"Giving Your Treasures!" (Covenant Renewal)

"Giving Your Treasures!"

Covenant Renewal: a 3-week sermon series to help us give the Christmas Gift every day all year long!

Pastor Jerry Ingalls

December 26, 2010

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that the lasting joy and eternal peace of the miracle of Christmas will not be cast aside with all the wrapping paper and packaging of those wonderful gifts you received. The Gift of Christmas is peace with God through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ! On this day after Christmas, we are going to transition from the four-week Advent sermon series called "The Gift!" into a three-week New Year series called "Covenant Renewal". The intent of this sermon series is very direct and quite simple: we want the Gift of Christmas to impact our everyday lives throughout the year and for the rest of our lives. We are a people called by God to not only receive the Gift for ourselves, but to then be in mission (the heart of God!) by giving the Gift away to others. We are to be generous with our treasures, our time, and our talents with the missional intent of bringing glory to God and building His Kingdom.

Today, we are going to start the covenant renewal by making a covenant with God to be generous with the material blessings He has provided for us in our lives. If someone were to examine the way you utilized your resources, what would they say about your life priorities?

God's word from Acts 2:42-47 for a message entitled, "Giving Your Treasures!", "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³ Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. ⁴⁶ Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." [Prayer]

In the community of God, there should be no need unmet, but that is far from the reality we live in this broken world full of war, disease, and the emotional and relational consequences of sin. And yes, the war and disease and consequences of sin have fully infiltrated our best intentions as Christians and are ability to live up to God's commands of how we should steward our lives and all that He has provided for us.

In order to first examine our own hearts of why we give to the Lord's work, let's take what I call "THE HEART TEST FOR GIVING TO THE LORD" Inside your sermon notes you will see three 'yes or no' questions. Take a minute and answer each question.

1. Do I give to be right with God? ______

2. Do I give to make myself feel better? ______

3. Do I give to be seen by other people? ______

These questions are meant to help us enter into this teaching time with an open and reflective heart to God's word as we examine the motivation of our giving. Please do not allow Satan to put you in a defensive posture as we each must be willing to allow the Holy Spirit to probe into the inner chambers of our hearts to illumine the true state of our loyalties. And there is nothing in our culture quite like money and possessions to demonstrate our need for God's deliverance and peace. Today is about freedom!

The answer to the first question, "Do I give to be right with God?" can best be answered by understanding what makes us right with God in the first place! THE MOTIVATION OF OUR GIVING IS GRATITUDE FOR GOD'S CHRISTMAS GIFT!

We do not give in order to be right with God! The Bible teaches in 2 Corinthians 8:9, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich."

This is the Christmas message: God, the Father of the heavenly lights is the giver of all good gifts. And the Christmas miracle is the Gift of His Son Jesus Christ who willingly came from Heaven to Earth and took the manger as His throne. God took on flesh and dwelt among us so that we can experience His presence. Jesus Christ not only came and took on flesh, but He then gave Himself as the perfect sacrifice by allowing all of humanity's sin to be put on Himself and He paid the price (the atonement) for our sin by dying on a cross so that we can be in a right relationship with God.

We do not give to be right with God because God has already done that work for us! God gave His one and only son so that we can be right with God! Amen!

We give all that we have out of sheer gratitude for the indescribable Gift of peace with God through the Son of God, Jesus Christ! "Yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich"! Once you get a taste of this freedom in Jesus Christ you become the most generous person because you realize the extravagant price of your freedom!

The answer to the second question, "Do I give to make myself feel better?" can best be answered when we understand that we only come to peace with ourselves when walk in deep relationship with God. THE MOTIVATION OF OUR GIVING IS A DEEPER RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD!

Sin has caused a deep chasm between us and God. And it was for forgiveness of sin that God sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins so that we can be restored into right relationship with the Giver of all life. You see, there is nothing that you can do, even follow every detail of the Law that will give you internal peace and feel good about yourself. Only when we enter into a relationship with God can we be healed; this is the journey of life!

As many of us have learned from personal experience and as the Bible teaches us, our obedience to a religious system can only get us so far. Regarding giving of our treasures, God gave a very clear command in the Old Testament. From the books of the Old Covenant Law we find this in the Book of Leviticus 27:30, "A tithe [a tenth] of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD."

In the Old Covenant, giving was managed by a detailed and thoroughly examined commandment to give 10% of all that God had provided. To not give your tithe was to put yourself in a place of disobedience; hence, to put yourself at risk to not being right with God!

Listen to Jesus Christ addressing man's corruption of this commandment. From the Gospel of Luke 11:42, "Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone."

I do not believe that Jesus removes the practice of tithing as some would debate, but He fulfills it as He does the practice the Sabbath. In Mark 2:27, Jesus made a strong statement about the purposes of Sabbath observance. I want to take this statement and apply it to the purposes of tithing because the same principle that Jesus Christ applies to the fulfillment of one aspect of the Law applies to the entire Law: [tithing] was made for man, not man for [tithing]. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Law!

Let me explain, we give because we are learning to trust God with all He has made us to be as His children! Tithing was instituted to set us free, it was not made to hold us in bondage to a legalistic obedience, blind of justice and love. Jesus rebukes the Jewish religious leaders of the first century because they had twisted their observance of the Law and in doing so place such heavy burdens on the people that they became stumbling blocks to a relationship with God. Jesus removed the stumbling blocks by fulfilling the Law through grace!

Here it is: Tithing flows out of the heart of God for man (for each of us; you and I!) because God knows that we need to be delivered from our insecurity and mistrust of His sovereign provision. This life is about one thing and until we get this through our minds, then we will always miss the mark on who and why we are and how we should live and love. Life is about growing deeper and deeper in a personal relationship with God! Life is about learning to trust and completely submit to the Lordship of Christ!

Listen to this story from the Gospel of Luke 21:1-4, "As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. 'Truly I tell you,' he said, 'this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.'"

This is trust and Jesus holds her up as one who understands the true purpose of giving! Not to give, but to trust! God does not need your money; He desires all of you heart, mind, and soul! God does not want 10%; He wants you to willingly give Him 100%! Jesus is not cancelling the call to tithe; rather He is intensifying it to the extreme. He is calling us to be so free with our giving of our treasures, that we no longer consider them treasure! Our treasure is God alone; He is all we need!

Jesus teaches in the famous Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew 6:19-21, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

And we no longer see our earthly possessions as anything to consider "treasure". We take all that God gives us and we learn to trust Him more and more, growing daily in a deep abiding relationship. In our full-hearted pursuit of God our eyes are no longer on ourselves nor others, but on God and His Kingdom. He is all we need! He is our ambition!

And that moves us to our last question: "Do I give to be seen by other people?" THE MOTIVATION OF OUR GIVING IS TO DEVOTE OURSELVES TO GOD'S KINGDOM! Are you building your own kingdom or is your pursuit the Kingdom of God? How you invest yourself will truly illuminate your ambitions! Are you driven to build a kingdom that will pass as quickly as the grass withers and flowers fade? What compels you to act?

Jesus does not mince words in the Gospel of Matthew 6:24, "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."

This is God speaking; don't try to justify yourself; He knows! Now is not a time for shame and condemnation, but a time for covenant renewal. God is crying out to you this morning, "Return to me!" You cannot straddle two worlds; return all that you are and all that you have to God! Follow His Word and fulfill your mission—we are the children of God called to make Him famous to all the nations; it is His reputation that is on the line, not yours!

This is why we as a church community have committed ourselves to the 2020 Vision Initiative which has one primary objective, "To prepare us for our full availability and intended usage as ministers of reconciliation in the hands of God Almighty." We are committed to the purpose of building the Kingdom of God and in doing so our vision is to build for God, stone by stone, a temple where His Holy Spirit dwells. This is to be a community where God breaths upon all who come and empowers all who go in His name to draw all people to Jesus Christ. We must commit ourselves to this common vision and in doing so renew our covenant with God to devote ourselves to building God's Kingdom.

The inspiration for the 2020 Vision Initiative came through the Holy Spirit illumining my mind to 1 Chronicles 22:5, "David said, 'My son Solomon is young and inexperienced, and the house to be built for the LORD should be of great magnificence and fame and splendor in the sight of all the nations. Therefore I will make preparations for it.' So David made extensive preparations before his death."

You may not even be alive to see God's promise come to pass, but you are investing in eternity! Your lasting legacy is not in earthly accomplishments; it is in your spiritual children and grandchildren! The stones of the house of the LORD are the people saved by the gospel of Jesus Christ! David was told he could not build the house of the LORD, but he devoted himself to investing his time, treasures, and talents to building it; He invested in Solomon and the next generation! We must model ourselves with this same kind of devotion.

God is bringing a fresh fire and fresh wind in preparation for what is coming; He is setting the stage for revival and I believe He desires for us to have a strategic role in building His Kingdom in the world. A new reformation of the church is coming! Are you devoted to the work He is calling us to do together?

Many times throughout the redemptive history of God's people they were called to devote themselves and the people responded to the call of God. In 2 Chronicles 31:4-5, "He [King Hezekiah] ordered the people living in Jerusalem to give the portion due the priests and Levites so they could devote themselves to the Law of the LORD. As soon as the order went out, the Israelites generously gave the firstfruits of their grain, new wine, olive oil and honey and all that the fields produced. They brought a great amount, a tithe of everything."

When you get a taste of how good the promises of the Lord are, then you will not want to turn back to counterfeit promises offered by the spirit of the antichrist who only comes to kill, steal, and destroy. The abundant life promised by Jesus Christ in John 10:10 is only possible when we surrender our hearts fully to Jesus Christ and devote ourselves to the purpose He came—to usher in the Kingdom of God where God's Spirit fully dwells upon God's children. We live in the end times; the age of Pentecost when His Church is Spirit-filled. What prevents us from having the devotion of the early church described in Acts 2:42-47? The days are few, how will you live the days God has blessed you with? How will we live together these last days? Will God add to our number daily?

The Bible teaches of this early church devotion to the Kingdom of God in 2 Corinthians 8:2-4, "In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord's people."

Where are you investing your treasures? Do you have an urgency to share in this service to the Lord's people? Greater things are yet to come, but we must stand together in every aspect of our lives to be fully used by God! That is the cry of my heart: God use me for your glory and to build your Kingdom! Amen.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Study Malachi 3:8-12. What is significant about this passage? How does this apply to the individual disciple in regards to the testimony of the Church to the nations? Are you living in fulfillment of this promise? If not, what is preventing you from beginning today?

2. Study 2 Corinthians 9:6-14. How would applying these principles change your life (your heart first and foremost!) and the lives of those in your sphere of influence? Discuss.

3. How are you doing with financial stewardship? In what areas of your life do you feel you are being either obedient or disobedient to God's call for financial stewardship and generosity? Find the Scriptural references to support your beliefs and self-assessments and then discuss with a mentor or accountability partner to help you take the next steps.

4. Today, consider making for the first time or renewing your covenant with God to be a generous giver to the Lord's work through your local church in 2011 and beyond.