"Are You Giving God Your Leftovers?" Sermon: I John 3:16-18

“Are You Giving God Your Leftovers?”
[I John 3:16-18]
November 8, 2009 Second Reformed Church

Have you ever heard someone say, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch?” “Nobody does anything without an ulterior motive.” “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.” “Quid pro quo.” We are have become a society that expects that if you do something, you should get something, and, conversely, that if you don’t do something for me, I’m not going to do something for you. We do not look to do good for others, not expecting to get anything back from them, and we are shocked when and if someone does something for us when we have not done or promised anything to them.

So, it makes me wonder, “what motivates our giving?” Why do you and I give what we give, when we give it? Making the question about people – about relationships, we might ask, “how do you know someone loves you?”

John tells us, “By this we know love, that [Jesus] laid down his life for us.” John tells us what love is, and he tells us that we understand that Jesus loves us because He laid down His Life for us. He did something that showed us that He loves us. He did something radical – that people don’t just do for someone else.

It’s all the more amazing because we didn’t know we needed someone to lay their life down for us. In fact, we were spiritual dead, unknowing and unable to help ourselves at all: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even while we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:1-10, ESV).

And it is even more amazing – not only did Jesus lay His Life down for us – we who were dead and unknowing of our need – we weren’t neutral – we hated God and anything to do with Him: “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Romans 5:1-11, ESV).

In other words, we were dead in our sin, enemies of God, and Jesus showed His Love to us by dying for our sin, raising us from the dead, giving us new life according to His keeping of God’s Law – and not only that, Jesus was not just a mere man. Jesus is fully a human being, but He is also the One Almighty God.

How unexpected is it then, that God would decide to love a people who were dead and hated Him and had nothing to offer Him, still He became a Man, lived, died, rose, and ascended, and promises us eternal life with Him? That’s love, John tells us.

I hope that still amazes you. Sometimes we sing – almost with a yawn in our mouths – “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound! That saved a wretch like me!” Do you believe it? Does it amaze you? If it doesn’t, you either have too high a view of yourself or too low a view of God. God is Holy, Holy, Holy – He cannot have any sin in His Presence. And we are sinners by nature – wretches – until He makes us His.

Think about how we were – what the Scripture tells us about ourselves compared to God. How far we were from what God requires How lost – hopelessly lost Do we begin to glimpse what kind of love that is – that Jesus laid down His Life for us?

Repeat after me: “I was a wretch. But Jesus laid down His Life for me.”

Again: “I was a wretch. But Jesus laid down His Life for me.”

Again: “I was a wretch. But Jesus laid down His Life for me.”

“So we ought to lay down our lives for each other.”

What?

What did you say? We know what love is because Jesus laid down His Life for us, so we ought to lay down our lives for each other.. What does that mean? In real life, most of us won’t ever have the need or opportunity, Lord willing, of physically dying for another person. So what does this really mean for us?

Well, John tells us: “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother [or sister] in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” John says that we can practically lay down our lives for each other by providing for each other’s needs. And if we do have enough and we have the ability to help someone meet their needs and we do nothing – that is not love. It means we may not understand what love is.

James writes, “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” (James 215-16, ESV).

If we say we believe in Jesus, if we say we love Him, if we say we love our fellow Christians (in particular, here), and God has blessed us with more than we need – and God has blessed every single one of us with more than we need of something, then we ought to be willing to give whatever that is, even up to our very lives, to fill another’s need and to glorify God.

Meeting others’ needs is one way we show that we understand the love that Jesus has for us in laying down His Life. True love is more than words. True love brings about action. True love is love in deed. Love has a physical and/or material aspect to it.

As we bring this idea back to Jesus and the Church – remember we started by saying that we understand what love is because Jesus laid His Life down for us – Jesus – the Almighty God Incarnate, laid down His Life for a bunch of dead people that hated Him. Amazing!

How do we physically/materially show our love to Jesus? By loving others, and by giving of ourselves and our blessings to the Church (which is the means by which God chose to spread the Gospel to the whole world – as we are beginning to see in the book of Acts).

Right now, I would like us to consider how we show our love to Jesus – through the Church – with our money. And the obvious way we show our love to Jesus through the Church with our money is by giving money to the Church. Yet, we have often given for the wrong reasons or in the wrong way.

We are not to give to the Church in the same way that we pay any other bill. We ought not to look at our giving to the Church as paying what we owe for the week. For two reasons: first, none of us could ever give enough money to pay God back what we owe for this week – for forgiveness, for love, for life. And second, what we give to the Church is to be our gift, a token of our worship – not something we are compelled to do.

Do not misunderstand: God does require that we give to the Church. God said that our giving is to begin with ten percent of our gross income. That was the Law and that is what Jesus said as well. We are to begin by giving ten percent of our gross income to the Church. And then, as we are led by the Spirit, we are to give more. But it ought to be done cheerfully, willingly, joyfully, not like paying the phone bill or the utility bill.

We are not to give to the Church simply to pay “our share” of the expenses. While is it true that the Church has expenses and most of the money that is given to the Church is given to pay for those expenses, if you look at our church budget, you know you are not paying your share. Our budget is just under $100,000 a year. Our share would be at least $5,000 a year. We are not to give to the Church based on whether or not we liked the pastor’s sermon. I am called to speak the Word of God from this pulpit. If I am not doing that, the elders should correct me. If I am doing that, because we are still sinners, there are things I will say that you will like and things I will say that you will not like, and that is completely irrelevant to our giving. If it is the Word of God it is the Word of God. You are not paying for a show or an education.

We are not to merely give our leftovers to the Church. We have a tendency to give whatever we have left over each week to God. We give what we have in our pockets, or in our wallets, or, we look at our checkbook, and think about how much we can spare. But the biblical principle is that God gets the first cut off the top – that’s why I said a minimum of ten percent of our gross income. Most of us have taxes taken out before we receive our paycheck, or SSI, or pension, and so forth. But God will not take second place to the government. God demands ten percent – to begin with – of our entire income.

I was brought up to do that. Many people were not. And those who have not done it have a tendency to say that they can’t afford to give ten percent of their gross – and more. Some people give “x” number of dollars because that’s what their parents did, or that’s what they decided to do fifty years ago, and nothing will ever change that – except their income going down. Which means, either God is wrong, or we are.

Looking at it positively:

We are to give to the Church as part of our worship. When I ask that the ushers come forward that we might worship God with our tithes and our offerings, I am serious about what I am saying. Our giving is to be an act of worship. What we put in that plate should reflect what we believe about the worth of God – of Jesus Christ – and what He has done for us. We do not offer up our gifts to merit forgiveness, but to thank God for the forgiveness He merited for us. How much is Jesus worth?

We are to give to the Church as part of how we show our understanding of the value of Jesus’ Love. Just a few verses before this morning’s reading, John wrote, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (I John 3:1a, ESV). John was amazed at the Love of God in Jesus Christ – are we? How much do we value His taking God’s Wrath, forgiving our sin, crediting us with His Righteousness.

We are to give to the Church to see Jesus honored and believed. We give to show each other and the world that we believe that Jesus and His Gospel – salvation in Him Alone – is true – that He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the One and Only Savior.

We are to give our first and our best to the Church because Jesus’ Love is worth more than everything else – together. We give our first and best to the Church because no matter what else happens, no matter what else is lost, no matter what else goes wrong, no matter how the stock market moves or how our friends and relatives use and abuse us for our money – or shower us with financial gifts, we want each other and the world to know that Jesus is first and best and His Love is worth more than anything and everything else all together. Think about it this way: if you had a basket filled with Jesus’ Love and all the rest of your stuff, and you had to give away one thing after another until you only had one thing left, what would you want? I hope the answer is Jesus’ Love. There is no other hope than what He has done for us in His Love.

And we give to the Church to show that we trust Jesus. We give to show each other and the world that we trust Jesus when He promises to provide for all of our needs. We don’t hoard away all of our blessings and neglect giving to the Church because of what might happen. But we manage our money with the wisdom God has given us, yet we also give God what He commands and more as we are led to do so, believing in His Promises, trusting that He will provide for us. Do you believe Him?

This week, my mother gave away two food items: out of thanks to one of my sister's doctors, my mother baked a big banana streusel cake – which is apparently incredible – and gave it to the doctor, who was very thankful and told my mother how good it was. My mother also told me that she had bought this “wheat berry salad” because it was supposed to be good for you, but she didn’t like it at all, and she wondered if I would like the leftovers.

Do you know love?

Or are you giving God your leftovers?

Let us pray:
We pray to You, O God Who loved us so much that You laid down Your Life for us, and we ask that You would help us to know through Your Act what love is. Let us show our love to our brothers and sisters in doing good for them, not expecting anything in return. And let us come to worship, ready to worship You by giving, obediently, and generously, to You out of the financial income You have given us. For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.