SPEAKER_00: Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_01: Now let's talk about giving a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: Again, Jesus, let's turn to Matthew chapter 6.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why do we do that?
SPEAKER_01: Why do we do these projects?
SPEAKER_01: Why do we grow?
SPEAKER_01: Why do we invest in ministry?
SPEAKER_01: How does this work for us as believers?
SPEAKER_01: I was reading this week that one scholar has taken pencil to paper and he's written all this down.
SPEAKER_01: He said, in the first three Gospels, one out of every six verses is related to a teaching on money that Jesus gives.
SPEAKER_01: One out of every six verses.
SPEAKER_01: If you count parables, they differ depending on whether they call a short one a parable or not.
SPEAKER_01: If you say roughly 40 parables that Jesus taught that are recorded in the Gospels, 16 of them use money as a spiritual thermometer about where a person's heart is.
SPEAKER_01: So clearly, Jesus understood the significance of what money means to us as we function in this life.
SPEAKER_01: So what I'd like to show you here for just a few minutes in Matthew chapter 6 is how giving reveals the motivations of our heart.
SPEAKER_01: Or, if you want to think about it this way, this is what motivates us as believers to give.
SPEAKER_01: So here in Matthew chapter 6, this is called the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_01: People refer it to that way.
SPEAKER_01: And in this sermon, Jesus is over and over and over teaching about the heart.
SPEAKER_01: He is trying to help the crowd recognize that what is in your heart is what God is looking at.
SPEAKER_01: And that Jesus is calling us to understand where our heart is and to give our heart in trust to Him as our Savior.
SPEAKER_01: The famous verse that you have heard often, where your treasure is, your heart will be also, is in this passage of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: So I want you to read with me real quick just a portion of this where Jesus unpacks how giving reveals the motivations of our heart.
SPEAKER_01: He says in verse 19, don't collect for yourselves treasures on earth where moss and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.
SPEAKER_01: But collect for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don't break in and steal.
SPEAKER_01: For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
SPEAKER_01: The eye is the lamp of the body.
SPEAKER_01: What he's doing here is he's saying, where you put your eyes, what you focus on as a matter of focus, reveals what's in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: The eye is the lamp of the body.
SPEAKER_01: If your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.
SPEAKER_01: So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness?
SPEAKER_01: No one can be a slave of two masters.
SPEAKER_01: You'll either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot be slaves of God and of money.
SPEAKER_01: This is why I tell you, don't worry about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, or about your body what you will wear.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't life more than food and the body more than clothing?
SPEAKER_01: Look at the birds of the sky, they don't sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them.
SPEAKER_01: Aren't you worth more than they?
SPEAKER_01: Can any of you add a single cubic to his height by worrying?
SPEAKER_01: And why do you worry about clothes?
SPEAKER_01: Learn how the wild flowers of the field grow.
SPEAKER_01: They don't labor or spin.
SPEAKER_01: Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these.
SPEAKER_01: It's how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and thrown into the furnace tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: Won't He do much more for you?
SPEAKER_01: You of little faith.
SPEAKER_01: So don't worry, he says, saying, What will we eat?
SPEAKER_01: Or what will we drink?
SPEAKER_01: Or what will we wear?
SPEAKER_01: For the idolaters eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
SPEAKER_01: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore don't worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself.
SPEAKER_01: Each day has enough trouble of its own.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what I'd like to do in just a few minutes that we have, show you four reasons why we give, and four motivations that when we make the choices of giving, Jesus says it reveals our heart.
SPEAKER_01: The first motivation is this.
SPEAKER_01: What he says is it's a picture of greed and of just selfishness and stacking things up, stacking things up for ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: He said, instead of that, understand that heaven is for eternity.
SPEAKER_01: And understand that when you are being stewards of what God has given you in all the ways that we do that, that you are investing in an eternity in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: When you are giving, when you're going on mission trips, when you're teaching Sunday school and serving, in all the ways that we do that, but including in what we do with our finances, we are making a decision each time do we believe in heaven?
SPEAKER_01: And are we storing up in heaven fruit of ministry and what we do here?
SPEAKER_01: I was thinking about this this week.
SPEAKER_01: Our church was founded in 1857.
SPEAKER_01: 1857.
SPEAKER_01: Think about this for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: We've been here since 1857.
SPEAKER_01: And all of that times later, 168 years later, we're still baptizing.
SPEAKER_01: We baptize two folks today.
SPEAKER_01: How does that happen?
SPEAKER_01: 1857, Arkansas had only been a state for 20 years when we were planted as a church.
SPEAKER_01: In 1857, we didn't have railroads in Arkansas yet.
SPEAKER_01: In 1857, they were building the first railroad from Memphis across the river into the state of Arkansas to move agricultural goods back and forth.
SPEAKER_01: In 1857, they found a locomotive, somebody purchased a locomotive, they named it the Little Rock, and they ran it as a fundraising deal and as a big spectacle to show everyone what was coming, and they ran it on the initial stages of the tracks of that very first railroad.
SPEAKER_01: And in 1858, that railroad was completed and it began the process of railroads covering our state.
SPEAKER_01: In 1857, imagine that.
SPEAKER_01: People planted a church to preach the gospel before there were railroads in the state of Arkansas.
SPEAKER_01: Is that incredible?
SPEAKER_01: In 1857, there was a national and even an international financial crisis.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, economists described that as the first international financial crisis in the terms that we describe economics today.
SPEAKER_01: And so in 1857, in the midst of all of that, a group of people said, we need a place where they'll preach Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And they began to build.
SPEAKER_01: And in 18, since 1857, generation after generation, has had a heart for the gospel and has built and built and built and shared and shared and preached and preached and given and given and prayed and prayed and invited and invited and served and served.
SPEAKER_01: And here we are today.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we do this?
SPEAKER_01: Because we are a church of the living God.
SPEAKER_01: We are here to spread the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And so we give to missions, and we're sending teams on mission trips, and we're helping plant churches in El Salvador, we're helping replant churches in London, England area.
SPEAKER_01: We are buying Bibles in Africa.
SPEAKER_01: We are giving through Arkansas Baptist to disaster relief because things like this weekend happen.
SPEAKER_01: And so, in all of that, generation after generation, people have been giving and building things like this for one reason.
SPEAKER_01: Because they believe there's an eternity.
SPEAKER_01: And people who know Jesus will spend an eternity in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And how we give and what we invest in and how we structure our finances that determines what is our view of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And I do believe that I am laying up treasures in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Faithfulness that God is using to bring people into the kingdom, to help people grow and to be a part of God's family.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus makes it very clear.
SPEAKER_01: Our focus should be storing up in heaven, not here.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you think about what he's saying, he is not saying that we don't save, he's not saying that we don't save for retirement, he's not saying those kinds of things.
SPEAKER_01: He is talking about stacking up money for money's sake, stacking it up so I can have it, so it's there, so it makes me feel comfortable, and all those kinds of things.
SPEAKER_01: And that is that we as Christians should have a different return on investment idea for eternity.
SPEAKER_01: Let me show you the second motivation.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus continues to talk, and he says, where your treasure is, your heart will be also.
SPEAKER_01: And then he gives this illustration of the eye, and he's saying, what you put your eye on, what you focus on, is where your mind, your heart, your emotions, your commitment follows that.
SPEAKER_01: This idea of the eye is the lamp of the body, and if your eye is good, if you go back to the original language, he's giving the idea here of a single thing, of a focus.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying if your eye is looking for all the stuff you can do, you can be, you can get, and all that kind of stuff, all of that is a problem.
SPEAKER_01: But he says if your eye is single focused, if it is singularly focused on the things of God, then your heart is going to be good because where your treasure is, your heart will follow.
SPEAKER_01: And then he makes it clear, you can't follow two masters.
SPEAKER_01: And so our second motivation shows our love and commitment to Jesus above all.
SPEAKER_01: Am I focused on things of the earth?
SPEAKER_01: Am I always distracted?
SPEAKER_01: Am I trying to buy this and buy that?
SPEAKER_01: And what can I do that?
SPEAKER_01: What can I do that?
SPEAKER_01: And God gets the second best, or he gets the leftovers, or whatever, that tells us that our focus is not singular.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a question of how much you're supposed to give.
SPEAKER_01: If you notice, we give you the cost of things, but we don't set goals, we're not doing that.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, we don't ever want to limit God.
SPEAKER_01: What churches have always talked about is this idea.
SPEAKER_01: Not the same gifts, but the same sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone has a certain economic structure and how they live life and where they are in these circumstances and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: And so the question for us is not how much you give, it's not what I gave or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: The thing for me and we're giving is am I committed to Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Is my single focus on the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: Are we building our family on a belief system that everything we have comes from God and we serve Him and we give as an act of worship and thanks to Him?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, look, how we structure our finances is an indicator of where our eyes are focused.
SPEAKER_01: Motivation number three.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus then goes on to talk about this idea of we all have needs, we have these needs in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: What are we going to eat?
SPEAKER_01: What are we going to take care of our families?
SPEAKER_01: What are we going to wear?
SPEAKER_01: All that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, listen, your heavenly Father knows that.
SPEAKER_01: Trust Him to provide.
SPEAKER_01: And so how we structure our giving shows whether we have a relationship of trust with the Father or not.
SPEAKER_01: Am I trusting Him to provide those things?
SPEAKER_01: My wife and I, we give 10% or more right off the top as our tithe, and then we give offerings beyond that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sharing that testimony with you just to give you that testimony so you know that we do that.
SPEAKER_01: And we have always done that through the years, and we trust God to provide.
SPEAKER_01: We know that if we have given to the Lord, he is always going to meet our needs.
SPEAKER_01: And it just time and time again, every time we get something flows in, we have learned after all these years of doing this, uh-oh, God provided something is about to happen.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's just kind of how it goes.
SPEAKER_01: But what we have learned is how much we can trust the Lord to provide for everything that happens.
SPEAKER_01: This weekend I was driving around Memphis.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we went to visit our grandkids, and my sister and brother-in-law came and visited, and we're trucking along, and Jan had already gotten there, and I was coming after work on Thursday, and I'm on the interstate, I'm on I-40, which is always taking your life in your own hands, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so here I am trucking along.
SPEAKER_01: I'm five minutes where we're supposed to be, and some Arkansas redneck dude with a redneck Arkansas truck got stuff unstrapped in the back of his truck, and something that looked like a microwave comes popping out of the back of that truck, and I hit it dead on on I-40 right there.
SPEAKER_01: It just happens, right?
SPEAKER_01: Stuff happens, right?
SPEAKER_01: I don't have to worry about what we do with all that.
SPEAKER_01: Now nobody's hurt.
SPEAKER_01: Don't some of you are gonna come afterwards and say, it was fine.
SPEAKER_01: But my point is, stuff happens, but Janna and I have learned our reaction is always, well, God's already taken care of that.
SPEAKER_01: He's already taken care of that.
SPEAKER_01: Because as we have structured the finances in our life, it's not a financial decision, it's a spiritual decision of faith and trust that God provides for our needs.
SPEAKER_01: And the fourth motivation, and this may be the best one, and I may have to come back and do this as a whole sermon because this is just really good.
SPEAKER_01: After giving these motivations, Jesus sums up this section and he says in verse 33, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.
SPEAKER_01: Don't worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will have enough worry for itself.
SPEAKER_01: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.
SPEAKER_01: How you give, when you step out in faith and you invest in eternity, and you give because you are focused on Jesus and you are giving as an act of worship to him, and you are trusting him to take care of your needs, you are worshiping with your tithes and offerings because he has provided everything that we have.
SPEAKER_01: It orders your thinking and your worldview in a spiritual way.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the thing: our hearts, and it's easy to say I love God, it's easy to say I do this, it's easy to say I love the Bible, it's easy to say I love church, it's easy to do all those things.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a difference between I love those things and I'm committed.
SPEAKER_01: There's a difference between I love Jesus and I'm committed.
SPEAKER_01: There's a difference between I love my church and I'm committed.
SPEAKER_01: There's a difference between those things.
SPEAKER_01: You see, if you're not committed, then anything distracts us, all these things happen, things get in the way, they cause doubt, they cause us to run down this path, and then we run down this path, and then we run down this path.
SPEAKER_01: But when you have ordered your life to be committed on the Lord, you are functioning with a biblical worldview.
SPEAKER_01: You are pursuing Him, and He becomes the grid of all the decisions that you make in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And when we come and look at our giving life, those are the things that strike at our need, doubt, and desires.
SPEAKER_01: That's why Jesus used it as a spiritual thermometer.
SPEAKER_01: I read one guy said this week, he said, giving is not how God raises cash, it's how he raises his kids.
SPEAKER_01: It's how he teaches us to be people of faith, it's how he teaches us to be drawn to him, it's how he teaches us to be focused.
SPEAKER_01: And so when my mind and heart is treasured on the Lord, and I take this scarce resource in my life and I give it to the Lord and I make this spiritual decision with it, it affects how I make other decisions.
SPEAKER_01: It affects how I have a mental grid, a decision tree about how I decide how I'm gonna do my family, I'm gonna do my job, I'm gonna make business decisions, how I'm gonna raise my kids, how I'm gonna be involved in church or not, and all of those things.
SPEAKER_01: And so what happens is when I am pursuing the Lord, when I have placed my treasure, both spiritually and financially, to the Lord and focused on Him, it begins to develop my mind and thought process.
SPEAKER_01: And there are three or four areas in our life that function this way, and giving is one of them.
SPEAKER_01: When I have made this commitment to pursue the Lord, and I'm thinking in that process, it spills over and helps structure the rest of my life.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's the same brain and the same heart that makes all of those life decisions.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we have certain areas, having a quiet time daily, how you do your finances, your decisions that you make about the body of Christ to serve and to be involved and be committed.
SPEAKER_01: There are certain life things like that.
SPEAKER_01: When we are focused in those areas, it develops an orderly spiritual thought process about how we how we walk through life.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why Jesus says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: What he's saying is, if you believe in the permanence of eternity and you're focused on him and you invest in eternity, then you are focused and becoming righteous, becoming obeying, pursuing him, and God will bless and bring those things behind you.
SPEAKER_01: When your eye is singular focused on Jesus and you are structuring your decision processes in life to pursue him, he's gonna add those things to you.
SPEAKER_01: When you are looking at these decisions and you think, am I going to trust God or am I gonna pull back from that because some idiot didn't tie the microwave down in the back of his redneck pickup truck?
SPEAKER_01: Y'all got that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying that good naturedly, right?
SPEAKER_01: When you make that decision, I can't give because now I've got to pay for this, or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: When you're doing that, am I trusting the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: When you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, he promises to add these things back to us.
SPEAKER_01: But it is a response of his blessing to our choices of faith to trust him.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's why Jesus uses this so often, and why in this incredible sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, so many times he refers back to finances and to giving to ask the question, How is our heart?
SPEAKER_01: Why don't you bow your heads as we close this morning?
SPEAKER_01: Trusting Jesus is a fundamental decision that we make.
SPEAKER_01: The first time you make that decision is when you decide if you're going to trust Christ as your Savior or not.
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to trust Him as your Savior?
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to take your life and chart your course by surrendering your life to Him and giving it to Him, trusting Him to pay the price for your sins, and then trusting Him to bless and to work and to teach and provide and all those things we've talked about in your life.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, listen, this whole message is about trusting Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It's about recognizing that there's an eternity.
SPEAKER_01: There is, as Jacob said earlier in the worship time, there is a hell and there is a heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And if you come to that moment where you have trusted Christ as your Savior.
SPEAKER_01: If not, I'm going to pray in just a moment.
SPEAKER_01: Our people are going to stand and sing.
SPEAKER_01: And if you need Jesus, I want to invite you to come.
SPEAKER_01: Church family, as we move into this time over the next few weeks of praying through what God would have your family do in our faith forward emphasis as we prepare for making these decisions as a church family later on in the month.
SPEAKER_01: It is a time for us to pray.
SPEAKER_01: What does God want us to do?
SPEAKER_01: Where is our trust?
SPEAKER_01: Where is our investment?
SPEAKER_01: Where is our focus?
SPEAKER_01: And you just listen to what God tells you to do.
SPEAKER_01: If you'll make a commitment as a family to just listen to the Lord and follow what he asks you to do, he will provide beyond all we can think or imagine.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to pray.
SPEAKER_01: If you need Jesus, you come.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we love you and we thank you.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you that we can trust you.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for this incredible passage where Jesus says, listen, the way he adorns the flowers and provides and all of that, he loves us more than anything else in creation.
SPEAKER_01: He has provided Jesus for salvation and he knows our every earthly physical need and will provide for those as well if we'll trust him.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, give us a freedom to place that trust in you today.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name, amen.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to chapter and first, the Bible teaching ministry of Fort Smith First Baptist Church.