This is Living: Born to Give

When was the last time you examined your heart's posture and those things you attach value to? Like velcro, are your heart hooks attaching to something? Can that thing be trusted?!

Message Notes 29/09/2024 - Gareth Nicholson

Catch Up Links: YouTube  || Spotify  || iTunes

Jesus says that our hearts attach like velcro to those things that we treasure most:

God or money (mammon):

1/ Instability

• Mammon: subtle, attractive, promises that under-deliver and are unstable 

• Proverbs 23:4 "Do not wear yourself out to get rich; do not trust your own cleverness. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle." 

2/ Idolatry

• Our thoughts, our desires, and our behaviors that we worship and that we think will deliver significance and security.

• We are always giving worth to something. If it’s not God, it's idolatry. 

• "An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, “If I have that, then I’ll feel my life has meaning, then I’ll know I have value, then I’ll feel significant and secure.” There are many ways to describe that kind of relationship to something, but perhaps the best one is worship." Tim Keller

  
  

3/ Impact

• More focus on mammon = less focus on God - Kingdom impact reduced

• Jesus says this is the greatest hindrance and the greatest opportunity.

  
  

Truths: 

1/ Your spiritual life is directly connected to how you manage your money

2/ The Kingdom is about freeing your heart from idolatry, anxiety and fear and filling it with joy and neither poverty nor prosperity 

3/ Generosity is shifting your heart from mammon to God. 

4/ Generosity is worship in direct opposition to self preservation where our money will flow to that which is our god! Luke 11:39-42: "41 But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you."

5/ Focus on radical generosity when tithing but with the right heart!

About tithing:

• Written into the legal code to shape the hearts:

  • מַעֲשֵׂר Hb - ma‘ăśêr;  Means "tenth

• Some advocates are for and against tithing

• 10% to be given to the church (storehouse)

• <3% actually tithe (Barna research)

What is clear:

1/ Generosity is an invitation beyond a tithing obligation

2/ Giving should be first to the Lord  (2 Cor 8:5, 2 Cor 9:12)

3/ Giving should be motivated by love (1 Cor 13:3)

4/ Give to those in need, intentionally (2 Cor 8:4; 9:2)

5/ Give to support the church  (1 Cor 9:1-14, 2 Cor 8:13–14; 2 Cor 9:12)

6/ Giving is for every believer (1 Cor 16:2; Rom 1:20–21)

7/ Give proactively, voluntary, willingly  cheerfully  (1 Cor 16:2,  2 Cor 9:7, 2 Cor 8,9, Matt 19:16–21, 2 Cor 8:4)

8/ Give sacrificially and generously  (2 Cor 8:2–3, 13; Phil 4:17–18, Mark 12:42–44)

9/ Give regularly, proportionately (1 Cor 16:2. 2 Cor 8:12)

10/ Giving should not land you in debt (2 Cor 8:13)

11/ Giving must be stewarded well  (2 Cor 8:20–21)

Kingdom perspective and heart posture on tithing: 

• Give first to the Lord

• Support the church

• Give to those in need

• 10% is probably on the low side

What giving does (the GIFT of giving)

• GROW: Helps you grow in righteousness (2 Cor 9:6, 9–10), Produces Spiritual growth (2 Cor 9:6,8)

• IMPACT: Impacts others - produces edification and thanksgiving to God  (2 Cor 9:13)

• FREEDOM: Frees your heart from addiction to stuff/mammon (Matt 6) Salvation not just from sin but from stuff!

• TRANSCENDANT: Involves you in what God is up to in the world- a bigger story

Where to start: Head / Heart / Hands 

1/ Start where you are: quit giving excuses and see how you can steward God's gifts 

2/  Create a strategic approach to giving 

3/ Give secretly

4/  Give spontaneously 

Following Jesus means becoming like Jesus! He modeled contentment of consumerism. 

True apprenticeship must be shown in economic change.   

Perspective: 3 systems:

1. Capitalism - all mine

2. Socialism / Communism - all ours

3. Kingdom - all His

May we be a community that excels in generosity so that salvation may come to many!

1 May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us—

2 so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. Psalms 67:1-2

Be liberated from the grip of mammon by excelling in generosity as an act of grace

2 Cor 8:7

Learn more

Books:

Fields of Gold by Andy Stanley

Tithing  by  R.T. Kendall

The Blessed Life by Robert Morris

You Mean I Don’t Have to Tithe?: A Deconstruction of Tithing and a Reconstruction of Post-Tithe Giving By David A. Croteau

Podcasts:

Becoming People of Generosity https://bridgetown.church/teachings-vision-series-2019/becoming-people-of-generosity

Leverage Money – Jon Tyson  https://open.spotify.com/episode/4kSwOJoHK45hYtdTyuTwg3