Giving our living
           Luke 21:1-4

Intro.:
1. Have you ever wondered about the question of why you should give anything to anybody at anytime? Why should I take my hard earned money and give it to somebody who has not worked for it in the way that I have, or to bail out their emergencies when I should be stockpiling it for my own emergency? Why should I give to people I hardly know and let them enjoy the benefits of my labors? Moreover, if I know them, I can probably point out their mistakes and have reasons for their needing money at the moment and if they would have followed my example, or my advice, they would not have been in that situation?

2. The whole idea of giving, or being liberal with one’s wealth does not come from our own natural bent toward selfishness. No, the source of our inspiration for giving comes from God. It is an old admonition. When we look to the Old Testament, there was the commandment that God’s people should give a tenth, commonly called a tithe, of their income unto the Lord. This was a gift to the Lord’s Temple. But in addition, there are commands about loving your neighbor as yourself, and helping those who are need. There are many lessons for us in giving, because greed is one of the worst things that can consume us. Greed involves self-worship. All that I have is mine, and no one else is going to get any of it.

3. Through the centuries in the Bible you can see accounts of people in their giving that degenerated into robbing God. They gave blemished animals in sacrifice, they were ignoring the orphans and widows, and they made a show of their giving.

4. Much of this is reflected in the New Testament and Jesus teaches us a lot about giving. There is an awful lot in the Bible about the use of your money and trusting God. We have a story in Luke about such a matter of giving. In the Court of the Women in the Temple, there were thirteen collecting boxes known as the Trumpets. They were shaped like trumpets with the narrow part at the top and the wide part in the foot. Each was assigned to offerings for a different purpose. One  was for the wood that was used to burn the sacrifice, one for the incense that was burned on the alter, for the upkeep of the golden vessels, and so on. It was near the trumpets that Jesus was sitting.

5. After the debate with the Sadducees Jesus was near the Trumpets when a women came by. He looked up and saw many people flinging their offerings into the Trumpets; and then this poor widow put into the Trumpet two lepta. A lepton was the smallest of all coins; the name means "the thin one". It is hard to make equations with our money,- but we could think of perhaps two pennies. But Jesus said that it far outweighed the other offerings , because it was everything she had.

6. There are some important observations we can make about giving as we ponder this experience in the life of Jesus.

I. The Spirit in which it is given

1. A gift which is unwillingly extracted, a gift which is given with a grudge, a gift that is given for the sake of prestige, or of self-display loses more than half its value. The only real  gift is that which is the inevitable outflow of the loving heart.  The best gifts are those that come from a loving heart and the one receiving the gift knows it.

2. Not all gifts to God come from a loving, caring' and  obedient heart. Consider the woman who lived quite alone in her luxurious apartment on one of the most exclusive avenues of a  great city as she apologized for her none too miserly gift, yet none too handsome, gift to the church by referring to the salaries  she paid her maids, her butler, and her chauffeur, to say nothing of taxes, or the high cost of living, or of her regular seat at the opera. In this situation, such giving degenerates into the routine discharge of a routine and respectable benefaction. It may even come to serve as partial compensation for the social injustice, if nothing worse, on which great fortunes are so often built. Conscience money often comes forward in the offering plate at many public worship services.

3. But consider the spirit in which you don't give. We presume that we need all of our resources for ourselves. We must conserve our money for me. There is an interesting article in the August RD's about money and happiness. People admit that money won’t make you happy, but do believe that a little more money will make you a little more happy. How much more? Usually about 20-40 percent more than you are making at the moment. But this is an escalating experience. Consider the story of W. Berry Fowler. In 1979 Fowler started a tutoring company that became so successful he was able to sell out and retire in l987--a multimillionaire at 41. He bought a 50 foot cabin cruiser and a house in Hawaii, and busied himself vacationing. But after five years of perpetual vacation, Fowler began to miss the challenges of work. So in 1993\2 he bought a fitness chain for children and now spends 75 hours a week immersed in balance sheets and staff meetings. "My best days on the golf course weren’t half as much fun as a good day at the office." He says  We find fulfillment in good work in a way that money  cannot satisfy us.

4  A loving spirit of giving does for more for us than we can imagine. Consider Tom and Rachel Leihbacher’s friends have always been instrumental in their lives. For years they worked on church, projects together and hosted summer barbecues at one another's houses. But the Leihbachers did not really know the true value of their friends until 1988, when their son Tommy was born with severe birth defects. By the time Tommy was two, he’s had a dozen costly operations. Friends rallied to the family’s side. After the Leihbackers spend an entire summer at the hospital with Tommy, close friends from church snatched a key to their house, cleaned the place thoroughly and stocked the refrigeration for their return. Another time friends gave them a gift certificate and babysat for Tommy so they could go. Concerned by the family’s medical bills, they started a fund for the child, holding benefits concerts and rummage and bake sales. Tom and Rachel asked that the fund be opened to other needy children in the community. "Our friends are an invaluable part of our lives." Tom says, "Not so much for the things they did for us, but for their deep, abiding moral support. They help pull us through. That's something you can't put a price tag on." (Aug.94,RD,p.123)

II. The sacrifice it involves

1. The gifts of the rich, as they flung their offerings into the Trumpet, did not really cost them much; but the two lepta of the widow woman cost her everything she had. They no doubt gave having nicely calculated how much they could afford; she gave with that utter reckless generosity which could give no more.

2. Someone has said that giving does not begin to be real giving until it hurts. A gift shows our love only when we have had to do without something or have had to work doubly hard in order to give it. How few people give to God like that! Someone has drawn a picture of a man in church, singing hardily, `         

 "Were the whole realm of Nature mine, that were an offering far too small;Love so amazing, so divine   Demands my soul, my life, my all."

 while all the time, he is carefully feeling the coins in his pocket to make sure that it is a quarter and not a 50 cent piece that he will put into the collection plate which follows the song.

3. I recently heard the story of a woman who was telling a retired man about Habitat. This man had worked hard through the years and he had been very successful. She told how his early days had been hard, but there were people around him who recognized his hard work, and there were opportunities that opened up to him and he took advantage of them. He retired from banking and had a long and prosperus career as the owner of the bank. When she told him that Habitat requires the family to put in 300 hours of sweat equity, that was alright, but when he was told that Habitat sales the house to the new owners without any interest being charged, he rose up in rejecting the whole idea. "No interest?" You’ve got to be kidding." He was not willing to give of his surplus let alone his sacrifice. Here is a man who was helped along the way by many people. But now he was not willing to see the possibilities in helping others.

4. The old saying of”give until it hurts” applies to some people very quickly. There is a truth in the Bible that God blesses and we cannot out give God.

III. What your gifts can do

1. Missions...When I was in Japan I met a family from the States. They were Methodist missionaries. They had been in Japan for many years seeking to witness to the Gospel of Christ. They had forsaken their own country, much like Abraham of old, and went to a strange country with different customs, language, and people. They have been able to stay there all these years in witness only by the gifts of the Methodist church.

Let me tell you about a friend of mine who went to Brazil many years ago under an organization that was independent. First, before he could go, he had to raise his own funding. He did what they called deputation work, that is, traveling from church to church, wherever they would allow him, and making an appeal for support. I used to receive his periodic letters and at the bottom there would be a comment, monthly support needed: sometimes this was as much as 600.a month .Because you give in a connectional program, Methodist missionaries don't have to involve themselves in worrying about whether there will be any money this month or not. Lots of  people give together helps to make this possible.

2. We are going to put together a jar of pennies, but this will be from the parish churches. I don't know how much this will be, but together we can help Heifer Project International during this difficult time. Together, HPI helps people become self=sufficient in a rural economy.

3. Do you know whether the first colleges and universities in this country came from. They were started by churches. The Methodists did not arrive in this country until it was well under way, but Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Drew, and many others were church started. Many of them have departed their founders, but many others came along after and still remain in their goals to provide Christian education, education with value, for young people today. We have some askings for these groups, both the college, seminary, and other agencies. We are a small group, but together with many others we can make a difference.

4. We are in the midst of collecting for the roundup for hunger, but there is more than food that we collect. From the time that I first came to Dunlap and Bushong I have been impressed by how much is collected each year. We have lost several members to death and we are not as strong as we were, but we still do a lot. When you put this together with all the other churches in the parish and district, there is a lot that we can do together. The need is so great, but we do something to help people through difficult times. A little together goes a long way.

Concl.:

1. Giving is one of the great adventures of life. This woman became a challenge to succeeding  generations.  We don’t know  her name, and perhaps that is good, since Jesus described the best giving to be that in which no one knows.  Then God will see and reward the giver according to his own wisdom.

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