“Delightful Giving” – FBC Morning Light (2/8/2024)

Well, good Thursday morning to you. Today in our Bible reading we're in Exodus chapters 33 through 36, and before we look at a particular passage in Exodus 35, I want to just share some statistics with you, okay?

This is a list of some things I came across the other day. It says tithers, those who tithe to the church, make up only 10 to 25 of a normal congregation. You ever heard of that Pareto's rule, where 20 of people do 80 of the work?

Well, this one seems to indicate that 20 or fewer of the people give 80 of the income to a local church. Well, anyway, it goes on to say, here's another statistic, only 5 of people tithe, and 80 of Americans only give 2 of their income.

Another statistic, Christians are giving at 2 .5 of income today. During the Great Depression, it was 3 .3%. That's interesting. Only 3 to 5 of Americans who give to their local church do so through regular tithing.

For families making $75 ,000 or more per year, 1 of them gave at least 10 in tithing. The average giving by adults who attend US Protestant churches is about $17 a week. 37 of regular church attendees and evangelicals don't give money to church at all, and 17 of American families have reduced the amount that they give to their local church, and 7 of church goers have dropped regular giving by 20 or more.

Well, this is an interesting statistic, and I wanted to share those because they are a dramatic contrast to what we read in Exodus chapter 35. And here's what we read. It says in Exodus 35 verse 20, that all the congregation of the children of Israel departed from the presence of Moses.

Then everyone came whose heart was stirred, and everyone whose spirit was willing, and they brought the Lord's offering for the work of the tabernacle of meeting, for all its service, and for all the holy garments.

They came, both men and women, as many as had a willing heart, and brought earrings and nose rings, rings and necklaces, all jewelry of gold, that is, every man who made an offering of gold to the Lord.

And every man with whom was found blue, purple, and scarlet thread, fine linen and goat's hair, red skins of rams and badger skins, brought them. Everyone who offered an offering of silver or bronze brought it, the Lord's offering, and everyone with whom was found acacia wood for any work of the service brought it.

All the women who were gifted, artisans, spun yarn with their hands and brought what they had spun of blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen, and all the women whose hearts stirred with wisdom spun yarn of goat's hair.

The rulers brought onyx stones and the stones to be set in the ephod and the breastplate, we talked about those yesterday, and spices and oil for the light, for the anointing oil, and for the sweet incense.

The children of Israel, verse 29, brought a freewill offering to the Lord, all the men and women whose hearts were willing to bring material for all kinds of work which the Lord, by the hand of Moses, had commanded to be done.

Well, you know, a couple of different places it speaks of those who came with a willing heart, as many as had a willing heart gave. Now, that kind of indicates that there were some who didn't have a willing heart and therefore didn't give.

But what I want us to get is not only the spirit of the giving, but the generosity and the abundance of it. Because we read in chapter 36 that those who were going to do all the work with these products, these gifts, it says the craftsmen came, who were doing all the work of the sanctuary, came and they spoke to Moses saying, the people bring much more than enough for the service of the work which the Lord commanded us to do.

Tell them to stop! This is way more than we need. Oh, what a problem that would be in the local church in the United States, the prosperous United States of America, if the average church member of a Bible-believing church, people who really loved God, claimed to love God and his people and his church, had the kind of heart that said, I will give all that I can, and did so just abundantly, to the point where the coffers are overflowing and the church is then looking for places to invest that money in missions and so on and so forth, because there's just so much abundance, they don't know what to do with it all.

I've never been in that kind of a situation, and don't know that I ever will, and the purpose of this little devotional today is not to pressure anybody into giving, that's certainly not the point. It's to get us to examine our hearts, to get us to ask ourselves, in the first place, do I give?

Do I give to my local church? I think we all ought to. The second question is, why? Do I do so because I want to? Because I really want to give to the Lord and to his work and to see it prosper and grow?

Why do I give? And when I give, whether it's online giving or giving in the offering plate, the offering box at our church, we have an offering box, when I give, is it because I really want to? Am I giving with a joyful, generous heart?

Well, I trust that's you, and I trust the Lord will certainly bless you for having that kind of heart in your giving. So our Father and our God, I pray today that you would indeed challenge us with the manner in which we give, the heart with which we give, and we pray that you would bless as we give generously from a willing heart.

We pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well listen, I hope you have a good rest of your Thursday, and by the way, if you're feeling generous after that, there's a little button where you can donate to the work of the ministry and the work of the Morning Light Devotionals.

If you're so led, God bless you in doing so. If not, that's give to your church, give to your church. God bless.