Scripture Lesson: II Corinthians 8:8-15

Sermon Transcript for April 20, 2008

By Pastor Bob Coleman

The passage that Josh read in II Corinthians, Paul was giving word of praise and encouragement to the Christians in Macedonia which if you don’t know your geography is right near the area by Iran, Iraq and that area today. And he gives words of encouragement because of the sacrifice that was being experienced in the giving. Let me re-stress some of the phrases that Josh read. “For I testify that they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will.” Just as you excel in everything, in faith, speech, knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us, see that you also excel in the grace of giving. For you know the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor so that you through this poverty might become rich. Our desire is not that others might be relived while you are hard pressed, but there might be equality.”

You can’t make this stuff up! God’s grace has been evident throughout the ages. This is not something I created out of thin air. It’s been there all along. But like many good things, we can ignore them, look over them. The word “sacrifice” is honored in one part of our society but not lifted up in other parts. Sacrificial giving sounds like for those other people. But it’s more than charity. When I do my taxes with the good old Quicken software and TurboTax, Quicken software allows for a category that’s called “charity”. It’s a good word. Many people check off some things that they give to charity. Actually, in a Christian context you can, by the way, change a category and add another one that can say “Tithe”. You can also add another one called “Sacrificial”. I haven’t done it yet. Maybe I will do that because when preachers say things they should do what they say.

Sacrificial giving is more than charity. It’s an expression of who we are as Christians. That’s the foundation of it. Now people do give to charity and it’s an honorable thing. They may give a little; they may give a lot. They may have nothing in the sense of connection with God. Charity is a good expression in any society but it is well beyond that for us in the Christian faith. For Jesus says in his quote in Matthew 10, “Whoever finds his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” I will grant you, I mark it as charity because it saves me taxes. It doesn’t sound like a very giving type of way of marking it. It’s not one where you necessarily say to people, “Well, you can count it off on your taxes. Thereby you are going to get an investment back.” There’s an advantage to you. And, yes, we do hold that up because it is true. But in a sense it is like giving away something so that you can get more from it. That’s not what Christ says. Whoever finds his life, will lose it. If we find our life in our stuff, like our puppet said, if we believe that if we accumulate enough and we can be comfortable with what we have, we will lose that. But when we realize, as the puppets learned when she said, “I really don’t have anything; it’s all from God”. When we give it up, when we lose that aspect of our life, then we will find it.

And Jesus further expresses the basis of the sacrifice that Jesus did for us when John quotes him in John 10, “I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep, I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen and I must bring them in also. They, too, will listen to my voice and there will be one flock and one shepherd.” Now that’s sacrifice--laying down ones life for another.

Sacrifice in one part of our society, we hold it up as well we should with high regard. Military, fire, police, other emergency individuals trained to go in when others run away, trained to go and protect and to serve and even to give up ones life. What greater sacrifice is there? High regard we should hold that always. But it is not the only understanding. But Jesus does support it when he is quoted in John 15, “This is my commandment that you love one another just as I have loved you.” And this is where many times we stop. Well, it’s nice to love one another. But then Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this that they lay down their life for their friends. And you are my friends if you do what I command you.” Jesus loved us with a sacrificial love; something beyond our comprehension. And it’s greater even than any sacrifice of military, fire, police, or anyone else. For they will do it for a few and that’s honorable, but Jesus did it for all and that’s the greatest.

And yet we still will say that sacrifice, it’s a wonderful thing as long as it is somebody else’s sacrifice. Or sacrifice is a wonderful thing as long as it doesn’t interfere with my life too much. Sacrifice is a wonderful thing if it really doesn’t hurt too much, a little but not a lot. Sacrifice is a wonderful thing as long as I can get a payback—reduce my taxes. But sacrificial giving is well beyond that. For Jesus didn’t say, “What am I going to get back?” Jesus didn’t ask, “Is there any one else who can go?” although for a moment he thought that in the garden when he said, “Lord if there is anything else I can do, please take this cup from my lips, but if it is your will that’s the way that I will go.”

Sacrificial giving is an attitude and a way of life, not just something we do once in a while. To give sacrificially is to give from the substance of who we are not just from the abundance of what we have. It must come from the heart to truly be in level with or somewhat close to the sacrificial giving that Jesus shared. We are to actively follow Christ, we say. That’s what it means to be a disciple. We are actively to be involved by the support of the ministries of the church by our tithe, our talents, our gifts, and our service. But do we give in those areas sacrificially? Well, apparently, over 120 people, by the last count I’ve been given, were involved in our prayer vigil. And I’m very thankful for that. I’m deeply thankful someone sacrificed a little to give up some time here or in another location to do so. I do hold out a pastoral pain that we should have had more but I do not decry the ones that were here or that participate in some other place. I just think how many more missed the opportunity to sacrifice a small amount in prayer for Christ who has done so much.

On the outside this church does reflect sacrificial giving by a warm and welcoming spirit. How often that is what people say, “I felt so warm and welcome here.” Grace Ministries are manned by many people. Not as many as we could. This campaign is part of it. There are many who are putting in many hours to help make it possible. It’s an example; it’s a sacrifice for some particularly.

So why should we give sacrificially? We should give because it is a natural response to what God has done for us. We often assume that money, as an expression of that giving, is for our benefit rather than for God or for others. That’s what our society teaches us. So why should we be surprised that when a mother takes on her little girl who went to school with a lunch in a school that apparently you take your own lunch, and another little girl did not have a lunch. And the mother was a little bit perturbed with her daughter because the little girl didn’t share her lunch. Until someway, maybe God’s spirit pointed out to the mother, that she’d not been very sharing with what she has in her life. How can we expect our children to learn that possessions aren’t the goal of life? And that sharing, even sacrificially, is the goal of a Christian life if we do not do it ourselves? How can we teach them that if we do not follow that way? When it comes to our own affairs we need to foundationally recognize that giving is not an option; it is a first and foundational piece.

And why do we give? Let me give you four points to share that way. We should give because it is a reasonable response to all that God has done. We can’t compete with God. There is no way we can equal our gifts to what God has done. But sacrificial giving is a reasonable response. God has shown us through his great mercy that through his son, Jesus Christ, willing to suffer and die for our sins and for the sins of all humanity, it’s reasonable that we give back in some proportion that is beyond what might be comfortable, to find a way to sacrifice in time and talents and resources and prayers if we are capable of doing so. Sacrificial giving is generous giving as an act of worship to God. For each time we come here, each time we gather in the spirit of Christ, worship is at the heart of what we do and worship is meant to say back to God, “Lord, thank you for what you have done.

A second point of why we should give is that it will show the genuiness of our Christian confession, “I believe in Jesus Christ. I wish to follow Jesus Christ.” And then we stop and say, “But I don’t want to go that far. And Jesus goes this way and I don’t want to go that way. It’s okay if it doesn’t cost me too much, if I can do it on an occasional basis, if I can look good on the outside.” But inwardly our Christian confession stops short. But Jesus says to us, “When you meet me I’m going to ask you a question. When you come in to my presence, I want you to take the inheritance, the Kingdom that has been prepared for you since the creation of the world,” he says in Matthew 25. And he declares to those who are standing before him, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you invited me in; I needed clothed and you clothed me; and I was sick and you looked after me; I was a prisoner and you came to visit me.” And those saying in response, “But Lord, when did we ever do that for you in each of those items?” And his response was, “When you did it to anyone—to the least—you did it to me. You sacrificed and I recognize that. The righteous shall come to him and he will say, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these you did for me.” When we give to the Lord we put our money where our mouth is, we put our heart where our life is.

The third reason for giving—we should give because the Lord, Jesus Christ and the apostles do command us. But remember a command, if it is only because someone else makes us, becomes legalistic. A command by Jesus is to push us, to encourage us, to pull us towards something. Christian giving is certainly much more than a duty. We pay our taxes out of fear of punishment. We give sacrificially not because we believe God will punish us but because we feel it’s a pull in the right direction and the Lord has commanded us to do so, to do so with mercy.

And a fourth is that there are specific instructions that say we will be rewarded, not by saving of our government taxes, but that we will lay up those treasures that are in heaven that are for eternity. And what treasures are those? Because when we get to heaven we are going to have it made; it will be a wonderful place with streets of gold and we’ll have everything we want and all of our hearts desires. No! That’s not what that Scripture means. The Scripture means as we lay up treasures of heaven that are because of the souls of the children, the youth, and the adults that come in the doorways of this church. That we, as a congregation, sacrificially lay ourselves, not in the money area, but first in the spirit to see that each one is precious. What a joy and a privilege it was that God gave us to lead Michael Wayne Jones as a college student here last night to be baptized. Who, by the way, will not become an active part of this church because he’s also been called to go for a year and work with homeless in Washington, D.C. What was it about the least of these you’ve done, you’ve done to me? The staggering return that we receive is nothing that we can put in our bank accounts. It is in every precious life and soul that comes to us.

Jesus answered the question of where He was going and He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. And later in the Gospel of John he also is quoted, “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be safe. You will come in and go out and find pasture.” You see, our sacrifice in money is much less important than our sacrifice of spirit for those who are the least, the last, the lost, who need to find and know, as we do, to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

What sacrifice is there then? What a joy it should be. Oh, it may stretch us and it may push us, it may make us move out of our comfort zone, but thanks be to God that Jesus moved out of His comfort zone for us. And as Paul said in the Scripture for today, “It was not equal giving, but equal sacrifice.” For we give according to that which we have. So I ask you, or state for you as followers of Christ, let us set apart our sacrificial giving as an act of worship for God. Let us set apart our sacrificial giving as a thanks being and a thanks giving to God for all of Christ’s sacrifice for us. Let us sacrifice ourselves in the way the Lord calls us to do so that others will come to know God’s great love, grace, and forgiveness. For He is the way and He is the truth, and He is the life. What other goal can we have but that we are joyful when each and every one comes to Christ.

In two weeks we will be having our Confirmation Class and those who will be baptized at that time or will remember their baptism, it will be an opportunity for us to celebrate. In fact, I was struggling at first with the fact that it’s our Commitment Sunday for the Capital Campaign. That’s Confirmation Sunday. That’s Pentecost Sunday. That’s communion. How are we going to do it all? I was feeling a bit pushed. Well, you may praise this part; it will be a shorter message for that day. But we are going to have three C’s; Pentecost doesn’t start with a “C”. But we’ll have confirmation and commitment, and communion. And our youth that are joining that day will be sharing in communion at our 9:15 a.m. They will be serving for you that day. As their first act of service to you, as thanks for what you have done for them to prayerfully support them. That’s what we are here for. That’s the whole purpose of anything that we ask of the church, that we ask of you. We first say, “Lord, what do you want us to do? What ministries do you want us to be in? How do you want us to strengthen that? And how can we give to make it possible?

And that’s where we leave it for you today. To have a moment of silence where you will pray in your own life. Not that we will look over your shoulder, only if you were asked, like Joyce and John, to publicly make a statement. All the rest of us, it will be in our private affairs between us and God, to support the church first in our regular giving and then in some needs and in some way sacrificially beyond that. Let us take a moment of time in silence in our own prayer. “First and foremost, precious God, we thank you for your love, your creation, your grace, and the forgiveness that is provided in wonderful and full abundance through your Son, and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Once upon the cross for all time. And in our baptism we recognize and are recognized by you. And in our communion we are reminded again of the sacrifice that we might be called to do in living in this day. We thank you Lord that you have given us so much, that as your Spirit continues to call us as only you can. Let us respond by your Spirit, by the faith that you have given us. And we do so and offer it in glory to you. In the name of Christ our Lord, Amen.”

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