So if you have your Bible, and I hope you do, Matthew chapter number six, Matthew chapter number six, we are continuing a series that we have been in for a while. In fact, I believe this week, number six of our series, the greatest sermon ever. I say this every week.
If you're a guest and you see that, you're thinking, wow, he must think really good about him. Hey, today is not the greatest sermon you're ever going to hear. I promise you that the reason why we named this the greatest sermon ever is because we are slowly dissecting Jesus's sermon on the mount, which is the greatest sermon ever. And it's preached by the greatest preacher ever.
And I'll say this. We call it the Sermon on the Mount. But I want you to know that we probably should call it a mountain of a sermon.
And here's why. It's because so far in this and if you've been a part of this over the last five weeks before today, we've I mean, Jesus, he dealt with some of the most controversial things in culture. So the first thing he dealt with, we call them the Beatitudes. He talked about how to be happy, where to find happiness. He talked about anger and hatred. He brought up murder. He talked about lust. He talked about divorce. He talked about keeping your word and keeping your oaths. He talked about loving and praying and doing good to your enemies. Can I get an amen there? OK, well, there was a few that like that one.
And so that's a hard one for us to do. And today, I mean, he's already preached on all of this up to this point. And to our knowledge, this was all one sermon. Could you imagine that?
Like we have taken six weeks into this. Could you imagine Jesus getting up? I don't know how long this sermon is, but if you were there, you'd probably be looking at your clock and wondering, like, hey, we're going to be last in line if he doesn't get done or whatever. And Jesus just kept going. And you think, what more could Jesus possibly have to talk about that is controversial?
And when you think that that's all he had, here's the thing. He begins to talk about money. He began to talk about money. OK, I didn't really make this a big deal that we would talk about money today, because I figured some of you just wouldn't want to come.
Right. We don't like talking about money. And I want you to know, when we talk about money or whatever, the churches get a bad rep for whatever reason about talking about money. I don't know where that started, but I know the pastor that I grew up with, anytime he addressed money, he'd always have all these people around him to be like, man, all he ever talked about is money. All that pastor ever wants is our is our money. That's all he cares about is our our money. In fact, people I mean, they could leave the church if they think a pastor talks about money a lot. And so I understand where you come from and I get it that money is not something that we like to talk about. And as much as talking about money makes you feel awkward, I want you to know I feel awkward talking about about money from up here, here today.
But let me say this, that money is something that we have to address. If you're like us as a church, we preach through the Bible verse by verse. That's what I love to preach.
I'm an expert. That's called expositional preaching. I love going through the Bible verse by verse. And here's what we're committed to. We don't we don't like overlook or bypass topics of scripture that make us feel uncomfortable.
OK, we are not going to do that here today. So we're going to look at what what he has to say about it. But here's what I want you to know. The truth is that the scripture talks a lot about money and that pastors, myself, I'd be doing you as our congregation today a disservice if we avoided talking about money. In fact, 15 percent of Jesus's teachings in the gospels was about money. Matthew, Mark and Luke specifically, one out of every six verses or so deal with money of the twenty nine or so parables that Jesus told 16 of them deal with a person and their money or their possessions. Jesus taught on money and our possessions more than he did heaven and hell combined.
Here's what I want you to know. I say all that just to say Jesus had a lot to say about money. And here's why I think that is the reason he talks about money so much is because money, more than probably anything else in your life today, can control you. It can control you like nothing else in your life.
It can become the strongest idol that you have in your life. And that's why Jesus, he says this about our money, he says where we place our treasure, right where we place our treasure, our money reveals what we value most. It reveals what we value most. In fact, I think that's why Jesus addressed money so much is because he's trying to get them to understand that the treasure of their heart should be him and him alone and not their possessions. That the treasure of their heart should be him and him alone and not their bank account and not their 401k and things like that.
The treasure of our heart reveals what we value most. Isn't that true? Right. Like that's true even of life.
Take the church side of giving away or whatever. That's true. There's some things that you value right that that I don't value as much.
OK. You ever seen somebody spend a lot of money on something that you felt was completely pointless? Right. And so like I love, for example, I love golf. OK. I love it. I enjoy it or whatever. But I played golf with some people yesterday.
And here's what I heard is some dollar signs attached to the amount of money that they had in their clubs. And I'm thinking, I don't know if I love it that much. Right. But here's what I want you to know. There's some people that value it that much. Right. And there's nothing wrong with that's what they value.
Here's what I'll tell you. If you saw how much we spend on sporting type stuff like going to sports games and things like that, you would think we're crazy. Right. But we like that and we value that kind of thing.
Here's what I want you to know. Every single one of us, we value certain things. Some of you value clothes. Some of you value shoes. Some of you value toys like like boats and and stuff like that. And and you have that. And there's nothing wrong with any of those things.
And so I don't want you to feel bad about it. But here's what I'm trying to get you to understand where Jesus is coming from is where we place our money, where we spend our money reveals what we value, doesn't it? That's just truthful. It's true in life. And that's what Jesus is trying to tell us here about our possessions and our our money.
Here's the big idea. We're only looking at like four verses today. So you would think that's going to be a short sermon.
I don't know how it's going to be. OK, but we're looking at four verses today. Here's the big idea of what Jesus is going to say in these four verses as he continues this mountain of a sermon.
Here's what he's going to say. Biblical giving is when we use our money for God and for the glory of God. OK, biblical giving is when we use. So when we talk about giving, we'll explain some of what that is here today is when we use our money for God and for the glory of God. And so he talks about giving in these four verses. And here's what I want you to know is that he brings up giving again later in this sermon. And so we're going to talk about giving a little bit today. And then in about four weeks, we're going to talk about giving again, because this is what Jesus this is how he went through this. He brings up giving two different times in this sermon.
And so let's jump right into it. The first thing I want you to see is the warning that Jesus gives us about giving the warning that Jesus gives us about giving. He says this verse number one, Matthew Chapter six. Take heed. Everybody say take heed together. Take heed. Here's what that means. Beware. Here's what that means. Beware.
Be on the lookout. Take heed. Listen, pay attention. And he says, what's he telling us to pay attention about that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them. Otherwise, you have no reward of your father, which is in which is in heaven. Now, here's what I want you to know when he's talking specifically about alms right there in that verse. He's talking kind of about our good deeds and and good things that we do.
And specifically, I want you to know the context in which he's writing. Many of the people in his audience, in his congregation that day that's gathered around this hillside listening and preach is is this. They were considered Judaizers that they they kind of were used to the law and keeping the law and things like that. The Pharisees during that day, they were kind of revered.
We have a negative connotation. When you see Pharisee in scripture, we naturally think don't be like that. But in that culture, Pharisees were like the the spiritual leaders of those communities. And it was important they were leaders in churches and things like that. And so for them, they wanted to kind of be.
That's what they strive to be like. And here's what Jesus is saying. He's saying beware.
Take heed that you don't do alms or good things and things like that before men to be seen of them. And he's going to go on and we're going to look at these today, next week and then a week after that. Here's what he's going to talk about. He's going to bring up three spiritual disciplines. OK, three spiritual disciplines that we're going to look at. He's going to talk about giving, which is today. And then next week he's going to bring up prayer. And then the week after that, he's going to talk about fasting. And he brings up three specific spiritual disciplines.
And by the way, I get it. We call them in churches, we call them spiritual disciplines. They're things that that we believe are disciplines in life so that you can do them like prayer, reading your Bible, giving, being generous, fasting, all these little things that kind of will produce something in your life. Right. And so we believe that if you read your Bible every day, as the song goes, you will what? Grow, grow, grow. Right. You're going to grow in your faith.
If you if you do that, if you pray every day, we believe that you're going to grow, grow, grow. We think that these things are necessary. And so he's going to talk about three things.
And he starts off before he talks about the first one. He tells them to be aware and take heed that you do not your alms before men. So Pharisees would always kind of want themselves to look good and things like that. And I want you to know up front, motive matters. That's kind of the theme of the next three weeks of what Jesus is going to tell us, is that your motive matters. And here's what's interesting about motives. None of us know each other's motives, do we?
None of us. I don't know your motives. I don't I don't know your motives. I have no reason to believe anybody in here has a bad motive.
Right. I think every person in here has a great motive. And my job is to believe the best about you. And so that kind of thing.
But I'll tell you this. Nobody in here knows our motives when it comes to religious activity. For the Judaizers and Pharisees, that's what it was about. It was all about trying to impress the people around them. Think about it this way. OK, it would be like somebody getting up here and singing.
Just for to impress you and just for the applause of men. OK, we don't know what people's motives are. You don't know my motive when I preach. We don't know motives of people that are singing here, singing in the choir when you're out there worshipping. I don't know your motives if you raise your hand or or if you sit still or or whatever. I don't know what your motives are ever.
Right. None of us do. We don't know our motives. But Jesus is telling us very specifically that our motive matters. Our motive is very important when it comes to doing things in your Christian life. And he gives a very specific warning about that.
So he drops down verse number two. He says this. Therefore, because of what I just said, watch your motive. Beware of those things.
Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, talking about giving, do not sound a trumpet before thee. I thought about implementing like a siren when somebody gives. Right. Wouldn't that be cool? Right.
No. And like, imagine we have these giving drop boxes. Imagine like every time somebody drops something in there, like, you know, the hockey games when somebody scores a goal and the siren goes off or whatever. It's like, yeah, right. Here's what I'm telling you. I don't know where that came from.
It just kind of popped into my head in a moment. I'll say it's the Holy Spirit. You don't know my motive.
OK, but here's what I want you to know. It's like that's kind of the idea of what the Pharisees would do. OK, so the Pharisees love for everybody to see how much they give. They want everybody to look at them and think, wow, they have a lot of money.
And they're choosing to give a lot of money to the church and they're excited about it. And so he's telling us, hey, when you give, don't sound a trumpet before thee. In other words, don't bring attention to yourself. Don't make it all about you.
Don't make it all about you. Don't be like, and he calls them out, the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. And so he mentions two things about the warning. Here's what the warning is, what Jesus tells us. Giving should not be, number one, giving should not be about recognition.
Giving should not be about, you know, sounding the trumpet, stand in the streets, draw as much attention to your giving as possible so that you can impress everybody and that everybody can leave here with a high understanding of who you are. Right. Like like and I want you to know, I just want to be very transparent with you today. And I hope you allow that or whatever. Everybody in here wants people to think good things about them.
Right. That's all of us. There's not a person in here that doesn't want everybody in here. Like we don't want we don't walk around like, man, I hope everybody thinks terribly about us today. Nobody has that as a goal.
We all want people to think good thoughts about us. But if that's the motive for why you do good things, that's where it gets tricky. And that becomes hypocritical. That becomes like the Pharisees. Here's what they were. They were performers.
They were actors. They would put on this thing that everybody would be like, man, that person is so awesome. They give so much. They pray so much.
They fast so much. They are a super Christian. And what the Pharisees wanted is all the attention to come to them. What Jesus is warning them about is that if your giving is drawing attention to you and not the one who blessed you with it to begin with, then your motives impure.
Does everybody understand that? And that's what he's warning us about. Giving should not be about about recognition.
It should not be about that. The second warning he gives us is this. Giving should be done for God's glory, not man's glory. In other words, verse number two, that they may have glory of men.
Right? That's why they did it. That's the warning. That's what they got. That's the reward Jesus is saying of those who give for the recognition of men. They got their reward. They get an applause. Yay, you did good.
Right? That's the only reward that they're going to receive. And that's what Jesus is telling us. So he's telling us, you know, there's a warning about about that.
Don't don't give for your glory. And by the way, that's why I'm always careful. And I want you to be honest. I love when, you know, I'm just like everybody else. I like it when you come up and say things to me that are very complimentary about sermons and and different things like this. But here's what I'm always sensitive about.
Like, I don't want any of that glory to go to me like like the minute. I was terrible about this when I first started preaching years ago when I got out of Bible college, I started, you know, I was a youth pastor and so I was speaking to teenagers and I loved that and everything and and I would speak to teens and stuff. But occasionally the the youth pastor, when I was first starting, they would allow me to go into what I refer to as big church. That was a big deal, like when youth pastor gets to come in, I was like, man, this is huge. And I'm like twenty four years old at the time. So I'd go preach in big church and they would allow me to go and everything. And I was kind of a kid and a lot of their minds. And so I'd come in there and and things. And here's what I struggled with when I first started preaching.
I'd get off like the stage or the platform up here, not at this church, at my church I grew up in. And when I would sit down, I would immediately like like lean over to my wife and I'd be like, how was it? How was it? Right.
And here's how was it? And here's what I looked for. And my wife always kind of, you know, she encouraged me and she does a great job.
But also spouses are there really to bring us down to where we need to live. Right. And so and and she would just be like, she would say this. She thought this is good. Good.
I'm like, that's all you got for me today. Right. So but here's the thing, like we're now fighting on the front row after preaching. You know, here's what I want you to know. Here's where I struggled.
I was a Pharisee preacher. Like all I cared about was a few people coming up to me and say, wow, that was really good. Wow. That was that story you told us. Great.
That's awesome. Like you did good. Like you did good.
Right. And we wanted that. Here's what I want you to know. I was seeking man's glory and not God's glory. When I get up here, here's my thing. When I get up here and the moment that I'm not 100 percent dependent upon the power of God and what I'm trying to say and the power of God that lives and breathes through the word of God. When I make it about myself and my delivery, I hope that you're spiritually mature enough to find a new pastor.
Because that's the point. It's not about me. If I get down here and I did what he told me to do, and I preached the word and I was filled with the spirit, then it doesn't matter if anybody comes up to me and says, great sermon today. I've done my part because it's for his glory, not my own. When you do something good. Right.
Like it doesn't need to be. You might not be the preacher, but we all do good things. We do alms. We do different things when you give and nobody sees it and nobody talks about it. And nobody brings it up. Then that's OK, because you're not doing it and you shouldn't do it for the glory of everybody coming to say something to you. That's the warning. OK. Then he gives us an instruction about giving in verses number three. He says this. But when thou doest alms, when you give.
And by the way, let me say this. Giving is a biblical principle. It's commanded. The question today is not, should you give?
OK, it's not. Should you give? Listen, this is commanded in scripture. I don't know how else to tell you this, but Jesus talks about giving.
It's not just an Old Testament law situation. And by the way, here's what I like to think about when it comes to giving is like, think about your own kids. How many of your parents in here, you know, even if your kids are grown and stuff, you remember when you give them something and things like that, you ever give them something and and they, you know, you give them a toy or whatever, you give them something, maybe a video game or whatever, and you might go back to them and say, hey, can I take a turn on something or can I look at that?
Can I? And they'll respond back. No, it's mine.
My first response before I want to teach them what the scripture says is I want to tell them, man, I can throw that thing away today, like like if that's how we're going to be. But here's what I want you to know. You know, that kid that it's mine. You didn't do it like you didn't get this. You didn't earn this, whatever. You didn't pay for this. Right.
No, no, no. We gifted it to you. That's a good way to think about money, because here's my thing. Everything that you have today is gifted by your heavenly father.
Everything. It's already his to begin with. OK, it's already his to begin with. But here's the problem. A lot of us are like those spoiled kids. We're like the ones like, no, can't have it.
It's mine. And God's like, no, I gave you that house so that you could bring people in and share the gospel with them. I gave you that car, perhaps so that you could pick somebody up to go to church with you. Like I gave you an abundance of money, not so that you could go out and waste it on all the toys and things like that. But perhaps through your giving, the church can support a new missionary. Like we gave you that. That's what our heavenly father is doing.
But so many of us are like, no, no, no. I need that in my vacation fund or no, no, no. I need that in my my fun spending fund, whatever you want to call it. Right.
Dave Ramsey has a name for it. And like all this kind of stuff. I got it in that.
Right. And a lot of times we think, no, we got we got all these compartmentalized things in our spiritual life. And we're sitting over here with all these compartments. And here's the thing. God's like, I gave you all of this so that you could use this to further his kingdom. But some of us are sitting over here and we're like, no, mine, no, mine, no, mine.
That's mine. Let me tell you this. The question today is not about give it like, should you give? That's a biblical mandate. Even here, when thou Jesus, like when thou doest. In other words, like, hey, this isn't a question for you today. This is hey, when you do it.
Here's how you do it. And he gives us some instruction. Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. That thine alms may be in secret and thy father, which seeth in secret himself, shall reward thee openly.
Here's his instruction of what he says here is in verse number three, when he talks about a left hand not knowing what the right hand doeth. Like, that's not how the body works. Like my I mean, my right hand usually knows what my left hand's doing. OK. And if it doesn't.
I probably need to go to the doctor or something. Right. And so they know. So Jesus is using what we would call hyperbole here, which is just an exaggeration of a point that he is trying to do, because obviously that's not how our bodies function. He's not saying that when you give with your right hand, like your left hand doesn't know what it is. What he's saying is that you're giving. Get this.
Do not miss this. You're giving and your generosity to the church, to people, to missions, to the building fund, whatever. When you give, it should be so private that even your own self hardly notices it. Even your own self forgets about it. And even your own self doesn't go around and brag about it.
That's what he means that your right hand knows what your left hand's doing. In other words, he's like, hey, when you give, when you drop some money in a box or if you give online or or however, you know, when the plates are passing, you know, I remember this is kind of funny. I remember like when online giving became a thing.
Like, I literally heard people and this is true. This was probably all of us. Like, I felt the same way for a while. It's like when that plate comes by you, any of you feel just so guilty? Like all the people around me think I don't give. Right. Any of you felt that?
You're kind of like, man, when you pass that plate, you don't put anything in it. You know, you're being judged by 10 people around you. Oh, my word. Right. I feel like I got to say something like I give online. I give online. Right.
I don't know if you feel guilty, but I do. When online giving became a thing. Right. And so here's what I am, though. I'm a hypocrite, apparently based on Jesus terminology. Here's what I want you to understand about giving. It's like you should give in a way. What Jesus is saying is that your giving should be done privately. Privately.
So much to the point that your right hand and your left hand hardly even know what you're doing. So when you give, you forget about it. You don't go around and brag about it.
You ever been about somebody that just brags about the money that they have all the time? Oh, my goodness. Like, like, listen, that's not what we're here to do. Jesus literally saying, hey, don't even hate.
Give your money. And by the way, I don't talk about this a whole lot. I learned this from my from my parents.
I hope they're not even watching this today. And so I I learned this from my parents. And here's why. My dad, we didn't live in abundance, but we had plenty of money. OK, and when I say I'm not saying we were rich, but we had we had money.
I mean, there was never a time that, you know, I couldn't play a sport or anything like that. You know, he would just they would pay for things. And I had everything that I needed. I didn't have the nicest stuff in the school, but I had plenty and I was grateful for it. And so my dad did all these things and there were some things we didn't do because he would say money was the reason or whatever. But when I became an adult, this blows my mind when I became an adult. And I'm not trying to give my dad any extra glory and things like that, because the way he did it is what impressed me so much. When I became an adult, there were people that would just reach out to me and tell me things like, man, I just love your dad. And I would be like, well, I love I love him, too. And they would say, man, we were going nobody knows this, but we were going through a rough time.
And I'm serious. This true story. People would say, and I couldn't pay my car bill. And he found out about it.
He paid it. And I'm thinking that was 15 years ago. I had heard one thing, one thing. There was one time somebody came up to me and literally told me this. They said, and I heard this third party, not even from the family it happened.
We had a family in our church who just had a lot of needs and there's constant needs that arise. And so someone told me this was like I was probably 27 years old. Somebody said this to me. They said, yeah, about 15 years ago, that family needed a car and your dad got it for him. And I'm thinking, I didn't know about that.
But here's the point. I learned something about giving from him. He was like, listen, I'm called to be generous. I'm called to give. And if nobody ever knows about it. That's OK, because I'm not giving it so that they know about it. I'm giving it so I can give him glory. And I learned something about that, that there's a private sense of that, because we all know people that when they do something, they want everybody around them to know it.
They feel like they got to come up to you and just say, man, whoo, been a tough week. I worked at such and such house. I did this for them.
I did this. And you're kind of like, that's that's great, you know. But what are you going for? Are you going for the attaboy? Are you going for the applause? Are you going for the well done? Because here's what Jesus is saying. If that's what you're going for, then you got the only reward that you're ever going to get.
That's the point. Our giving should be done privately, should be done privately. The third thing, and finally, I want you to see this, the reward. You guys still with me, by the way? You still here? OK. If you haven't checked out, you're not surfing Facebook or anything like that, right?
You're still here? OK. And so somebody in here surfing Facebook and you feel terrible. You're like, oh, crud, I'm just I'm like the worst or whatever. So if I was sitting on that side listening to me, I might occasionally look at Facebook as well. The reward, I want you to see the reward Jesus gives about money. So he gives us some instruction, do it privately. That's his his point about giving. He gives us the warning.
Don't do it so everybody can see you. Don't do it for man's glory. Give it to God's glory and things like that. But he gives us a reward.
And it's found in verse four. He talks about thine alms, maybe in secret. And thy father which seeth in secret. In other words, when you give and nobody knows about it.
Or when you do a good thing and nobody knows about it. We have a father who sees in secret. We have a father who sees in secret and he will reward thee openly. Here's what I want you to know about the reward. If you give with a motive to be seen of men, the only reward that you are going to get is just that. But if you give in secret for the glory of God, there is an eternal reward that's for you.
Those who don't make it about themselves, don't make it about recognition, don't make it about man's glory and things like that. If you give in secret for the glory of God, there is an eternal reward. Now if you think about rewards, we know this, right?
You ever go to a restaurant and you go to the restaurant a lot and here's what they're going to do. They're going to try to sell you on a rewards program, right? You ever had that happen and you're kind of like, I don't want a rewards program. Like, I just want the program where I pay you and you give me a receipt and we say bye until next time I need something, right? That's the kind of rewards program I need. But there's a few places where I love rewards programs.
You want to know what one of them is? East Coast Wings. I love East Coast Wings. It's one of my favorite places to go. In fact, if you ever invite me to lunch or you ever say, hey, let's go talk, there's a good chance I'm saying East Coast Wings because I love it. And here's what I like about East Coast Wings.
Here's how I view it. The more money that I spend at East Coast Wings, I'm going to save a little bit in the long run. Isn't that how rewards work, right?
My wife says, hey, I got to spend money to save money, right? I don't know how that works, right? But here's the thing. I'm like, man, if I go to East Coast Wings two times this week, I get a $5 reward. I forget that I have to spend $100 before I get it.
But I love it. Here's what I want you to know. Rewards programs are for that. You go and you frequent the place and you go enough and you give enough to where one day you get a reward. You get a reward, which is exciting. And we all love, love rewards.
Here's what I want you to know. When he uses the word reward, Jesus is telling us, and this is where we can kind of land the plane today. He's telling us to think of your giving like an investment. Like an investment, right? When you're young, like teenagers, you don't think a lot about investments. You have a few young people who that's a thing that they're already thinking about. But here's the thing.
I didn't think about that as a kid. And so I had a job as a teenager. And so I had a job. My parents told me to get this job. So they worked it out. So I had a job when I was 15 years old.
And here's what I'll tell you. Pretty much every dime that I made, I just spent it on whatever I wanted, you know, like just stupid stuff and things like that. And so I would just spend all my money as soon as I got it. I was not thinking about investing it at all, right? But when I became an adult, people started saying, you need to invest your money. You need to put some money away.
Like before we even had kids, like you need to put some money away because there's coming today. We're going to need something, all this kind of stuff. Everybody's saying, think of it like an investment.
You got to do this. And so we did. And there's an investment. Some of you, you're a result of somebody investing money. You think of it, you put some money away when it's hard so that you can enjoy it later, right? You know what investments are. Well, what Jesus is saying about our eternal rewards with our giving, he's saying, think of your giving like an investment. And, you know, investors would tell you, hey, when you give away money and put it into an investment, you're thinking 30 years ahead, right?
I mean, that's what they're thinking. Hey, 30 years, here's what you're going to get. Here's the return value.
Here's what Jesus is saying. Don't think 30 years. Think 3,000 years. Think 30,000 years. The investment that we have and what we're willing to give to him, there is an eternal reward that lasts forever. That lasts forever. I want you to know that anything that you invest in here on this earth, your house, your car, your shoes, your clothes, whatever you spend money on, your toys, you know, all these kind of things and stuff, whatever you spend money on will eventually decay.
It will eventually go away. And by the way, I'm not preaching at you, I'm preaching right there. We spend our money on the craziest things.
We spend way too much money sometimes on things that are just going to rot and go away. And what Jesus is saying is when you give, give secretly and privately, not for the glory of men, but for the glory of God. And when you do that and perhaps nobody knows what you give and we don't have to because he sees you in secret and he's saying this, there is an eternal reward that awaits for you. You know what I fear is that there's a lot of us that aren't like, we're going to get to heaven. And you might get well done, good and faithful servant, you're in heaven or whatever, and you have nothing to show for it. And here's what I want you to know. We don't go to heaven for rewards.
Let me be clear on that. OK, we're only going to be in heaven because of the grace of God, every single one of us. OK, and every reward that we get is going to be laid in one place at the feet of Jesus.
So don't do it with the motive of I get this reward, I get this something, whatever, whatever. But I do believe when we get to heaven, it's going to be real eye opening how many of us. Spent everything we made on things that just went away when you showed up in a grave somewhere, right?
When you get put in a box, listen, none of that stuff matters. And by the way, like I've been to a lot of funerals. I've never been to funerals where everybody's talking about all the stuff somebody achieved.
But you know what I hear at every funeral I go to? What that person did for somebody else. Like all those things decay, everything we're spending money on, it will decay. So think of your giving like an investment. There's an eternal reward attached for it.
Here's what Jesus is saying in these four verses, the big idea that I want you to biblical giving is when we use our money for God and for the glory of God. So my question for you today is this. What does your bank account say about you? That's a touchy subject, right? Because if I'm your I'm your pastor and I want you to know this.
I'm not saying ours is perfect. Like there's times when we probably shouldn't spend as much in this area and stuff like that. But here's what I want you to know. What does your bank account say about you?
The principle of giving. You know, I grew up in church my whole life. And so if you haven't grown up in church, I understand that this is something hard for you. I grew up in church. So my parents would. This is what it was like for me. My parents were strict and they were big church people. So when I grew up in church, here's what that meant. Birthday parties.
When I'm opening up a card for like my birthday, when I was a child and I looked and I could see, you know, like just to let you know about kids or whatever, you're always kind of barely open it and see if there's money first before you read the card. Right. You remember that? It's just true of every kid.
Right. And and so I would always look when I'd see that I'd be 20 bucks. I would see see that in there and I would immediately think, OK, mom and dad's going to say I have to give this mount in Sunday school this week. Like and I would always think about that. So for me, I want you know, giving has always been a part of my life. Like it doesn't mean that I'm a super Christian. Here's what I'm just saying. My parents just told me this is what you do. That's all I know to do. Like and so I've never really struggled with that. But I understand that for some of you, if you've never given in the church and you've never really that's not been a part of your life, you're probably sitting over here like, man, how in the world do I make this work?
How do I make this work? I got this bill. I got a mortgage payment.
I got a car payment. I got kids school. I got this going on.
There's no way that I can think about. I get that and I understand it. Here's the motivation.
I want to end here. OK. Our motivation for giving is simply found in one verse. Paul was writing and he's talking about Jesus and he said, though he was rich.
You know what he did? Yet for our sake, you know what Jesus did? He became poor so that we, through his poverty, can become rich. That didn't mean like money.
That means what we have in Jesus far surpasses anything this world has to offer me. That's the point. That's the motivation. The motivation. I don't want you to leave here.
How much? If you want to talk about that, there is a biblical mandate, a tithe and stuff, and there's a percentage giving attached to that, 10 percent and stuff. That's a biblical thing. And I think every one of you should participate in that.
We do and everything. But here's the thing. The motivation for giving shouldn't be just about how much do I give and things like that.
Usually when you're asking that question, you're thinking like, how much can I save and keep to myself? No, no, no. The motivation is what Jesus has done for me. That should be the standard of what we're willing to do for him. And I'll tell you this. I serve a generous God. And so therefore, as a result of what he's done to me, I better be generous. I better be generous of what he has offered me.
What he did for you should be a motivation for us. And so what does our bank account say about us? What does it say about you? What does it say about what you treasure and what you value?
Does it say like, if I was to look at it, I would never do this? Like, honestly, as a pastor, I don't even know what any of you do. And I want to keep it that way. But here's what I'll tell you.
Whatever. If you just pulled it like one Sunday, this is a good idea. If I want to split the church, here's what we're going to do.
OK, we're going to just say, hey, everybody bring your last month's banking statement. Ever seen a church do that? No, that church would no longer be in existence if they ever did that. But what would it reveal?
I encourage you, families go out and do this. You know, the apostle Paul talks about this, the church at Macedonia. You know what's wild about them? He talks about their giving and how it was so big and they were so generous with their money. And it said that they gave. Here's what's interesting.
It said that they gave out of severe affliction. And extreme poverty. Isn't that wild? Here's what I think of when I think about that. Some of the most poorest people are some of the most generous people on Earth.
Like, that's what blows my mind because it should be flopped, right? Like, why is that true? But it's because those who realize that everything that we have here doesn't matter.
So let me just say this. Giving, I know we don't like to talk about it or whatever, but it's something all of us are commanded to do. And there's a warning attached to it. Don't give so everybody can see it so that you can get the pats on the back and the claps and stuff like that. Note, give so that one day when you get in heaven, there's more people in heaven as a result of that. Wouldn't you be more happy about that than just say, wow, I spent a whole lot of money on a house that I didn't need. Or I spent a whole lot of money on whatever, on a trip and all this kind of stuff.
And those things are important and they need their place. I don't want you to hear me wrong. I'm not harping on anything. But here's what I'm saying is in heaven, there's an eternal reward that awaits for that biblical giving. It's when we use our money for God and for the glory of God. Can you bow your heads with me? I know when we talk about giving, nobody's looking around, heads bowed, hearts lifted in prayer. I know when we talk about giving, like this isn't like people get nervous to respond because they're going to think everybody around them is judging them. Here's what I want you to know. If you're worried about that, listen, don't worry about the Pharisee sitting next to you. OK, listen, Jesus would say they're a hypocrite. Don't worry about them. Hey, listen, we may do business with God here in this moment.
Don't worry about what everybody's thinking. But when we think about that question, what does our bank account say about us? Like, what does it say we value? For some of us, we don't give and we need to like we need to start. Maybe that's your next step today. Never given. You're like, I'm going to give. Don't worry about how much.
Right. Don't worry about that. Just just be consistent when you do it. Be private about it. Like, don't make it about where everybody can see you. Stuff like that. If nobody else knows. Listen, that's OK. There's a reward and there's a father that we get to serve who gave his life for you.
He's the one who sees you in secret when nobody else sees it. For some of you, the next step is you need to start giving. For some of you could be perhaps like, man, God has blessed you with an abundance and your next step is, man, I need I need to start giving more to the church. I need to start giving more so that they can see their mission go forward. I need to give more to missions so that we can send more people around the world to share the gospel. I need to give more to those who are in need, those who are poor in our community. Like all when we think about giving like for us, some of us, God's blessed us with so much. Why are we accumulating? That doesn't mean we just get to go out and spend more on this life.
No, he's saying, hey, maybe we should give more for that eternal investment that we get in heaven. Would you all stand with me? Heads bowed, hearts lifted in prayer. I'm just going to pray for you.
I don't know where everybody's at today. I just want to pray this altar is going to be open or you pray right where you are. But, Father, Lord, I pray, God, for every one of us that we can we can be people that are about your kingdom. Not about this kingdom, but about your kingdom that we would be generous people. God, because you've been generous with us. And so for every heart in this place today, I don't know where they are.
I don't know what their hearts are carrying. God, I pray that today we can all leave here and that we can be generous people, that our church would be generous, not so that people will say, wow, look at that church or give us claps. But, Father, so that more people can be in heaven one day as a result of it and that we can give you glory through our giving. Bless in this invitation time, for it's in your name. Listen as the music plays. If God speaks to you, this altar is open. Or if you want to pray right where you are, nobody's looking around. If you're in here today and you don't know Jesus as your savior, let me just say this. That's the first step. That's your next step. Come find one of us. We'd love to show you from scripture how you can leave here without a shadow of a doubt, knowing that you're going to be in heaven with Jesus one day.
