Dr. Rodney Plunket

Three tightwads went late to a church service.  They went late on purpose, in order to avoid the offering.  To their dismay, they learned that the offering was to be taken up at the end of the service on that Sunday.  But they solved the problem.  One fainted, and the other two carried him out.

To avoid giving to the work of the Lord’s church will not negate the purposes of God.  Nothing can stand in the way of God’s will.  God will accomplish God’s goals with or without us.  God used Pharaoh in spite of the fact that Pharaoh had no desire to be used.  The Roman governor, Pilate, was the same––an ignorant and unwilling tool in the hands of God.

But God does not want people to be used that way.  What God wants is for us to be in loving relationship with God, a relationship in which we become so one together with God that God’s will is our will.

Giving to the purposes and work of God is a way of becoming one with God.  It is a way of saying to God that we love God and love God’s will for us and for the world.  Giving is an act of worship, a means of reverentially bowing before the Father and saying, “Not my will but thine be done.”  A person who loves God with his or her heart, soul, mind and strength hungers to be at one with God’s will, lives to be caught up in the dynamic and transformative purpose of God.  One way we are joined to that will and purpose is by generously giving in support of that purpose.

But generous giving is also a way of confessing our faith.  It is a way of saying, “I know the Father will provide.”  When a person is in debt, the tendency is to give less to the work of the Lord.  I have come to realize that such behavior is faithless and even backwards.  If we believe that God richly provides and loves to bless those who commit themselves to God’s purposes and will––if we believe that, then we will give at least 10% even when we are pinched financially.  We will do that because we trust in God’s power to provide, to provide richly.

Remember our Scripture reading.  In it Jesus said, “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  We must put God first.  We must put God first in everything.  And we must put God first by giving generously to God’s work in the world.  By putting God first we keep the damning sin of materialism from crushing the faith out of us.

I want you to think back to the book of Exodus.  In Ex 16 the people of Israel are tested.  In fact, there are a couple of tests reported in that passage; and both of them relate to the gift of bread from God, the bread that the people called “manna.”  I want us to focus upon the first of those tests.  After the people’s initial reception of the manna, Moses told them to throw out, at the end of the day, any that was leftover.  Think about it.  You’re in the desert.  You have found nothing in this desert to eat.  Then finally something happens that has never hap­pened before.  A mysterious bread-like substance appears on the ground with the morning dew.  You are allowed to gather a generous amount, about 2.3 liters per person.  Imagine a container about 15% larger than a two-liter cold drink bottle.  Imagine that container filled with bread, and imagine that, if you have a family of four, you have four of those containers filled with bread.  It is not hard to realize that, at the end of the day, many households would have had some left over.  Moses told these people, who have so recently been afraid of starving, that they were to throw away that perfectly good bread.  Surely, we all realize that in the desert a person normally does not throw away any edible provisions.  This is a test.  It is a test to determine if the people believe that God is able to provide more manna on the following day.  It is a test to determine if the mighty acts of God which the people have seen have indeed created faith within this people, a faith which trusts God to richly provide.  Many of the Israelites did not have that kind of faith.  They keep their leftover manna and woke up the next morning to find a worm-filled mess where their manna used to be.

I wonder how many worm-filled messes we have in our lives because we have never learned that God richly provides, because we have never learned to trust in God rather than in our efforts or our possessions.  When we refuse to give generously to matters that matter to God and when we become too attached to our attachments, we show where our faith is.  Brothers and sisters, our attitude to our wealth must be based upon the fact that the God who feeds “the birds of the air” can feed us and the God who “clothes the grass of the field” can clothe us.  God richly provides.  God will bless us if we will focus our faith on God and not on our wealth nor any other thing or things in this world.

Our nation is so focused upon possessions and bank accounts.  We must reveal a very different focus.  We must develop a Christian attitude to our wealth.  I do not think that we can do that until we learn to give generously of our wealth to the work of God in this world.

There is no one at Broadway who preaches the Good News of the joy of giving any more passionately than Jay Wischkaemper.  He also practices that Good News in his life.  I want Jay to come to the microphone now to share his testimony of the way that consistent, generous giving is a rich blessing to him which demonstrates that God richly provides.

In Luke 6:38, Jesus says, “give, and it will be given to you.  A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”  Jesus’ picture of a good measure running over into our laps makes clear that if we give generously according to our abilities and standards, then God will give generously according to God’s ability and standards; and God’s storehouse has unlimited resources and God’s standards of generosity are apparent in the infinite universe which God has created.  God may not always respond to us with monetary recompense.  Much of the blessing, I believe, is more valuable than that.  Much of the blessing is in our hearts, souls, and minds––our inner selves.  But, like Jay, my experience is that God will also bless us financially if we will give generously and consistently to God.

God richly provides.  God richly provides.  Let’s give to God because God richly provides.

God is indeed a “Father of Mercies.”  God’s gifts are indeed

“strewn upon [our] way

Like sands upon a great sea shore.”

We look around and see blessings that “Proclaim to all [God’s] constant care, . . .”  If we “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness” that will demonstrate itself in consistent and generous giving.  And when we “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness” God promises that all the real requirements of life “will be given to [us] as well.”

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