19 - Lesson 10: Stewardship (Use of Money and Attitude of Giving), Part 2

Well, welcome to the Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Discipleship. This is our class on an introduction to discipling. In this class we are trying to go through some techniques and helpful things to train really focused on new believers, but we are trying to help you as you learn to disciple other people.

We're going through a book called Growing in Grace. It's something that you can get from our website down there. Order some multiple copies, go to our store and pick up some copies of that and you will be able to follow along.

It's also something you can get extra copies using maybe homeschooling, maybe in your church in which you have some new believers that you look to disciple that you could, or even people that have been in church for a long time but don't really know the scriptures well.

I know there's some that are like that. But as we go through this lesson we're hoping that you will learn to fulfill the Great Commission. We are all commanded to make disciples and that's what we're looking to do is to help you be a better disciple maker.

We want you to learn to make disciples better. And that's the goal of this class that we're taking. We have been going through this book and we are this week in lesson number 10. This is a continuation on our stewardship, which is our offering to the Lord, which I know that means we're talking about money.

Those preachers are not supposed to talk about money, right? Because there's all those people on TV that are always asking for your money and this has actually caused a problem. We've actually gotten to a point where within many circles in Christianity it's like this one thing that pastors at churches are not supposed to speak at.

No one's supposed to discuss money. And yet the scripture has a lot to say on our attitude toward money and our procurement of money and our use of money. And we're going to be looking at those in this lesson.

This is part two, which means we already looked at some of this in the previous lesson. In the last lesson we looked at our attitude toward money. We discussed why our attitude toward money is important to God, why it should be important, our attitude is important about money, what shouldn't be our attitude toward money.

We talked about the procurement of money. How do we obtain it? Well there's an improper and a proper way. We know that there's many who use Christianity to profit. Call it what it is, that's what they do.

They're looking to sell books. They even use their churches to buy their own books so that they can be on the New York Times bestseller list. Things like that which wouldn't be the right focus on money.

Scripture talks about that. But we shouldn't go so far one way to alienate the other. You know it's an interesting thing that we find people who, well we find that people get upset if you talk about money as if it's like one thing in Christianity you're not supposed to do.

And I find it interesting, we actually had someone this week that said how dare we in these free classes mention that you can go to that website and buy the syllabus. The argument was you should just give the syllabus away and just trust God to provide it.

In other words, as if we don't have the faith somehow because we actually are saying hey can you cover the cost for the products that we ship to you. Amazing how people are like that. My challenge to the person was do you do that at your job?

Your secular job. Do you go into your boss and say hey you don't have to pay me anything. Whatever you think is fair pay me. I won't take a dime. I'm going to trust the Lord. Or do you actually go in and expect them to pay you for your work?

And furthermore do you demand it when you want promotions and things. I don't know. This gentleman who argued with us said that's exactly what he does and I said well hey let's ask for his boss's number and ask him.

We haven't gotten that yet did we? No. Because he probably doesn't do that at his secular job. And that's the reality. We hold the Christians to a standard and yet the argument is made in Scripture that we should pay people who minister on our behalf.

Paul says you should pay them a double honor. Not just the honor to pay your pastor of giving him the respect due him but you pay him so he can feed his family. And it is a thing unfortunately within Christianity we've gotten to with a view of money as almost as if it's like people feel that if it's a Christian you can rip them off.

We're working with a Christian radio station, an online radio station, and they were like feeling bad. Well you know if you want to pay us less we can work something out. I said why? Why shouldn't we as Christians pay the most that we can afford to help you with your radio station and us with our programming?

We shouldn't take the less of the two. We should take what you are asking for air time. And yet as Christians that's exactly what we tend to do. We figure hey since you're a Christian will you cut me a break?

What's that really saying? Hey I'm really not interested in you I'm interested in me and I want my money for me not you. Hmm doesn't sound like the gospel does it? No we should be willing to help other Christian brothers and sisters.

Interesting thing of view of money that I've always found interesting was when John Calvin no no don't go all crazy you people who are anti-Calvinists hey we're not talking Calvinism here John Calvin was a man of God who did a lot of good things all right.

But one of the things when he went to Geneva Geneva invited Calvin because they were like a cesspool I mean they said we got to do something our city's bad and they said let's get this reformation going here in this in this city.

It's been all over Europe and it's doing well there let's let's get it here so they invite Calvin in and they loved having Calvin for like a year or two until he started preaching like the gospel and they're like we don't want this we want the benefits but we want we don't want that and they kicked him out and then he got invited back in like a couple years later and he picked up again he would preach I think one message every day he would he's preaching nightly he was visiting people he was discipling people and what happened was people not only were getting saved but through the discipleship they were seeing the need to care for one another.

People who had no job started looking to be hardworking so they could take care of the poor because they saw that they had a need to take care of others. And what you ended up having is that Geneva turned around into really being an economic center because of the gospel.

People started wanting to learn to read because they wanted to read the Bible. People wanted to work so they could care for others. It was because of a proper attitude toward money. We have gotten away from that to where we think it's okay to rip other Christians off if we can to save ourself some money.

If you're upset for me for saying that maybe I just described you sorry but we need to be have a right attitude toward money. And as we're going to talk about this class the use of money so we are in number three there of our in our book here the use of money.

So the first thing that we see in our book is that we are to honor God. Those are your blanks there honor God. We are to honor God with the use of our money. Proverbs again we said much of this is we're going to see in the book of Proverbs.

And so here we see in Proverbs 1431 whoever oppresses a poor man insults his maker but whoever is generous to the needy honors him. So we need to be honoring God with our use of money. And we should be taking care of the poor not trying to oppress them.

We should be using our money in a way that honors God. Now this is something that is such a kind of a faux pas in our culture that I know some people who had who will argue because I do tend to be generous and I'm not trying to brag.

It's just that I want to encourage others to be the same way. And it's interesting because I had someone that told me that I'm prideful because I openly will share that I've shared money with complete strangers at times and sometimes I'll say I bought someone coffee or a hamburger or gave them $10 or $5 or $20 and people go you're being prideful.

You shouldn't let the right hand know what the left hand is doing. Okay. Stop taking that verse out of its context. Because that doesn't talk about me giving money to poor people. It has to do with people in a church letting everyone know how much they give so that they can receive the accolades.

Hey hey hey I just gave this much. Let me hear it. Let me hear it. Let's hear the praises. That's the difference. There's a difference there. I'm not giving money to have praises. And when I share stories of giving money I'm not doing it to hear praises either.

I do it to encourage others to realize hey that's an idea I could do I could go buy someone coffee for an opportunity to share the gospel with them. And it's interesting our culture where we think that if we share things like that somehow we're dishonoring God.

Why. What verse says that. So the use of our money should first and foremost honor God. Because as we said in the title of this lesson it's stewardship. God has given us money as a stewardship. It's His money and we are stewards of it.

We're managers of it. And you and I are going to give an account for how we use our money. Now when you're dealing with a new believer they may have real issues. I mean they may have big time debt problems.

And you may need to help in this lesson to help them understand that one of the uses of money one of the ways we honor God is to not be in debt now. I understand in our culture houses and mortgages are you know it's so astronomical.

You almost have to be in debt in some form. College bills. Yeah tell me about it. I'm dealing with that with two yikes. That's more than my mortgage. But the you know you have those things where you may have to take loans.

And it's not that loans are bad but you have credit card bills because you bought more things than you really could afford. Those are areas you might need to help counsel the person you're discipling.

Say you know you might need to buy less. You don't need the latest toy. You don't need the latest gadget you can get by pay off those bills. And maybe there's ways of consolidating bills. You may have to deal with things like that with when you're at this lesson because sometimes you're dealing with people that have have lived a long time in a messed up way of spending of money and so you have to help them.

So we are to honor God. Letter B. We are to take care of that which we have in Proverbs 27 23 know well the condition of your flocks and give attention to your herds. We should know well the condition.

We should know what we have we should take care of it. We shouldn't overextend ourselves. We shouldn't go looking to buy things just because we want to have the latest thing. So we want to be careful with that.

Letter C. As stewards we are to be faithful. That's your blank there. Faithful in 2nd Corinthians. I'm sorry 1st Corinthians 4 2. Moreover it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. We have to be faithful with that which God has given to us.

Remember the money is not our money. It's God's money. Letter D. If a man does not work he should not eat. He should not eat. That's your blank there. Let's look at this one in 2nd Thessalonians 310. And I want to explain some context on this one.

For even when we were with you we would give you this command. If if anyone does is not willing to work let him not eat. Now notice that it says if he's not willing to work it's not that someone lost their job.

This isn't saying that if you're on unemployment somehow you the church shouldn't take care of you shouldn't help you. It's a willingness. That's the idea here is the person willing or unwilling to work.

There are some people who are unwilling to work now in the context that Paul is dealing with he's dealing with people who thought the Lord's coming was soon and they basically had the attitude of hey I'm gonna be lazy I'm not gonna work.

I'm gonna trust others who are gonna provide for me. I'll let the church take care of my needs. I'm being spiritual I'm taking care of the things of the Lord and I'll rest on others now. It doesn't mean we shouldn't donate to like missionaries and to people who are serving full-time in church and in missions in ministry those things are good.

But this is people who are unwilling to work and it says that you should you know actually what I think Paul saying is if you have someone that's unwilling to work and you're taking care of their needs you're actually enabling them in bad behavior.

If they're unwilling to work to take care of their own needs then we shouldn't be providing for their needs because it's enabling them in their laziness and their bad behavior. It's not honoring to God.

Now there are people who we have seen this in church or people who come into churches and they look to take advantage of other Christians. They always have a sob story. Oh this and that's wrong and this I just need money for this.

I just had this uh in church this week where someone was was you know being that I know the individual this person is irresponsible. He's trying to run a business and he is an irresponsible. He just doesn't take care of things and he's trying to get people to help him.

Oh would you just help. I'm I'm behind in bills and I can't pay the rent and this and that. And the reality is he can't pay the rent and do these things because he was irresponsible and he wasn't being a good steward.

There's a big difference there and then giving him money. What that does is he just continues in bad behavior. It doesn't get him to learn. For some people to learn the lesson some people will learn the lesson but for some people it just then they just if you won't give money they move on to someone else to look to to get the money.

And really they learn to be uh to to live off the goodness of others instead of actually working. And that's the idea there. It doesn't mean that you can't be on welfare. It doesn't mean and I'm not saying that that I agree or disagree with welfare.

I'm just saying that that verse is not dealing with that. Okay we have done it now could be the principle could apply if someone refuses to work uh but there is a proper case for welfare or a deacon's fund in your church which I think would be more biblical or widow's fund or things like that uh in your church.

But you see it's it's dealing with the willingness of the heart. Are you willing to work or you. Hey dude you know I want I want others to pay for my way all. Right. Let's take a look at uh first Thessalonians 4 11 and 12 and see to give two reasons why a Christian should work especially in verse 12 it says there and to aspire to live quietly and mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we instructed you so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

So notice there's two things one walk properly and two is lack nothing or depend on no one. In other words the one reason and this is what happened with John Calvin in in Geneva is people would read verses like this and say you know we we got to be hard working so we're not dependent on the city of Geneva to pay our bills.

This is actually what's what's causing great problems in Europe right now is that they have this huge welfare system and they have people that are coming in uh in in droves many Muslims who are living off the welfare system having many children and by that they're being paid by the by the few that are working and it's actually going to topple the government where eventually uh well Islam will take over.

But what you have when you have a huge welfare system is it becomes an unsupportable system because people end up living off the system and it causes a collapse eventually of an economy. We should not be that way as Christians we should not be dependent on the government now.

It doesn't mean that there's not needs you lose your job and you get unemployment. I understand that that's different than a willingness that's different than someone that's mindfully saying I'm going to take advantage of the system.

Okay there's a difference there and so we should be walking properly. This is talks about our use of money. Now we finish with the use of money. Now we get into that that difficult one the one that so many people want to avoid and that is our giving of money the giving of money.

And here we want to say that while many people do abuse this teaching of scripture it is clear that Christians are to be supporting their local church first. Let me say that again. So that's clear support your local church first and then other ministries.

I work full-time here for striving for eternity as a ministry. And I am telling you that I would rather not receive your giving if you're not giving to your church first. Your church is your first priority they say.

But but uh Andrew I don't have a church. Well okay I do. We do have people that will donate to us in lieu of a church while they're looking for a church. That's that's fine. Um but if you want to donate to a ministry like ours do it after God has blessed you give to your church first and then with the abundance give to other ministries like ours and like many others.

But your first priority I think should be for your local church. And you say well wait a minute how does that help you. Well it doesn't. I mean that's why we struggle. I understand and really I wish there wasn't a need for parachurch organizations like ours.

If I think if the churches across America and the world were actually doing the job of discipleship there wouldn't be a need for striving for eternity. I would love for the churches to put us out of business because they're all doing the job that we're called to do.

But until that happens we are here to help train people like you to influence your church so that your church would be discipling and training and doing their own materials so that there's no more need for us.

And then you'd be supporting your church. But I really feel strongly that we should be supporting the local church. I know there's many people who do not support their church even though they've been in church for years and give to other ministries.

That's not good. Your church shouldn't be struggling. I knew of a church that was financially struggling to a point where they were real close to closing the doors of the building because they could not afford their bills.

Their pastor was bivocational not because he wanted to be but because the church could not afford to pay him what it would take to live. And so he had to find work outside of the church. And meanwhile there were individuals in the church that were supporting other ministries in the tens of thousands of dollars a year now you say well why do they have to give to their local church.

Well that should be the where they're getting the primary discipleship and the primary teaching. And I understand that our culture has changed. And yes you can listen to your pastor once a week on a Sunday and listen to someone on the radio five times a week.

So really you're more inclined to give to that person who's really pouring into your life through the airwaves but he's not really pouring into your life. If you're not getting enough of your pastor's time in in discipleship then maybe you need to go visit your pastor more get more of his sermons and play those in the car instead build bible studies in your church.

You know work with your pastor or get more discipleship going in your church. All right. So that's all just my pet peeve. Sorry. Little tangent for you. I know sorry. Um but but what we want to do is you know I want to encourage you.

We need to be about the business of the local church first. All right. And I say that knowing that if that means that some can't give to to our ministry God will take care of us. And if we need to we'll close the doors.

I mean we barely make ends meet anyway. Um and don't think that even though I work full-time for the ministry I don't get paid much. Trust me. Um so the uh the thing is we need to first look letter a in your in your book the place for giving now in the new testament giving uh was always in relationship to the local church.

If you look in uh acts and first corinthians they talk about the most. But in acts 4 32 to 37 where was the giving. It was in the church of jerusalem. In acts 11 26 to 30 where was the giving for paul and barnbus to go off on their mission trip the church of antioch.

In first corinthians 16 verse 1 it mentions the giving of the church of galatia. In verses 3 to 4 it talks about the church of corinth and their giving. In first corinthians 8 1 to 5 it talks about the church of uh messa.

Uh why mesopotamia. That wasn't it. I don't know i'm just from memory. Okay i'm getting grief uh from messadonia. And then in philippians 4 15 and 16 we see the giving of the church of philippi. Did you notice something in all six of those church of church of church of church in church of church of right.

So there were churches in the first in the new testament the first century we see giving was always part of the church. It wasn't that they gave to parachurch ministries and say well andrew hey hey hold on.

They didn't have parachurch ministries back then. Right. I wish we didn't have them now either. The reason that parachurch ministries like striving for eternity have sprung up is because the fact that the church has failed to do the job it should be doing.

And instead of letting christians flounder ministries rise up now what you end up seeing is that most parachurch ministries are very focused. They just do evangelism or they just do apologetics or they just focus on on your stewardship with money or they just focus on family or they just focus on parenting or they just focus on print as prison minister or this or that everything's kind of compartmentalized.

And what's different with striving fraternity is we're trying to bring those things together. That's what discipleship is. And we're trying to say you know what we need to be doing all those things. We need to be good stewards of all of our talents and gifts and resources that god has given us.

And we need to be teaching others that is the function of the church. That's really what the church should be doing. And the rise of parachurch organizations are really only because the church isn't really doing its job unfortunately.

So my challenge to you in churches is to stand up rise up be disciple makers disciple people in your church work with your church pastors to develop a type of church that doesn't need parachurch organizations.

Now i understand not every church is big enough where they can have their own you know pro-life ministry. I know some churches that do it's a pro-life ministry as part of a church. Not everyone's going to be that big.

Not everyone's going to have that focus. Not every church is going to have their own christian bookstore or uh you know facility to produce uh materials for other churches you know whatever. Or for their own church maybe.

But some churches can and so there's probably always going to be small parachurch organizations like ours around. I just wish we didn't just saying um so so a reason for giving so we talked about the place for giving is is the church all right.

The reason for giving that we see is notice that in the texts that the use of finances as they related to the local church all right. So what do we have in first corinthians 9 13 and 14. Also in first timothy 5 17 and 18 which is the one i referred to earlier with paul saying that pastors should be supported.

So the support of pastoral staff uh acts six was about that that you know your your leaders your your pastors shouldn't have to go waiting on table shouldn't be getting a second job so that they can make ends meet.

Uh they they should be supported by the church all right. Um and you know pastors should be taken care of now. There's times where men like paul were tent makers as i am so that the i don't require as much from the ministry and that's why we can afford things at such prices where we're barely making money off of all of our products.

The reason we can do that is because we don't require much because basically i don't get paid much. Why. Because i am a tent maker now. Does that affect the amount of work we could do as a ministry. Sure it does.

Many people require much more sleep than i do and i god has designed me in such a way where i can do more than i guess most people because i don't sleep much and i'm very high energy. Just ask my wife.

My wife's always saying that she's waiting till like i'm 80 so that i'll slow down but i remind her that when i'm 80 she's still 25 and uh we'll have same. Oh wait. No no my wife will never be 80. She's always going to be 25.

Actually if you see my wife she always looks like she's 25 so she could pass for it even though there's no way i'll pass for. Like you know people always think i'm wow and i don't even have the gray hair.

Really. So uh so we should be supporting our pastoral staff. They and and i don't mean by supporting them. So they just barely make ends meet. You should take care of your pastors. It's a shame that so many churches where they have people that are willing to try to make money at their secular jobs and get promotions and do what they have to do to make more money.

But then they want the pastor to make as little as possible. And and it's like the pastor somehow should just barely make ends meet. That's not being good stewards to your pastor just saying uh acts 432 to 36.

Uh we see them. Another reason for giving is so the church can help those in need. Many churches have a deacon's fund to help the needy. Some churches have food pantries things like that clothing cottages to be able to provide for those in need.

Philippians 4 15 and 16 says for missionary support. Paul and barnabas were supported by uh the philippian church. Or at least paul was uh in their missionary journeys. Uh you. Another reason for giving is for the overall ministry of the church.

So church can function as the church and the church can do the things that the church needs to do. Letter c. So we talked about the place for giving the church. We talked about some reasons for giving.

Now the method for giving. What's the method provided for giving. Well let us look here at first corinthians um 16 1 to 4 because this is going to give us kind of a an idea it says now concerning the collection for the saints as i am directed the churches of galatia.

So you also are to be are to do on the first day of every week each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper so that there will be no collecting when i come and when i arrive i will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to jerusalem.

If it seems advisable that i should also go also they will accompany me. So let's not rip this out of its context. He's dealing with giving that was specifically for the church in jerusalem that was struggling there with some persecution going on.

Um there's some different reasons that people have. Why is he saying hey i don't want to collect when i'm there. You know one thing maybe that paul realizes when he's there and asking for a collection.

People are going to give. Maybe to impress paul. Maybe because paul's there he wants it to be a heart issue. All right. But there's some things we can learn from this in first corinthians 16 paul is instructing the church at corinth in how to give for special projects not regular giving.

It's special relief fund for the poverty-stricken christians in jerusalem. And so notice the following things though that he does because there are some principles we can see from this one is regular giving.

Do you see that it should be regular giving upon the first day of the week. It should be worshipful giving. It's part of the worship service that first day of the week. The worship service itself is part of includes giving.

So giving of money is actually an act of worship you've ever think of that. But it is. It's an act of worship. It should also be personal giving. Let each one of you give. It's something that we should each be doing and we should each be setting it aside.

Now notice he's i think he's almost saying this is above and beyond what you give to the regular church. This is set it aside and give it each week. And then it should be proportionate giving as god has given you.

Okay. Therefore you give. Some of us can afford to give more. Some of us cannot. When i was lost my job many many many years ago and i was out of work i could not afford to give more money to my local church.

So i gave my time i used to while i was not having interviews and things like that i was meeting with my pastor getting together with him spending time with him helping him around the office. In fact what ended up happening was that was a time that was very precious because it was a time that i was as i would be with him just running errands with him in the office doing filing for him doing whatever he needed.

He was actually discipling me quite a bit. And that's really the time that grew me as a christian. That's where i really matured was that time that i got to spend helping him and he in turn was helping me.

And i didn't quite realize it until years later. But it was where i couldn't give financially. So i gave of my time. But i gave as god gave to me. So even though i was on unemployment and barely making ends meet and not having much food i was still giving to the church whatever money came in.

When money when i had money i gave to the church first before feeding myself because i had a high view that of god and that he would provide and he did provide for me. Um so god does not demand a certain percentage though of of and there's some people that talk about this uh that god has.

You know there's a tithe. I mean we're going to talk about that but god does not demand a percentage of the christian income to possessions. Okay however his word does provide some helpful guidelines.

Okay the minimum that we see anywhere in scripture in the bible is in genesis 14 and just 14 20 and 28 uh 22 where it talks about tithe which is a tenth. So maybe you say okay the minimum is a tenth. Well when people talk about a tithe that we should be tithing i always find it interesting.

They want to talk about a tithe. But there were three or four different tithes. So when you actually look at it about 33 34 of people's giving or people's income went to uh for israel went to a tithe which is a lot more than a tenth.

You had those a tenth that was just for the uh levites and providing for them. A tenth that was given for the temple tax a tenth for the government. And then there were some others that were still sometimes called a tithe even though they were a little bit less.

That was for local towns and things like that. Uh the most we see the maximum we see is in luke 21 one to four which is a hundred percent. That's the widow who gives her last two pennies shall we say two mites.

She gave a hundred percent. Now keep in mind the context there. That's not a lesson in luke 21 on giving. Okay it's actually a lesson on hypocrisy of the jewish people that they would allow a woman who as jewish leaders should have been caring for the widow and instead they're letting her give her last two minnows or the last two pennies shall we say uh the lowest form of of coinage and her last two pennies they're gonna take it instead of providing for her which was their responsibility.

That's really the context was on the the wickedness of the jewish leaders. Um and then what should be our attitude toward giving. Um this is kind of interesting because people uh because there's such an abuse um with giving.

This is something that people often overlook. Let's take a look at this passage. This is uh 2 corinthians 9 6 to 15 a little bit of a longer passage. But we're gonna find many things here about our attitude toward giving.

So the point is this whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. And whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart not reluctantly under compulsion for god loves a cheerful giver.

And god is able to make all grace abound to you. So that having all sufficiency in all things and in all at all times you may abound in every good work as it is written he has distributed freely. He has given to the poor his righteousness endures forever.

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way which through us will produce thanksgiving to god.