Dr. M. Taylor Bach
2 Corinthians 9:6-11 Matthew 25:14-30
Rev. Gary Sweeten tells the story of a family that he knew that had a son four years old. The son woke up one morning and said to his mom and dad, “I want french fries for breakfast.” The dad cleared it with the mom and they decided they would please their four year old. The four year old got into the dad's Chevy truck and they went to McDonald's. They entered and the dad asked for the supersized order of french fries. Then they went to a booth and sat down. As they sat down, the dad thought, “I'd like to eat a couple of those, too.” So he reached over to take two of them when the little boy suddenly put his hands in front of him and created sort of a fort and said, “These are mine. You can't have them.” The dad was shocked. All kinds of things went through his head. The first thing that went through his head was, “I bought them. It was out of my generosity that you have them.” Now, he was not saying this out loud. This was all internal dialogue. Then he thought, “I am six foot one and weigh 195 pounds. I'll just take any french fries I want.” Then he thought, “No, that is not the right thing to do. I want to teach my son to share. Is he going to miss two french fries? He is probably not going to miss two french fries.” Then he thought, “I could get up and I could get more french fries. In fact, I could get all the french fries either one of us ever wanted.” Gary Sweeten said that this is really a metaphor for God's giving in the church. We are God's child and God is giving us an abundance. Not only does God give us fries from McDonald's but He gives us fries from Wendy's, and He gives us fries from Rally's and they come with different types of flavors. From Wendy's, you might get curly fries. From Rally's, you might get greasy dark fries. God provides all in abundance that we really want and we really need. Yet, God does this freely because He loves us. But He wants us to give away the two fries in our pile as well. He wants us to learn to share and be generous.
Christendom has taken the scripture that Tom read this morning about the talents and actually broadened its definition. Talents were actually a form of money. It was a parable about money. But Christendom has also made it a parable about sharing time and also made it a parable about sharing your abilities as well as sharing your money. We've even taken the word talents and made that synonymous with gifts that God might have given us. Throughout Christendom, we understand that God wants us to share “fries”; He wants us to share our time, our money and our talents with others, especially the poor and especially with the church so that it's programs can grow and continue.
One of the desires that I have is to someday be able to stand up here and say to all the guests who come in this church, “We don't expect you to contribute anything because our members take such good care of our church.” We are not quite there yet so we also depend on the visitors putting a couple bucks in the plate as well when it is passed. But we are looking for growing generosity of our members. God is looking for that kind of generosity from each of us.
In this tough economic time when people are losing their retirement investments and stocks (since the stock market has dropped virtually in half), it is important to turn to the Bible to get financial instruction. Strangely enough, if we want instruction on prayer, we would find over 500 examples on prayer. But if we want instruction on what to do with our resources, our money, we would find over 2000 instructions in the Bible. That is astounding. What we do with what we have is important to God. There is a passage in Malachi that is a little bit scary. I want to share it with you. Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament. The author writes, “Ever since the time of your forefathers, you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. (This would be God speaking.) Return to me and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty. “But you asked, 'How are we to return?' Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me,” says the Lord. “But you ask, 'How do we rob you?' In tithes and offerings. You are now under a curse, the whole nation of you, because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the flood gates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room for all of it.” That is a sobering thought. If the people in the time of Malachi didn't give their offering to church, they were considered robbing God. But if they gave their offering to church, they would be blessed with so much that their barns would be overflowing, their wealth would be incredible. In the epistle that Tom read, we heard the words about sowing seed, that if you sow sparingly, you will reap sparingly. If you sow generously, you will reap generously. That scripture reading said you will receive a reward based on how much you give. So if we are giving of our time, if we are giving of our treasure, if we are giving of our talent, and we are giving generously, we will be paid back generously. That is what the scriptures promise us. As Jesus said, we will be paid back so that our basket is shaken, pressed down and overflows with abundance. If we give generously, we will reap generously. That is a promise of the Lord.
Here is a partial list of instructions from the Bible on how to handle your resources. In Proverbs 22, we read, stay out of debt. Don't use credit. I was thinking about this and looked up&if we bought a theater ticket and put it on a credit card and the theater ticket cost us $8.00, and we followed the credit card's plan of paying it back, that theater ticket would cost us $17.00. That is robbery. Never buy perishable goods on credit cards because you will just get taken. You will still be paying for them long after they are used up. Staying out of debt is important Biblical advice.
The second instruction in the Bible about how to handle your money is don't guarantee someone else's loan because inevitably, they will default and you will be held responsible for it. Tell that to my children!
Thirdly, don't steal God's tithe. If you steal God's tithe, you will be placed under a curse. If you give God His due, you will be richly blessed. This we saw in the Malachi passage I just spoke about. How do we steal God's tithe? We do it by cutting back on our Sunday offering. When the going gets tough, give up eating out or some other pleasure. But don't cheat God out of His due.
Fourthly, don't steal time, Zechariah 5:3. That is a fascinating concept. How would you steal time? You can steal time by wasting it. You can steal time from your employer by doing something other than what you are paid to be doing. I understand that there is an incredible amount of time wasted on the internet by employees now. It is all a form of stealing that is condemned in Zechariah.
Fifthly, work hard. “The lazy person will have nothing,” both Proverbs 13 and Proverbs 6:4 says. One wonders what happened to the good Protestant ethic. Do you remember growing up and being told that Protestants work hard, especially German Protestants? I mean they even sweep the streets in front of their houses and keep them clean. You don't see that a whole lot any more. Everybody waits for the street cleaner to come by. We want others to do our work, but the Bible urges hard work.
The sixth instruction in the Bible is& don't throw away things of value. We are told that the current generation is the “throw-away generation”. Have you thought about that? This generation has been so over-indulged that if they get something and it breaks, they just pitch it and get something else. But our parents were not of that mind, especially those that were raised during the Great Depression. Maybe our current recession will train people to be more frugal this way. What our parents did if something broke was fixed it. If it was of value and they couldn't use it, they would donate it to someone else. We have a poor box for clothing on our upper level, so if you have something that is slightly worn but still very usable, we urge you to donate that so that you are not wasting anything. That is one of the instructions in Luke 15:12.
Seventhly, in Genesis 12, we get the instruction to bless others. How do we bless others? If we find anyone in need, we can help them out. We can contribute. We can provide them with information. We can give the gift of time to others. Time now is a resource that is terribly valuable. So if we share our time with another person, we are doing a phenomenally good thing. This morning, I am going to ask you to share your time (just 15 minutes a day). In your bulletin you have an insert that I have entitled PILGRIM'S PRAYER WARRIORS. It's instructions on how to set aside time for daily prayer. I don't want to be legalistic about this. I don't want to be a Pharisee about it. But I want to encourage all of you to become a Pilgrim Prayer Warrior, and spend fifteen minutes a day in prayer to God. Also on this handout, there is a suggestion from a church consultant named Herb Miller who gives eleven steps for effective praying. But you don't have to follow these. You can invent your own. I even simplified this daily prayer practice by putting on the back side of this handout a formal kind of prayer formula that you could use if you have a difficult time inventing prayers on your own. Remember, prayer is just conversation with God. It is using your precious time as a gift to God. I want to encourage you to spend at least fifteen minutes a day giving God the gift of your prayer and also giving others the gift of your prayer. We believe in prayer and how it helps people, so we want to go ahead and become prayer warriors in our church and have as many people as possible praying for each other. We want members praying for the success of our ministries, even praying for our finances as that is a concern in this economy.
The eighth instruction might be seen in the story of Joseph and his multi-colored coat. I've talked about this recently, but Joseph as you remember was sold into slavery to merchants in Egypt. There he interpreted the dream of the Pharaoh. The dream was about seven years of famine coming and seven years of plenty. Joseph, in explaining this to the Pharaoh, said, “What you need to do, Pharaoh, is store all your surplus grain during these seven years of plenty. Fill every silo possible during these years so when the seven years of famine comes, all the people in Egypt will be well-fed and taken care of.” Well, sure enough, it came about and Joseph was highly rewarded for it. He was put in charge of the whole economic development of Egypt and as a result of that, not only did Egypt have enough grain for its citizens, but people from other countries who were suffering from the famine came and purchased food from Egypt bringing Egypt great wealth. Joseph's own brothers and father came needing food and Joseph was able to reconnect with them as he freely gave them food. The message here is&save for famine; save for rainy days. We understand that up until the recent financial crisis, American people saved less than 1% of their salaries. Now, it is up to 2% we are told. Wow! I think the Biblical recommendation is that you give 10% of your tithe to church and give 10% to your self in savings. If you can't pull that off, how about 5% tithe to your church and 5% to your savings? In other words, save for the downturn. Save for the economic crisis. Put money aside safely where no one can get a hold of it. These are not only Biblical instructions about how to handle money, but they're common sense.
The last two instructions about money in the Bible I want you to pay close attention to. In Proverbs, it says, “Be a person of excellence.” What research shows is that if any person is in the top 20% of their field on their job, their work will always be secure. Maybe it won't be secure with a particular company, but they will always get a job with other companies. Jobs will always be available if you are in the top 20%. How do you get in the top 20%? You get in the top 20% by being excellent at what you do. Paying attention to what you do. Having integrity and honesty in what you do. Then you will have security. The provision of our Lord is just amazing. He is teaching us through the Bible how to be secure even in times of economic crisis.
The last information is to be constantly a learner. Learn on your job. Constantly learn all these instructions that are available in the Bible. Constantly increase your information. Information is power and if you're constantly learning, you will be in that top 20%. So these are Biblical instructions for each and every one of us. They are instructions that will carry us through economic crises and to enable us to be secure and be able to rest in the Lord. Jesus said, “My burden is easy. My yoke is light. Come to me all you who are heavily burdened and I will give you rest.” Rather than having anxiety in tough economic times, if we follow the Biblical instructions, we will be able to rest and be without anxiety. That is the gift that God has given us.
The epistle again says, “Give and it will be given unto you,” and “The Lord loves a cheerful giver.” What we know is if we give cheerfully from our heart, as Paul says, and “give from our abundance,” a tsunami of joy will pour over our lives.