. 

What is the pledge drive over so I can listen to music again? With me specifically, I hate pressure. Not just with money, but with anything. Anytime somebody pressures me to do something, I want to do the opposite. So if somebody is really trying to get me to give, I'm like, yep, not going to give to you. If somebody comes to my door, tries to sell me solar, I'm like, definitely not going to do solar. 

I don't even know anything about it, but I'm not, just because you're trying to sell me on it. So I'm really sensitive to that kind of thing, but I just thought it'd be good and maybe a little bit fun to just kind of like not just talk about the elephant in the room, but just like really zoom in on the elephant in the room, just like the way the church has done money bad and awkwardly. And I thought all the way back to the book of Acts, there's a guy named Simon who tried to buy the power of the Holy Spirit. And Peter was like, get out of here. 

You you perish with your money. So he was rebuked. You know, just church history goes on skipping a lot. There was a Catholic priest around the Reformation days. And his name was, I got it here, Johan Tetzel. And he used to sell forgiveness. So he would go around and, you know, for people's deceased loved ones, you say, if you pay me a certain price, then you're deceased loved ones who are in purgatory. They'll be instantly freed into into heaven. 

His little jingle was as soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs. It's clever. So this is this is why partly why Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door was like in response to this nonsense. So church history goes on for a few hundred years in American history, people used to purchase nicer pews. So like if you gave a certain amount of money, you could sit up front and get a nicer pew. And so then whoever walked in, you could know who the big givers were. Like, oh my gosh, we got Eric up front, like big giver, nicer pew, you know, like little like luxuries around it. That lasted for a while. And then more recently, a story that I heard just this last week about Oral Roberts, which I hear he did a lot of good stuff as well too. 

So don't want to balance perspective here. But at one point in Oral Roberts' ministry, he was trying to raise money for a medical fund at his college. And he was really putting the pressure on. And he at one point he told everyone that God was going to take his life if he didn't raise $8 million by a certain date. So that's a super weird way to raise money. The worst part was that the money did come in and then he changed his mind on what to do with the money. I know, boo, boo. 

So the blowback to this was so strong that he started losing supporters right and left until he finally had to sell his mansion in Beverly Hills. It's pretty sad. I know. It's very sad. So clearly there's an abuse problem. 

We could go on, we could talk about the mega church pastor with the private jet just pleading for money. There's clearly an abuse problem. But there is another error. 

And I think people like me who get really annoyed with the abuse problem, we want to just get quiet. And it turns out that that's not an option because the Bible talks about money so much. Gunner was telling us a couple of weeks ago that there's over 2000 verses on money. So that means that there are more verses in the Bible about money than there are about prayer and faith combined. There's more verses in the Bible about money than heaven, more verses in the Bible about money than hell. 

So this is huge. And if we want to be faithful disciples, we have to learn about it and we have to talk about it. And so we have to try to find a better way of keeping our integrity and not being weird, but still discipling people about money. So just you know, this message is not going to end with a plate being passed around. 

It's not going to end with a QR code being flashed on the screen. In fact, the way we're going to end it is with a prayer team up here because I find, and this is maybe just for me, but I find in this topic of money anxiety is actually the biggest response. Like just thinking about money, how much we give our budgets, we're just super anxious. And so we want to pray about that. 

That's how we'll end this thing is just if you're feeling anxious, especially as we go into the holidays talking about money, get prayer, pour out your heart, get some freedom in this area. Okay, so let's look at the Bible. We're going to do a quick fly by of Genesis to Revelation. So from the beginning, people seemed, you know, long before the law of Moses, people seem to have this innate idea of giving back to God. So the very first one is actually as early as Genesis four in the story of Cain and Abel, which I have never thought about as a giving story up until this last week, but it is. So Genesis four verses two through five. 

This is the nlt. It says when they grew up, Abel became a shepherd while Cain cultivated the ground. When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a gift, the best portions of the first born lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept Cain and his gift. So I like the nlt because it brings out the kind of it kind of helps us read between the lines a little bit says Cain presented some of his crops. You know, it's kind of like a meh like some he just kind of like through a few pennies in the plate kind of thing. 

His heart was not in it. But when it gets to Abel, it says he brought a gift, the best portions of the first born lambs. And so there's this stark contrast of Abel bringing the best and the first with Cain who just gave some. 

And what's interesting is that it says the Lord accepted Abel and his gift. There is a right and a wrong way to give. And it's not primarily based on the amount. It's based on the heart behind it. That's the very first giving story in the Bible. 

This is what teaches us. Okay, so skipping forward in Genesis, we have Abraham and Jacob, two of the patriarchs who gave tithes. So the word tithe just means 10%. And I don't know how they knew to give a tithe and the law wasn't given until hundreds of years later, but they did. I don't know. Maybe God spoke to them audibly. 

We don't know, but they gave 10% of their stuff to God. So we have this precedent before the law and that's important for us to know. We keep on going on and we get the law of Moses and there are actually three tithes in the law of Moses. And so instead of going into all the verses, which there are a ton and it gets actually a little bit complicated, all the tithing system in the Old Testament, I'm just going to give you a quote from Randy Alcorn, who summarizes the law's message about tithing. He says, actually there is not just one tithe for Israelites, but three. One tithe supported the priests and the Levites, so that'd be the spiritual leaders of their day. Another provided for a sacred festival and the third tithe supported orphans, widows and the poor. This amounted to an average of 23% per year. Now if you're trying to do the math on that, that's because one of the tithes was once every three years, so you got two tithes, 20%, and it doesn't matter. This is not math class. 

It's just kind of confusing when you look at it. So 23%. Now it might be sort of intimidating like, oh shoot, they gave 23% in the Old Testament? 

That's way more than I thought. It's fair to point out that some of these are what we would consider kind of like taxes today. And so, all together, you could say they gave at least 10%. 

10% went to the spiritual leaders, 10% went to the poor, 10% went to these festivals that were specific to Israel and the nation. The question though, the better question is, what does God want from us? Okay, we're not Old Testament Jews. 

We're not living in ancient Israel. So what does God expect from us as disciples? First, before we answer that question with some New Testament passages, I want to make sure we get the connection between the Old and the New Testaments. Because too often, I hear a careless writing off of the Old Testament, like, oh, that was just the Old Testament. As if Jesus came and pressed delete on everything that came before the Book of Matthew. And now we're just Christians now. 

Who cares what anything said before? And that's not Jesus' view of the Old Testament. Jesus said in Matthew 5 that he came to fulfill the law, not to abolish it. 

Okay, so we don't want the abolish mindset of who cares, none of that matters. But the fulfillment mindset, which is, what does the Old Testament mean now in light of Jesus and the Gospel that he brought? Okay, so that's going to help us answer the giving question from the New Testament perspective. 

Well, if you didn't like the 23% number, you're really not going to like what Jesus says about giving, because it gets way worse. Okay? So let's read a few passages. 

This is just a small sampling. Luke 12, 33, he says, Sell your possessions and give to the needy. Mark 12, 44, Jesus highlighted the widow with the two mites. This is the familiar story of the poor lady who had nothing else left except for two coins, and she put it all in. Jesus is watching her and praises her and says, this is what I'm looking for. She gave the last of everything she had. He said, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had. Last little verse. Again, there's tons, but I'm just giving a little sampling. 

And Matthew 19, 21, he says to the rich young ruler, if you would be perfect, go sell what you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come, follow me. See, it's way worse. So this is not 10%. This is Jesus telling people to give everything away. Now, but if you really think about it, and as you go on to the rest of the New Testament, Jesus can't mean that every Christian ever should give all of their possessions away all the time. That wouldn't make any sense. There'd be no money left for anything. 

Just all the Christians in the world would be dependent on all the non-Christians and it'd be super weird. So what what is Jesus saying? His point is not that everyone needs to sell everything. It's that 100% of our money and possessions belong to God. And if he asks us to do that, which at times he does, we need to be willing to give all of our money and possessions. Okay, so he's not asking 100% of us this right now, but he's expecting that we would see everything we own as belonging to him and him alone. And that's the New Testament perspective. It's actually much different than 10% to God, 90% for me. 

It's very different. It's 100% to God. And now what do you want me to do with it? Some of God's money, I'll use for my bills. Some of it, I'll give away to the church. Some of it, I'll give to the poor. 

Some of it, I'll spend for this and this, but it's a completely different paradigm. So we could go on through the New Testament and again, because of time, I'm not going to trace every book and what it says. But in the book of Acts, we don't have a mention of a tithe. We just have people being radically generous, like giving up their houses, giving up tons of their stuff. And as we go on through the New Testament, we have 1 John telling us that if we see somebody in need and don't give to them, then we don't have the love of God in our hearts. We have Paul in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, spending two chapters urging the Corinthians, who were on the wealthier side, to be radically generous givers like the Macedonians who were poor and were still giving. We see these kinds of things. 

So this is my personal conclusion about the tithing question. Because I know that that's, I just know how we are, you know, how I am. And it's like, yeah, yeah, I get it like generous. 

Yeah, it's cool. But like, do I have to give 10% come on, like just give me a straight answer. That really there's not a straight answer. And so I think we just need to be clear about that. But this is my personal conclusion. 

And then I'll follow it up with some quotes from people smarter and more respectable than me. So my conclusion is that Jesus and the apostles taught us to be radically generous and in a way that comes from our hearts, not just from a law, in light of the previous law that commanded at least 10% from every individual, it's reasonable to presume that in the New Covenant, with Jesus's example of self-giving love and the new internal power of the Holy Spirit, because remember, there's a little parenthesis here, remember that whenever Jesus cited commandments from the law, he always raised the standard. Oh yeah, you say that don't commit adultery, I say don't look at a woman lustfully. 

He never lowered the standard actually. He made it about the heart and raised it. So because of the new internal power of the Holy Spirit, as well as a new understanding of eternity, a tithe is a good starting place for our regular giving. Randy Alcorn calls it the training wheels of giving. This is how the early church fathers understood the tithing question as well. So Irenaeus, second century, really close to the early apostles, he says this, the Jews were constrained to a regular payment of tithes, which is so funny, they were constrained, like they were only allowed to give their tithes. 

Christians who have liberty assign all their possessions to the Lord, bestowing freely not the lesser portions of their property, since they have the hope of greater things. Augustine a few hundred years later said that tithes are required as a matter of debt. Now, I think that probably, if you want to get technical, I think that Augustine probably went too far in saying tithes are required as a matter of debt because that's not what the New Testament says. But the point is that the New Testament church fathers saw the 10% as a starting place. As like, oh yeah, that's what they did in the Old Testament and now we've been given so much more in the New Testament so we get to give more, or at least 10%. 

That was the attitude. I think a good analogy with trying to answer this question of like, to tithe or not to tithe, it's kind of similar to the Sabbath for the New Testament Christian. Does a Christian have to celebrate the Sabbath? 

Well, no, not really. I mean, we don't have to celebrate it from Friday night to Saturday night. We're not under that law. We have the freedom on when we want to rest and how we want to rest. But we still need to rest. 

The Sabbath was a creation principle that came before the law. And so we would be idiots to not rest every once in a while. It would be damaging to our physical health. In a similar way, we would be foolish to not be generous givers. 

It'll be damaging to our spiritual health if we're not. There might be some pushback. Somebody might say, well, I want to give. I want to be generous, but I don't trust anyone. That preacher is just trying to get my money. I don't trust those people with the pledge drives. I don't trust these people. And I would say that's fair. There's a lot of untrustworthy people out there. That's very fair. I would say two things to that. I would say, first of all, do your best to find some place where you do trust the leadership. 

Do your homework, research it. If you're not at a church where you don't trust them, then find another church. Because I think too often that's an excuse to sit back and not give. So go somewhere else and give to people that you do trust, I think is the answer. Secondly, even more important than that, biblically when we give, we're releasing our money unto the Lord primarily. 

It's not primarily to people. And when we stand before Jesus on the last day, he's not going to hold us accountable for what those people did with your money once you gave it to them. He's going to hold you accountable to, did you try your best to find trustworthy people, and what did you do with the money and possessions that I entrusted to you? That's what we'll have to answer for. Okay, so we're going to end by looking at some obstacles to generosity. 

Okay, we've looked at what the Bible teaches, just again, a real quick overview. Generosity, what are some obstacles to that? We've already looked at a couple. We've looked at trust issues. That can be an obstacle. 

Sloppy theology. That can be an obstacle. A third obstacle is materialism. Just good old-fashioned materialism. 

We are saturated in a materialistic society that's more affluent and comfortable than any other society in all of human history. And I know I've heard Travis say that a few times in the last few years, but it bears repeating because the fish don't think about what water they are swimming in, and that's the water we are swimming in. We are swimming in, and I know you don't feel affluent. I don't feel affluent either. 

When I look at my budget, I definitely don't feel affluent. But the reality is that we have more comfort and stuff and things that are disposal than ancient kings could dream of. It's become normal for us. And so we need to realize that that affects our mindset and that affects our generosity. Statistics show again and again that the more money you make, the less percentage you give. 

Those are the facts. What did Jesus say about this? In Matthew 6, he says, There your heart will be also. No one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. The answer to the materialism that's rampant, that we're steeped in, is to have an eternal mindset. To think about the age to come, to think about our heavenly accounts. Travis taught on this a few weeks ago, eternal rewards and the reality of it. 

Because materialism and secularism forces you to think about now, now, now. What can I get now? What can I feel now? 

It's all now oriented. And actually, the best way to get free of this is to be generous. The more that we release our money, we get free of this western comfort and this addiction to things. You could picture every time that you give to someone, whether it's to the church, whether it's to a non-profit, or whether you find a way to give to the needy and the poor, you could picture chains falling off of your soul. Chains of materialism. Another obstacle to generosity is control. 

So this is related to the last one. We just don't, we don't want to give up our hard earned money. And we say that, we say that I worked hard for this money. Why would I give this to somebody else? 

It doesn't seem right. And we have to ask, well, who gave us the strength? Who gave us the opportunity? Who gave us the energy, the grace to work that job? It all came from God. It all, it all belongs to him. 

What's interesting is that right after Jesus talks about money and the Sermon on the Mount, you know, the passage I just cited, you know what the very next section is? Anxiety. Isn't that fitting? Money, anxiety. 

They go right together. Jesus says in Matthew 6, 25 and 32, He says, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. What you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. For the Gentiles seek after all these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. I love that. The more we trust our Father, the more we obey Him by letting go of our material goods and giving. 

And the more we see Him come through, the more we see Him provide for us. The next obstacle is human reasoning. There's always a reason to not give. And they're really good reasons. 

They make a lot of sense with human reasoning. The budget's always too tight. There's always better places that we could give our money. Well, I'm in debt. 

I can't give right now. I should be giving all my money to pay off my credit card debt. That's not God's math. 

God's math is that you continue to give as you pay off your credit card debt and then you actually activate the supernatural help of God to help you pay off that credit card debt. Surprise, medical and car bills always come in when you least expect it. And then there's another reason to not give. We've got this crazy medical bill. This is not a season for giving. 

We're going to get through this season and then after this we're going to give again. I have never heard of that going well, of the people that I talked to. The testimonies of non-giving are very bleak. But then you talk to people about testimonies of giving and they'll give you story even after last service. People came up to me and started telling me stories about times where they determined that they were still going to give even when it was difficult and how God came through. 

One woman with tears in her eyes. I was telling you guys a few weeks ago that I went on a friend trip with some of my old high school friends and we were updating each other for hours on just how the last 15, 20 years have been. And my friend Chris was telling us all of the season and his life where his wife Ashley felt really strongly about staying home and homeschooling. And he was a teacher so they just had one teacher salary for the both of them. They had two young children and the bills were not... 

The numbers were not adding up. They did not have money to pay the bills. And they decided at the beginning of that season we're at least going to tithe. We're going to pay 10% I don't know if it was to their local church or to the whatever they paid their tithe. And through tears Chris was telling us we saw God come through every month. Every month we saw him take care of us. And now it's 10 years later and they're doing great. Chris is now the principal of that school. 

Their kids are older and so things are not as difficult. But that season marked his life because of what God did and the testimony it gave them. And I wonder how many testimonies are we robbing ourselves because of our human reasoning and saying well this is just not a season for giving right now. 

Billy Graham once said we have found in our home that God's blessing upon the 9 tenths when we tithe helps it to go farther than 10 tenths without his blessing. Okay the last obstacle to giving is fear. I think this is maybe the most common one. This is the one I relate to the most is just we're just afraid. We just don't know if God's really going to come through. We don't know if yeah we know that God teaches generosity but what's going to happen if I give this 10% and it feels like the numbers don't add up we're afraid. In Philippians 4 Paul was talking to a church that had just given him a financial gift and this is what he says. He says I have received full payment and more. 

I am well supplied. Now remember Paul is sitting in a prison cell as he says this. He just got a little financial gift. 

He's sitting in a cell saying man I'm good. I'm just so blessed right now like I couldn't ask for anything more. Having received from the pathoditis the gifts he sent a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God and then he gives this promise to the Philippians. He says and my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. 

I love that verse. It's a promise that if we do it God's way, if we do finances God's way he will take up for us. He will provide for our needs. Now is God a vending machine? Is it like give your 10% and I guarantee that he's going to give you 10 times back. No, that's not how God works. He chooses how he's going to provide for you. But he promises to provide for you. He cares about us more than the birds and the birds always seem to find their food each day. 

That was Jesus' teaching. See those birds? They always seem to make it. 

You know it's always there somehow. He says God cares for you more than that. He's going to make sure that you make it. He's going to take care of you. I want to end with this last verse from worship team. 

You guys can come on up. This last verse from 2 Corinthians 8. And again we're going to have a prayer team. 

So if you're feeling anxious about money, you know what the holidays coming up. Just anything you want prayer about really. We'll just have people up here to pray. But I just wanted to end with us looking at God who is the ultimate giver. John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave. He is the best giver. He gave us his son. 

Jesus. I'm going to read this verse. This verse says, For you know the grace. That word grace means gift in the Greek. For you know the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ. That though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor. 

So that you by his poverty might become rich. This is the model that God himself didn't, he didn't sit up from heaven. Just sit up there in heaven and say, hey make sure you give. He said, follow me as I give everything. And the father gave his son and Jesus gave his very self on the cross. He went from having all the heavenly privileges, everything to poverty in more ways than one for our benefit. 

And his end game. Yeah, in this life is to spiritually bless us and to make sure that we have our needs met. But in the age to come, the end game is for him to prosper us beyond our wildest dreams. It's to make us rich literally and spiritually in the age to come. That is the future that we have in store for us. And the more we know that we go, oh yeah I'm going to be rich in the age to come. 

Oh yeah I can give this. I don't have to be so afraid. He's got us. Let's stand up and we'll just pray and take communion remembering Jesus' gift for us on the cross, his body and his blood. We thank you Jesus. 

We thank you for your leadership. Would you come and free us from the anxiety? Would you come and just free us to follow you? To obey whatever you tell us? Thank you for the freedom you've given us and we just say that we love you Jesus. Amen.

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