Whose Dime Is It Anyway?

This is the message given in the Wheatland Parish Sunday, November 2, 2014.  The Bible verses used are 1 Chronicles 16:8-36.  If you'd like to see a video of this message, please go here.

         
            Today we start a new sermon series called “Give it up!”  We’re going to look at giving.

            Giving can be a sensitive subject within the church.  One of the standard criticisms of the church is “They’re always asking for money.  All they want is my money.”  Or “Well, the church must be pretty hard up.  That pastor’s talking about giving again.  The church must need money.”

            Well, no.  I mean, yes, obviously the church needs a certain amount of money to pay its bills, but that’s not why we’re having a sermon series on giving.  The church’s finances are not in bad shape.  Sure, we’d have uses for more money if we had it, but that’s not the point here.

            Because, when you look in the Bible, God does not tell us to give to the church.  You won’t find that in the Bible.  God does not say “Give to the church”.  God says “Give to God.”

            When we give an offering, it’s supposed to be an offering to God.  That’s the purpose of it.  In theory, the only reason you should write “United Methodist Church” on your check rather than “God” is that God does not have a bank account.  The money may go through the church, but it is the responsibility of the church, both the local church and the denomination as a whole, to use that money the way God wants us to.  The purpose of our offering should not be to give money to the church.  It should be to give money to God.

            But of course, that leads to another question.  Why does God want us to give?  God does not need our money, right?  After all, we’re talking about the all-powerful God here.  We’re talking about the God who, as the psalm says, owns the cattle on a thousand hills.  And God owns the hills, too, and the valleys and the plains and everything else.  Why would God need our money?

            Well, of course, God does not need our money.  We need to give our money to God.  Why?  Because our money was never our money to begin with.  Our property was never our property.  Our car was never our car.  Our house was never our house.  It all came from God.  Each and every thing we own, including our own selves, came from God.  You and I are totally dependent on God, whether we know it or not.

            Our reading from First Chronicles talked about how our relationship with God works.  It tells us to give praise to the Lord, to sing to the Lord, to glory in God’s holy name.  It tells us to look to the Lord’s strength.  It tells us to remember all the wonders and miracles God has done.  It tells us we can rely on God, because God remembers promises forever.  God saved the Nation of Israel from all kinds of powerful kings, kings Israel could never have defeated on its own.  And it tells us to give thanks to God, because everything that God does is good, and God’s love will last forever.

            And that’s why we give to God.  Because everything we have and everything we ever will have comes from God.  We need to remind ourselves of that.  And we need to thank God for it.

            Every week, as our offering is brought to the front of the sanctuary, we sing the Doxology.  “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.”  There’s a reason that comes right after the offering.  Our offering is supposed to be a sign of our thanks to God.  We’ll talk about that more in the next couple of weeks, when we talk about how much we should give and what our attitude should be when we give.  But giving at all is a sign of our thanks to God.  And of course, how much we give, in relation to how much we have, is a measure of how much we’re willing to thank God.

            Singing the Doxology right after we take up our offering is a good way to remind ourselves of all that.  But when I was a kid in the Delmont United Methodist Church, there was a different song we used to sing as the offering was brought to the front of the sanctuary.  It’s a song that’s not even in the hymnal any more.  But it was in the hymnal then.  In fact, it was hymn number one hundred eighty-one.  It was called “We Give Thee But Thine Own”.  Maybe some of you remember it.  It went:

            We give thee but thine own

            Whate’er the gift may be

            All that we have is thine alone

            A trust, O Lord, from thee

            We sang that every Sunday as the offering was brought to the front of the sanctuary.  And as I think about it, I think we should’ve sung it before the offering was taken at all.  Think about the thoughts expressed in that one verse of that song.

            “We give thee but thine own.”  In other words, as we said, everything we have, everything we have ever had, and everything we ever will have, comes from God.  It all belongs to God.  When we give to God, we are simply giving back to God a part of what God has given us.  That’s true “whatever the gift may be”.  Because “all that we have is think alone--a trust, oh Lord, from thee.”

            Now, we hear that, and we nod our heads in agreement. Maybe not all of us do, but a lot of us do.  I think most of us would agree, in theory, that everything belongs to God.  We’d agree that God owns the cattle on those hills, and owns the hills themselves, and the valleys and everything else.  We’d agree that everything we have has been entrusted to us by God.  None of those thoughts are particularly new or controversial.

            So let me ask you--do we live that way?  How many of us, when we look at the things we own, think “You know, none of this belongs to me.  It all belongs to God”?  When we look at our bank statements, how many times do we think, “This really isn’t my money.  It’s God’s money.  God has just entrusted me with it”?  When we make decisions on what to spend our money on, how many of us think, “This is God’s money.  When I decide what to spend money on, I’m making a decision about what to do with God’s money”?

            My guess would be not a lot of us.  And as I so often tell you, I’m not better at this than anyone else, and probably worse than a lot of you.  I don’t think this way, either.  I believe it in theory, but I don’t very often put it into practice when I’m making decisions about what to spend my money on.

            But how different would our lives be if we did?  How many of the things we buy would we not buy if we thought this way?  How much less debt would we have if we thought this way?  How much more would we be able to give away, whether to God or to the church or to charity or just to whoever we wanted to give to, if we thought this way?

            I think it would be life-changing.  I think we’d have an entirely different way of living it we thought this way.

            Now, don’t take this the wrong way.  I’m not saying God wants everyone to take a vow of poverty and live in a hut.  I’m not going to do that, and I don’t expect anyone else to do it.  We all need decent food and clothing and shelter and transportation.  And I’m not even saying that God limits us to necessities.  I like to have fun, and I’m trying to keep anyone else from having fun.

            But I’d like to encourage us all to try something.  When we get home today, let’s take a look around our houses and look at all the stuff we have.  Let’s look at all the stuff we have that we really don’t need, or that we really don’t need as fancy of a one as we have.  Let’s look at all the stuff that we don’t use and that we have not used in years.  And let’s ask ourselves the honest question:  “Would God want me to use God’s money that way?"

           I’m not assuming what the answer is.  The answer is between you and God.  I don’t presume to speak for God.  But let’s ask the question honestly.  And let’s try to give an honest answer.

          And if--if--the answer is no, then we need to do something about that.  We need to remember that answer the next time we go to buy something.  And the time after that, and the time after that.  Every time we go to buy something, we need to ask ourselves, “Would God want me to use God’s money this way?”  And we need to be willing to abide by the answer, whatever it is.

            If we do, I suspect some things will change.  Because we’ll realize that everything we have already belongs to God.  We have just been given the care of it for a short while, for whatever our time is here on earth.  And we need to use it wisely and give as much of it as we can back to God.

            You only give your money or your property to someone you trust.  When God put us in charge of God’s money and God’s property, God was showing that God trusts us.  So let’s be worthy of that trust.  Let’s use our money the way God wants us to and let’s give as much of it as we can back to God.  When we do, we’ll be closer to being the people God wants us to be.