2 Corinthians 9:6-15 Matthew 6:1-4

This morning, I will open by addressing the single members of the congregation. My opening remarks are to any of the members of our congregation this morning that are not married. I hope that it is advice that all those who are married might give you. When you are going out on a date and you are exploring for a potential partner, do you know how to determine the partner's value system? There are two things that you can do. The first  you can ask to see their schedule (maybe it is a day planner or something on their computer); and secondly  you can look at their checkbook. Now the idea is not to see how much money they have although that might not be a bad idea, but the idea is to see how they use their money, what they spend it on and how they use their time, what they do with it. What we know from the Biblical lesson is that we are to be people of generosity. We are to give of our time to God and we are to give of our resources to God. God does not need our time or our resources because if we don't contribute anything anywhere, He will still be OK. But we give according to the Bible because it is good for us. He expects our commitment that can only be seen in how we use our time and how we use our money.

This is Memorial Day Weekend. It is a time when we contemplate the sacrifices that soldiers, men and women of all types, who have joined the armed services, give their lives, their time for our country. We have a memorial chapel here at Pilgrim that is dedicated to those who served. Sometime you need to go and look at the various commemorative things that are in there...the great stained glass window that is in honor of warriors and a plaque in there that lists seventy six members of our church who gave their lives for our country. Perhaps it is not a list of those who were killed at war  I don't know  but it is a list of those who served. The list is not complete. There are seventy six people listed there, many of whom probably were your ancestors or members of your family. But we have others not listed  some even in the congregation this morning - who deserve our thanks and praise because they gave time to serve our country.

Jesus said, “No greater love hath a person than a person who gives his life for his friends.” We honor this Sunday all those who have given their lives in the service of our county in order that the rest of us could experience life, liberty, freedom, the ability to pursue happiness and to find equality. So giving of time is represented by those who gave of their time to protect our country and to protect what is dear to us. We remember them proudly this morning.

We also need to consider the gifts, our resources, this morning given in support of the ministries of Christ. Herb Miller, the author of the Parish Paper, summarized the Biblical doctrine about using our resources. He said, “In the early church, the people gave to charities through the church. This morning we have for example the Spread the Love Collection. This week I received two certificates in honor of our church for its charity in this past year. One is the Five for Five Certificate that recognizes our church for supporting the five extra collections during the year that supports the various ministries of the United Church of Christ. The other was for our giving to OCWM (Our Christian World Mission).

The second quality that Herb Miller summarizes from the Bible is found in Luke 6:38, “Christians give liberally.” It means as Paul put it, Christians give of their abundance. We are a nation of abundance. Even though the economy has not been good, there are still people within this nation and many of you who have still been very blessed and can give liberally as Herb Miller describes.

The third thing from 2 Corinthians 8:1-4 that Miller says is that Christians give sacrificially. In other words, they give to a point where it could be a stress on them or a strain so that they are actually making an effort to give. It is not just giving easily from the top of your extra money but good Christians dig deeper than that. If in the Old Testament a tithe (10%) was required, how much more is expected of us through grace?

The fourth thing that Herb Miller points out is that the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 9:7 - Christians give cheerfully. We are not supposed to be glum when we have something like this special offering in the bulletin and say, “Oh no. Not another collection!” We are supposed to say, “Wow, good! Another collection! I am able to participate in partnership with God! Wow! That is a privilege.”

Then lastly, he says in 2 Corinthians 16:2 the trait of a Christian is that they give regularly so that they are consistently giving from their resources. To summarize, Christians give liberally, sacrificially, cheerfully and regularly. I look at the Bible and I find many examples of how time and money are contributed to the work of Jesus Christ. One of the examples that came to my mind was when Jesus was preaching to a group of 5000. He preached so long that He preached through the mealtime. He discovered that everybody was hungry so He asked the apostles, “What kind of supplies do you have so we can feed everybody? They said, “We don't have anything. There is a little boy among our midst who has three fishes and a couple barley loaves of bread. But what is that among so many?” In American dollar terms, the boy had about fifty cents worth of food. And yet Jesus said, “Let's ask him if he will donate his food to feed these people.” The principle that was read this morning of sowing and reaping then was enacted. The little boy gave up his fifty cents worth of food but as he sowed, he reaped enough to feed 5,000. Can you imagine what that little boy must have felt like? How important he must have felt at that time. Giving everything he had, his meager lunch, and then discovering that Jesus turned it into plenty. Now I am not saying this morning that if you give a certain amount to the church suddenly you are going to become fabulously wealthy. That probably won't happen. But what God has promised is that when we give of our abundance, we reap well and our needs will be met. We will get back what we need from God. My wife and I have discovered that is always true. When we contributed to various ministries and given to the poor and other things like that, somehow we always gain from it. There is always a reward. Jesus said that he judges motives. He wants to know what our motives are. Not so much how much we give but how we give. Do we give a percentage of our income? If we do, that is to represent a percentage of our self. What percentage of yourself are you willing to give to God? This then is symbolized by what we give in our offerings.

The second motive that the Bible says that we give is to partnership with God in service. We give to help others. Many of the collections that we take up are collections to help people who are in need or people who are poor. We've had extra collections this year to help tsunami victims, to help hurricane victims, to help tornado victims, and to help earthquake victims. Maybe in the future, our denomination will come up with something to help the victims of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. All of these people in the southern part of our country on the Gulf Coast who are losing their livelihood will need help. So we are urged to participate in God's providence, taking care of these people who are in need. That is something that is bound to give each and every one of us a feeling of satisfaction, a feeling of worth and a feeling of purpose when we contribute that way.

We give also out of the motivation of gratitude. We give because God has given to us. We give because we love God and we are appreciative of all that He has done for us. In the times we experience hardship, if it is financial hardship, we know that if we turn to God in that time, we will be rewarded. I remember a time when I was down to 36 cents. I had just started my counseling practice and had no money to feed my family. I felt desperate, absolutely desperate. I prayed to God, then saw an ad on television about West Shell Realtors and how well they trained their staff. I thought, “Hum, I can train their staff even better.” So I went to West Shell and met the president of the company. Guess what his name was? West Shell! I didn't know the company was named after somebody at the time. I went into his office. It was an intimidating thing. He had his desk up on a platform and he had a couch, a low, low couch, a great big soft couch, that when you sat in it, you sank and you felt like you were very tiny. I sized up how the circumstances were and decided, “I am not sitting down. I am going to talk to this man while standing.” That way I'd be about eye-level. I said, “You know, I've got some skills that I can give your realtors if you will let me teach them.” He said, “I'll take the chance. I see in your resume that you are a minister as well as a psychotherapist.” I said, “Yes.” He said, “The one thing I want you to teach my managers is integrity and honesty.” He said, “How much money do you need to do this?” I said, “I would do twelve sessions for $3600 (thinking about the 36 cents I had in my pocket). He said, “OK. Deal!” So God rewarded me right there on the spot. I had a really fun time teaching the managers of all of his branch offices. They seemed to appreciate the teaching that I gave. Now I can teach you from personal experience that God will reward us when we turn to Him, especially if we turn to Him in desperation. God will come through for us in some way or another. I was able to feed my family for several months on that amount of money that I was given. It was a great relief while I tried to build my counseling practice. We can trust God. We can trust Him completely to take care of us even when we are suffering or when we are in need.

The principle of the Bible this morning is&”What you sow, you shall reap. If you sow sparingly, you will reap sparingly. If you sow generously, you will reap generously.” We get that we are to honor those people who serve with their time (and sometimes that is all a person can serve with). And we are to honor people who serve with their financial resources. As Paul said, “It is out of the abundance of the heart that we give,” and “God always loves a cheerful giver.” We are grateful to soldiers who gave of their time. We are grateful to church members who have given their money. We are blessed people because of the generosity of other