Faithful With What is His (Wisdom, Week 4)

Text(s): Proverbs 3:9–10; 11:24–25; 22:9 | Mark 12:41–44

What does the Bible actually say about money and the church? Proverbs reminds us that the one who gives generously is not the one who loses — but the one who trusts God completely with what was always his to begin with.

Transcript

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In Matthew 28, Jesus said, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. He calls you to be that disciple, to hear his word, to receive his promises, to repent, to believe. That Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And that by believing you have life in his name. Now hear the good news of Jesus for you. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Today's the fourth Sunday in our sermon series through Proverbs, which is a book about wisdom. And today we're going to talk about a specific kind of wisdom as it relates to everyone's favorite topic in the church to money. And I don't want this sermon to come as a guilt trip or a fundraising pitch or a fundraising campaign of any sort, but rather a chance for us to talk honestly about what's happening spiritually when the people of God, when we talk about money. Proverbs, by the way, does not tiptoe around money. It's quite honest. On one hand, it says the following in Proverbs 3, 9 to 10 honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce. Then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vets will be bursting with wine. The key there, word, is first fruits, not what is left over. It comes off the top before anything else, before the bills are paid and the expenses are tallied and the discretionary funds are determined, and it comes as an acknowledgement that everything else came from somewhere, from someone. And again, this is hard to hear in our culture. But it's first fruits. Give first to God. Honor the Lord with your wealth. And then Proverbs says in chapter 11, one gives freely and yet grows all the richer, another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered. Now, first, this sounds like the prosperity gospel, doesn't it? If you give, God will make you richer. Your barns will grow bigger, your pockets will just be bursting at the seams. Except it's not. By the way, don't hear that today at all. Okay? Proverbs is far too honest. It's far too honest about the complexities of life. That it promised, that it would promise that every generous act that you have will somehow mysteriously make you wealthy. The wisdom here in Proverbs is an observation about a generous life. That the person who gives generously, the person who gives freely, that their heart grows in proportion to that giving. That their heart is enlarged by that giving. And that the person who withholds, therefore, also it happens in proportion, that it's diminished as they withhold. The first fruits, as it says in the first one, the first fruits belong to God. And why? Because all the fruits, all the fruits belong to God. You are not the owner of your income. You're the manager. You're the manager of someone else's resources. The technical term for this is often referred to as stewardship. And again, it's one of the most countercultural ideas in the entire Bible. When you sit with it, when you really sit with this idea. Because we live in a culture that tells us that the money we earn is ours. We worked for it. We deserve it. And what we choose to do with it is our business. The government may take a portion of it, and we like less and less how much the government does take. And we may decide, we may choose to give some of that money away. But the default assumption, when it comes to our money, when it comes to our financial resources, the default assumption is ownership. It's mine. And I decide what I want to do with it. And Proverbs says that that assumption is foolishness. That assumption is foolishness. Not because earning and working and saving are wrong. In fact, in other places, Proverbs praises all of these things. But it's foolishness because the person who believes that they are the owner of everything, that they're the owner of their money, will always make different decisions. They'll always make different decisions than the person who understands that all of the blessings they have, everything, every good and perfect gift is how James says it. Every good and perfect gift is not from you, but it's from God. In Mark 12, Jesus is sitting across the temple treasury, and he's watching, he's observing people, putting in their offerings, and what he sees creates this uncomfortable situation between Jesus and his disciples. Many rich people they come forward in there, putting in large sums, one right after another. And then a poor widow comes in, and she puts in two small copper coins, a leptin is what they're called. Here's what that leptin looks like. I actually was given one of these by uh Dave Anderson. Uh this is what they look like. So if you'd like to see, uh this is not a real leptin, but it's a um it's a remaking of a leptin, what they would have looked like. But um if you'd like to see one, you can come see me afterwards. Uh but it was the smallest denomination. This was the smallest denomination in currency at that time. And each leptin would have been worth a fraction, a fraction of a day's wage. And she put in two of them. She put in two of them. And so together, these two leptins are worth almost nothing. And that's when Jesus calls his disciples over and he says to them, he says, Look, he says, This poor widow has put in more. This poor widow has put in more. And then he goes on to explain why he comes to that conclusion. Because for they all contributed out of their abundance. But she, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had, all she had to live on. The literal translation for that last phrase, all she had to live on. The literal translation is she gave her whole life. Which I think is a better translation. Because that's what she did. She gave her whole life. These two coins were worth almost nothing to anyone else, to everyone else, but to her, it was everything. It was her whole life. Now we need to be real careful here because Jesus is not telling every person in this room and every person that goes to church to give and give and give until you have nothing left. Nothing left to eat, nothing left to feed your family, nothing left to survive on. But he's making an observation about the nature, the nature of real giving, and what it looks like when that giving comes from a place of trust. The rich, they were giving in these large sums, and presumably these large sums were impressive, so much that it confuses the disciples. But Jesus evaluates it. Because the question is not the size of the gift. There's no doubt that two leptins were less than what everyone else had given. But it's about the trust, the trust that is required in order to give it. Again, the rich had a lot. And even after they gave, even after they gave these large amounts, they still had more than enough left over. And so the gift, it certainly did cost them something, but it didn't cost them everything. It didn't cost them their security. And the widow, she gave out of her poverty. And what remained after she gave was nothing. So she walked away. She walked away from the treasury with empty hands, and she trusted that God would meet her right where she was at. He would meet her right in her emptiness. Proverbs 11, 24 says that one who withholds only suffers want. Now that doesn't mean that if you withhold, you'll become poor in the worldly sense and in a material sense. But it does mean that there's a kind of poverty that takes place, a kind of spiritual poverty that comes when you hold things tightly. C.S. Lewis. He wrote this when talking about giving. He said, I don't do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I'm afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. So the question the text puts to us is not, are you giving enough? The question is, what does your giving reveal about where your trust is? What does it say? You see, when you trust God with everything, you give. And when you give like that, it changes you. Giving like that changes you. Jesus says, wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Which makes sense. We pay attention to the things that we invest in. The things we invest our time, our talents, our treasures. And so when you give regularly, when you give intentionally, especially to the church, to the mission of the gospel that it would go out, when you give to the work of beautiful Savior or to other churches, or when you give to those in need, your heart begins to follow that treasure. You notice the things that God is doing. You begin to care about the things that maybe you once ignored, but now you don't. And strangely, generosity also has this tendency to loosen anxiety's grip. We think it would be the opposite: that if you give more, you're gonna be more anxious about the money that you do have. But because generosity is an act of trust, that one that you practice over time, every gift, every time you give becomes a rehearsal, a practicing of this trust in trusting things to God more and more. And it doesn't just leave your hand, it's deployed, it's on a mission. It supports a ministry, or it cares for people in need, or it pays a salary, or it keeps the lights on, or the air conditioner going. Who's cold here today, right? Sorry, Paul. The band was sweating up here earlier, so it advances the work of the gospel, the kingdom. And through all of this, giving forms you, it changes you. Scripture's principle of first fruits is never, was never about waiting. Waiting until being generous feels easy or until it comes naturally. It's about practicing. Practicing this act of trust. By the way, that's why proportional giving makes so much sense. There's so much wisdom in it. The word tithe, by the way, means 10%. That's what the word tithe means. And that's still a good benchmark. Jesus didn't change that. He didn't say, ah, we don't need to do the tithe anymore. But for many, that feels like a lot. It feels impossible, maybe even right now. I'm gonna tell you a story. Uh some of you may be wondering why I have this cross on. Um, I don't typically wear a cross for our second service. Um, this cross is is somewhat significant to me. Um, I was given this on my ordination. Um, and so on the back it actually has my ordination date. Uh, June 28th, 2015. Uh so for those who are keeping track of the dates and the math, uh, that means that I've been in ministry for 11 years. Uh and when Jess and I began in ministry, I I won't forget, I won't forget call day. Um, we uh you you get all everybody gets assigned your your calls, and uh then you you go back, you you wait until you open up all the paperwork and you see about the congregations and you see about the demographics of the area and all the details about what's specific about the ministry that you're being called to. And you wait till you get back until you open up the document, and then in that document also tells you how much you're gonna be paid. Um I remember opening up that document and looking through all the demographics and all the details about the call, that specifics of that, and thinking, and my my parents were in the room at the time, and so my mom can attest to this. And I remember looking up the documents and thinking, oh, how can we live on this? And I won't forget what my mom said at the time. She said, God has a way of providing, you'll make it work. And she's right. Fast forward to when we we first get into ministry a couple months later, we're actually on June 28th, or I was ordained, we were we started ministry there, and then came that budget question. Okay, here's how much we make. We're a young family. Uh, she has student loans, I have student loans, uh, and lots of them. Uh our student loans were more than our mortgage payment at the time. And I remember us having sitting down and having that conversation and saying, how can we afford to give? How can we afford to tithe? And so we didn't. And that was a really hard decision for us. And so we said, okay, but here's the question. What can what can we give? What can we give right now? And it's gonna be hard, and we're gonna have to make sacrifices, and it's a lot of work, but what can we give right now? And then a year later, fast forward, we asked the question again. Okay, things have changed. What can we give right now? And so we asked it again. And every year we we keep asking that question how is God calling us to take the gifts that he's given to us? And how is he calling us to use these for his service, for his kingdom? Again, we're talking about first fruits today, but really we could talk about the whole hundred because all of it is God's, and he asks us to deploy it for his purposes and for his kingdom. And so that really is the question. Uh, Lord, what have you entrusted to me? And how can I honor you with the things that you've entrusted me with? And that might look different for each person, but that's a question that's always worth asking because giving changes you. Uh in a few minutes, uh, we're gonna gather as a church for a congregational meeting. And a lot of times we think of, well, this is worship, and that's that's a that's a meeting, that's the business of the church. It's totally different things, but it's not, because those kinds of meetings are uh they're extensions of our worship life together as the church. And so the budget, the budget is not just a spreadsheet, although it is on a spreadsheet, but it's not just a spreadsheet. It's a statement, it's a statement of how we intend to deploy these resources, the resources that God has given to you, and then you in turn give it to the church, and the church says, How can we be faithful in the way that God has calling us to live out in our community for the sake of our community and the church? And so we are together stewards. We are stewards of something that belongs to God, but exists for our neighbors, exists for the world. The widow's two coins, it entered the treasury of the temple. Uh, your gifts, our gifts, support the ministry that is entrusted to beautiful Savior. Uh that means they matter and they are seen. And that means that Jesus is still sitting across as we give those gifts. He's sitting across the offering box and he's still paying attention. And he, by the way, not it might sound like it's me, but he's the one that is asking for our first fruits. Not because he needs the money. Don't ever give because of that reason. Because he is the one who has a thousand kills, a thousand cattle on a thousand hills. He is asking because he knows what it will do for the kingdom of God. And he knows that holding on to it and gripping it tightly or letting it go to be deployed, he knows what that does for you and for me. Notice one final thing, okay? Uh take this with you today. Notice where this story appears in the Gospel of Mark. In Mark chapter 11, Jesus is riding into Jerusalem on the donkey on Palm Sunday. And then Mark 12, Jesus is sitting across from the Temple Treasury, and he's watching this widow put in her measly copper coin that amounts to almost nothing. And then Mark 13, 14, 15, and 16. Jesus will be tried and arrested, crucified, and buried. This is no accident, by the way. This takes place right here for this reason, right before the cross. The widow is not just an example of generous giving. She is unbeknownst to her, by the way, she doesn't realize this is taking place. She is a foreshadowing of the one who is sitting across watching her. She gave all she had, all her life. And so did Jesus. Not two coins, not a percentage, not out of his abundance and surplus. In the words of Philippians 2, he had equality with God. He had all the riches of heaven, the worship of the angels, the fullness of divine glory, and he emptied himself. He gave it all up. As Second Corinthians says, he became poor so that we, through his poverty, might become rich. The Son of God, on a cross outside of Jerusalem, he gave everything he had, and he entrusted his father with everything that remained. He said, Father, into your hands, into your hands I commit my spirit. Really, that's the prayer of the widow. That's the prayer of the widow on the lips of the Son of God. Total release, complete trust. Nothing is held back. And because he gave like that, because his poverty became our richness, we are no longer giving from our reserves. We're giving to a God who has proven in the most costly way possible that he can be trusted. He can be trusted with everything else. You see, that's what changes. That's what changes the tightening that we often have when it comes to our money. It's not about more discipline. It's not about a better giving strategy. It's not about guilt either. It's not about the guilt of the widow and her two coins and you should be like that. No, what changes, what changes the grip or tightening, is the gospel. The recognition that the God to whom you are releasing this and deploying it is the same God who released his own son for you. He didn't withhold, he didn't calculate, he didn't say, Oh, what things can I spare? He gave.