There has been a twenty-seven year decline in the percentage of income Christians give to the Church. Currently, 1.5% – 3.5 % is amount of their income that Christians give to the Church and other religious causes. Seventeen percent of Christians say that they tithe, or give 10percent.In reality, only about three percent of Christians are actually tithing. 30%-50% of active church attendees have blank annual giving records. As one man said, "If everyone in the Church were on welfare and tithing, the church would have so much money they wouldn’t know what to do with it."
Where does all that money go?
At home, Lara and I have a personal finance computer program called Quicken. If you let it, Quicken can track every penny that you spend or invest. Every month I enter every purchase and investment I make into that software. If I go to Wal-mart, Lowe's, or Cracker Barrel, it gets recorded in Quicken. At any moment we can punch up Quicken and it will tell us exactly where God’s money is being spent. And Quicken does this in large colorful graphs and pie charts. Quicken does not lie. It tells us where our priorities lie in any given month.
If I got a little too caught up in fixing up my home, Quicken tells it like it is. Quicken does not water down the truth. It says, "Hey bud, you spent more at Menard's than you invested in God's kingdom. " Or, "You like eating out more than you like giving to God. "Or, "You spend more money fishing for fish than fishing for men." Or, "Warning! Warning! Stay away from Meijer's and Wal-mart!"
Some of us keep a tight reign on our finances, and the rest of us should! If a pie chart accurately detailing your personal finances were to be flashed on this screen before every one in this room, what would it tell us about you? What would it say about your financial priorities? What would it say about your self-discipline? What would it say about your love for God? Would you be embarrassed? Would it shock the rest of us? Would you want to first spiff up the pie chart to make it look better than it actually does?
God knows your portfolio.
Obviously, no one in this room knows what really happens with your money. But don’t let yourself off the hook too quickly, because God knows your portfolio. God is our Quicken and he does not lie. He knows what we give and when we give and how much and with what motive and for what reason. He knows the level of our generosity. He knows how much we love him.
There have been times in my life when I have felt embarrassed before God. There are times that I just shake my head in disgust and say, "Jon, what’s going on here? Last month you had one ugly pie chart." There are times when I feel like I have done pretty good. "Hey, hey, look at that.10.2%. He shoots! He scores!"
I have a lot of people who ask me about the right percentage for giving. Is it the Old Testament ten percent tithe that should be the standard for the Christian? Should I tithe on my gross income or on my net income? Should I tithe on my investments and interest? Should I even tithe at all? Will God understand if I just forego giving altogether as I try to get things in order? We can get pretty legalistic about percentages. 9.9% is failure and 10.1% is victory.
God’s standard of giving.
People in Christian circles get pretty passionate about percentages, have you noticed? Over the years I have found a percentage of giving that we can all become equally passionate about. It is not the casual national average of 1.5% - 3.5%, or even the 10% tithe. The percentage standard that we should concern ourselves with is 100%, not 10%. That standard has been in place since the beginning of time and was set by God. Have you ever considered the fact that we worship a 100% God? God gave 100% of his life up when he died on the cross for our sins. God gave up 100% of heaven to come suffer and show us the way to eternal life. God is a generous giver who gives even though he doesn’t receive. He gives 100% and he does so knowing that he might only get back 1%, 2%, or 10%, if he is lucky!
God’s 100% puts our 1.5%, 3.5%, or 10% offering in its proper perspective. What does it say about our appreciation of God’s 100% sacrifice that we would nickel and dime him by looking for some legalistic loophole? If we cannot give 3.5% or even 10% back to a 100% God who gave us everything, then whose problem is that? It's not God’s problem. It's our problem!
Over the years Lara and I have used the tithe (10 percent) as our standard of giving. When 10% has been our focus, we have found it really hard to measure up. It has been a struggle. We have had some victories and we have failed many times. The remedy has always been for us to reflect on our 100% God who gave his all. And when we reflect on that we find it is not so hard to give 10%. In fact, when you reflect on God’s generosity it's hard not to give 20% or 30% or 50%!
When I was a child I would give 100%. I would clean my wallet out in the collection plate and say to myself, "Why not? It's for God!" God gave the farm away so it seems that giving a few cows back is nothing in comparison! We cannot say we worship and hang around a 100%, all-out, giving God, but then not have some of his rich generosity rub off on us!
The standard for giving in the New Testament was laid down by Jesus' example and is best captured by his words in Matthew. In Matthew 10:8 (NIV) Jesus tells his disciples, "Freely you have received, freely give." We give as we have received. God doesn’t invite us to go where he himself has not already led. He set the standard, he took the first step, and he freely gave 100%.
Giving as you have received.
The ball is now in our court. Now that we have freely received, we have the opportunity through our financial giving to make a statement back to God about what his generosity has meant to us. And so what kind of statement are you making to our 100% God? Are you 1.5 % grateful? Are you 3.5% grateful? Are you only 3% grateful or 10% grateful? Your giving is your statement back to God. Freely you have received. Freely give.
I hope some of this at least forces you to reflect on your generosity toward God. The fact that 30%-50% of regular attendees in churches today have blank giving records and have not invested anything more than a few casual dollars to God’s kingdom suggests that something is very spiritually wrong. The fact that only 3% of Christians are willing to tithe suggests that the magnitude of our message of God’s grace has not penetrated deep into our hearts.
Something that I have been hitting on over the last few weeks is this idea of stewardship. All of us are stewards. We are managers of God’s gifts to us. God has given us time. He has given us possessions. He has given us bodies. He has given us money. James 1:17 (NIV) says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."
Faithful stewards of our money.
These gifts have been entrusted to us, but only for a time. Every gift of God that we have is temporary. Time flies by. Our health is fleeting. Our money, well.... have you been watching the markets lately? While we have these gifts God wants us to leverage them for his glory. He doesn’t want these gifts to become our primary focus. He doesn’t want them to be squandered. He doesn’t want us to forget their origin. He doesn’t want us to hoard them and be greedy and selfish with them. God’s gifts are given to us to be a blessing to many. We are a channel, a conduit of God’s blessing, a vessel, a pipeline. The scriptures teach that we are blessed so that we can be a blessing to others.
At the beginning of this series I shared Jesus' parable of the talents with you. A master was going away for a time and entrusted his estate to three servants. He divided the estate up according to their abilities. One servant got five talents. One servant got two and one servant got just one talent.
The amounts each servant got are immaterial because the focus of the entire parable concerns the servants' faithfulness with their master’s wealth. The first two servants invested wisely, but the servant with one talent buried it. At the end of the parable the master returns to hold his servants accountable for how they managed his wealth. The first two servants received a commendation, but the last servant received a curse and lost everything because he was unfaithful.
God gives us his gifts only for a time and he watches to see how we will use his gifts. His gifts are like a spiritual test. This is a test that we do not want to fail. The question that concerns us is the question that concerned the servants. Are we being faithful with the temporary wealth God has entrusted to us? Are we good stewards? Are we trustworthy? Are we good conduits of blessing? "Freely you have received, freely give!"
Last week I read somewhere, "God loves a cheerful giver, but he’ll take money from a grouch." This statement presupposes that God values money over relationship. It presupposes that our focus is only on receiving money and that receiving money is the end and not the means. Today I want to suggest that nothing could be further from the truth. Getting your money is not the end to which God or this church exists. This isn’t a newsflash, but God is perfectly capable of building his kingdom with or without your money. His kingdom is not contingent on your generosity. If God can raise up stones to praise his name, then he can just as easily raise up and financially prosper other people within the body to meet the needs of the kingdom. In other words, it is no skin off God’s back if we don’t give. Cheerful giver or stingy grouch, God’s kingdom moves forward.
But right now we have the opportunity to be God’s special blessing to this world and to each other through our generosity. God doesn’t want to build his kingdom in spite of you or even around you! He wants to build it through you and through your generosity. But he is looking for a few good managers. He's looking for those faithful few stewards who won’t settle for just 1.5% or 3% or 10%,but who will push the envelope and freely give just as they have received. And is that person you? Are you that faithful, trustworthy steward?
The prodigal spender.
In the scriptures Jesus encountered people and he told stories about people who had every opportunity to be faithful but who refused. In Luke 15Jesus told the story of the prodigal son who took his inheritance and squandered it in wild living. He threw parties. He caroused. He lived high off the hog. But in the end he became a servant of the hog.
The prodigal son squandered the inheritance he got from the father. He wasted it. He blew it on extravagant, short-lived pleasures. Therefore, he lost everything. God took it all away. He had to work on a pig farm and was so desperate that he longed to fill his stomach with the food the pigs ate.
The too-rich-to-give rich young ruler.
In Luke 18 we find the story of the rich young ruler. The rich young ruler was a good man who had everything he ever needed. He was religious and kept most of God’s commands. He went to synagogue. He read the law. He practiced the law. He was proud of his accomplishments. One day he approached Jesus with a question about eternal life expecting Jesus to pat him on the back for being such a good person. "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" he asked Jesus in Luke 18:18 (NIV).
In that moment Jesus sensed that this rich young ruler was ruled by his wealth. Jesus instructed him to go and sell all his possessions and give them to the poor. The rich young ruler valued the gift over the gift-giver. He valued his puny estate over the Lord’s estate. He valued his stash of wealth over God’s kingdom! The rich young ruler valued his wealth more than he valued the Father. He was willing to do everything for God except give up his money. It is no surprise that the rich young ruler went away sad. He preferred to be rich towards this world instead of rich toward the heavenly father.
The foolish hoarder of wealth.
In Luke 12 we find the parable of the rich fool. The rich fool was a very capable man who knew how to create wealth for himself. He produced a good crop, and then realized that he didn’t have room to store it all. So he tore down his barns and built bigger barns. When he finished building he said to himself in Luke 12:18-21(NIV), " 'You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? 'This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
In all three of these stories there is a very obvious theme: faithfulness. The question for us is, "Who are you most like? The prodigal son, the rich young ruler, or the rich fool?"
What kind of giver are you?
Are you like the prodigal son who lived in the now? He liquidated everything to pursue pleasure, to have the fancy cars, the big house, the power speed boat, the finest clothing, and to eat out all the time. He never said "no" to himself and therefore he could never say "yes" to the Father. If he lived in our day he would have a maxed-out charge card and would be so in debt that he would have nothing left to share with others or to give to God. He would be like the fellow who said, "It's hard to save money and give to God when my neighbor keeps buying things I can’t afford."
Are you like the rich young ruler who loved money more than he loved God? He couldn’t let go of even a dime because money was his god. He was riddled with greed and selfishness. "Give money away? Are you nuts?" He might have thought those things to himself. If he lived in our day he would be giving less than the least. He would sort past his twenty and fifty dollar bills and give the five. His stomach would churn at the thought of giving any kind of sacrificial gift to God’s people. He would calculate his tithe and say, "That’s too much to give back to God. I want to keep that for myself. I think I’ll be on my way."
Are you like the rich fool who spent his life amassing and hoarding wealth? He worked night and day, seven days a week, building his stock pile of wealth. He was saving it for the distant future when one day he would slow down enough to enjoy it. If he lived in our day he would be the workaholic who could never save enough and who could never give to the Lord’s work for fear that there wouldn’t be anything left over for himself or herself. If he lived in our day he would build up his savings account while squandering the spiritual opportunities for giving that God placed before him.
Well, I actually hope that you fall into the category of none of the above. I hope you fall into the category of faithful steward and of good manager. I hope you are someone who will never be satisfied with anything less than 100%, but that with child-like faith you will push the envelope and go beyond the artificial standards we so often set for ourselves. Our God is a 100% God! I hope you are someone who will seize the opportunities for impacting God’s kingdom today instead of waiting and procrastinating and missing God’s calling.
I could have done more.
Oscar Schindler was a German WWII profiteer during the time of Jewish holocaust. During the war he discovered that in return for paying off German officers, he could use Jews from the concentration camps to work in his factories. With this arrangement he grew quite wealthy. He had everything he wanted. He lived an extravagant life. He had a Rolls Royce, gold pens, you name it.
In the movie "Schindler's List", Schindler discovers that every Jew he hired to work in his factory was spared death in the concentration camps. Only after it is too late does he realize the sheer number of lives he could have saved if only he had used his money more wisely. As the Allied forces move into Germany and he prepares to flee, he meets one last time with the Jewish factory workers he saved from the concentration camps and comes to terms with the true cost of his self-indulgence and greed. He laments not having done more. He laments not having made a greater impact with his money. He laments not having been a conduit of blessing to save more lives.
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All of us have an opportunity now to be a conduit of God’s blessing. Oscar’s lament was, "I could have done more." Well, we have the opportunity now to do more. God has blessed us to go further with our generosity. We are called to be faithful stewards.