Money Matters (part 6)

Our Father in heaven, we are just so thankful as we think about this mild winter that we've had and the blessing it's been to not have snow to deal with and to be able to keep our homes warmer at a little bit less cost and we just praise you for that.

Father, just pray that as we gather here this morning, we'd be mindful of all that you have granted us in Christ Jesus, forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with you and the promise of heaven.

Father, would you just keep us focused on that even as we discuss the seemingly mundane matter of money.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Well, I say mundane. Some of you might think, what's mundane about money?

And well, that's kind of, I guess that would be wrong. It's seemingly mundane, but it's not mundane at all.

Well, let me ask this. I'm going to go slightly out of my outline. How weird.

Without a show of hands, so we'll do a silent poll. How many of you would say that you're in great financial shape?

I see those hands. Okay. I guess what I've talked about as sort of introductory matters, not just the theology, but also the importance of having an emergency fund.

Which for some people, it really does depend on how much money you make because the more you have, the more expensive your problems are.

The less you have, the less expensive they tend to be. But you know what? When an emergency happens, it is very inconvenient.

I don't care how much money you make within certain reasons, parameters.

But an emergency fund, we talked about the importance of getting out of debt. Because credit cards essentially make you a slave.

You are an indentured servant. The Bible says what? That you basically are a slave to the debtor as the slave of the lender.

So there you go. What I haven't talked about, what somebody asked me about,

I got some really good questions by the way. But what someone asked me about, you talk about an emergency fund. You say $500 ,000 or $500 ,000, that's an emergency.

Sign me up for that emergency. If you have a $500 ,000 emergency, feel free to call someone else. $500 to $2 ,000, just sitting there in the bank and some people think, well, that's not a good use of my money.

Yes, it is. Anything that prevents you from charging more is a good use of your money. But beyond that, what should you have?

What would be a good thing to have in the bank? There's a lot of tumult in the employment world right now.

Some people are losing jobs. Some people haven't had jobs for a while. Well, what if you had three to six months' salary sitting in the bank when you lost your job?

It might make things a little bit easier. And that's kind of what we should be aiming for is that sort of cushion so that when things go upside down, and it depends on your line of work.

I mean, I wasn't really too worried when I was the deputy sheriff about getting fired. A couple of close calls.

But they don't lay people off in those kind of positions. But in the real world, and the real world being the business world and everything else, people lose their jobs.

You guys know that. So it's good to have, ideally, here's what you do. You would have an emergency fund and, in addition, we'll talk about this in the weeks to come, although it will be a few weeks before we get back to this because I'll be gone.

But ideally, you have money. We do in our budget. We have money set aside for auto repair.

Okay, so I've said, well, an emergency. What if the car breaks down? Well, you know what? Better yet, you have a dedicated repair fund.

You have a dedicated fund for this, that, and the other thing because all these different items, we budget money for oil every month whether we're paying for it or not.

Why? Because we're going to need it.

And sooner or later, we're going to have to pay the money anyway. So if you budget it, when they say you can sign a contract for this much money, we don't have to go gulp.

Where do we get the money? Kids, you're going to have to, you know, starve at lunch or whatever at school because we've got to scrape up the money for the oil.

We've got the money sitting there. And you say, well, that's a lot of money sitting around. And I'm just like, well, okay.

But the goal is to get to a place where you're not in panic mode all the time. You're not trying to figure out which of the 12 apostles to rob.

And you're good. You're just sound. Money is not the worry. It doesn't mean you're rich.

It just means that you've so structured things that there's no need to worry. And so a good goal would be for, and I'll readily confess we don't have this, to have three months' salary sitting in the bank.

Why? Because if you lose that job, you're going to think, okay, now I've got some time to get a job and not have to worry.

I mean, ideally, it would be even more than that. And then we will get into things like talking about retirement, whether that's a biblical.

By the way, what verse talks about retiring? If you want to retire early, my advice, go to Greece.

Oh, wait, that's wrong. Somebody, where was that anyway?

Oh, yeah, it was Candace Jeffries posted something about that on Facebook. I do monitor

Facebook, by the way. She said something about it. And I just looked,

I saw this article where people in Greece, you know, they're writing and going crazy because I think the average retirement age is like 54, 55 or something like that.

And get this, at that age, you retire at 94 % of your salary, 94%.

I'm like, dude, I'm two years away, you know, 94%.

In Germany, you retire at, of course, you all read the same article

I did, so that's why I'm like, you retire at 66 and you retire at like 60 % of your salary.

And who is paying whose bills? Germany is paying Greece's bills right now. And so, you know, it's the

Greeks who are writing and it's the Germans who will be next. They're like, hey, we're funding it for you guys and you guys are, you know, living on our dime and having a great time.

But there is no biblical verse. That was just a complete aside and apropos of nothing.

All right, so we talked about tithing last time, 10%. And I think it is a good guideline.

It's not necessarily, it's not a commandment. And I want to just quickly stress that again because why do you think that we so glom on to the 10 % figure?

Flo said, we like rules. I think that is so right. We like rules.

We don't want to have to think about it ourselves, wrestle with it ourselves. Just tell me 10 % because then my conscience is clear.

I've mentioned this, not to you guys, but I've said to other people, I want to write a book called, you know,

Becoming a Practicing Catholic or something like that. Only it won't be written to Catholics.

It will be written to Protestants because in our mind, what do we want? We want to know that if we go to church every Sunday, if we pay our 10%, if we get baptized, if we do this, we do that, that we're okay.

That's Catholicism. That's wrong thinking. It says

God loves a joyful giver, not somebody who can drop 10 % on the plate. That's not the point. And I think 10 % is a decent guideline, but for some people it's going to have to be less.

For some people, shame on you if that's all you give. Okay. Now I want to move into another question that I got, and I'm going to kind of blend it in with some of the things that MacArthur said.

But someone asked about the salaries of the pastors. And they asked about it in the sense, you know, how can

I give joyfully, you know, when I think, gee, the pastors get a lot of money.

And, you know, is that the best use of the church's money and kind of if I, how do

I avoid thinking about it as a consumer? Look, when I go into Best Buy and I see a

TV and it's $2 ,000, and I think I don't have $2 ,000 to spend on a TV, but that's neither here nor there.

This is for purposes of illustration. I go to Best Buy and I see a television for $2 ,000. I go home and I look at Amazon .com

and it's $1 ,100. Where do I buy my TV? Best Buy because store loyalty and I get the extra, no.

I get it at Amazon. The problem is when you're talking about, and, you know, if any of this, and it may,

I don't know, I can't really tell because I'm not sitting out there. Some of this may sound self -serving.

I don't want it to be because I'm perfectly content, perfectly content with my salary. So let's just set that aside here for a moment.

And if you don't believe me on that, you can talk to me later. But the idea of getting our money's worth or being consumers or thinking, you know, is that really the best way to use our money or, you know,

I want to give to the Lord's work. I did some thinking about this and I want you to kind of get your mindset this way.

If we give to the Lord, first of all, we're giving to the Lord. But secondly, we do it why?

So that the gospel can go forth. Just if we just took

Pastor Mike's trips to other continents, the gospel has been proclaimed from this church in Africa and in Europe and in Asia.

That's pretty good. And I'm sure at some point we'll be adding South America to it too.

But I digress. So we've got that going on and we've got no compromise radio, which basically costs the church nothing.

And we are heard all over the world there. And we get emails from all over the place too.

And they track where that goes. So I think that's pretty good. But let's look at what the

Bible says here for a moment. Let's look at 1 Timothy 5, verses 17 and 18.

And it says this, And I want to just kind of,

I'll just tell you candidly about how I viewed it before I ever got in the ministry and before I ever thought about getting in the ministry.

This probably won't surprise you, but John MacArthur gets a lot of money. What might surprise you is what he does with his money because a lot of it just goes straight back to Grace U because he doesn't get any money from them.

He gets whatever he gets from the church. He also gets, there's a local car dealership there pretty near the church where the guy is a

Christian. And he gives John MacArthur or the church, however they work it financially, he gives them like a new lease free every year.

You know, come on in, pick whatever you want, drive it. Pretty nice.

But in my mind when I was writing my check and giving at Grace Community Church, I never thought, I wonder how much of this is going to John MacArthur's salary.

I wonder how much he's making. I wonder if the church could do better. In fact, I do remember this, that when the entire staff got raises,

I just heard because I was good friends with one of the guys who was on staff, that they got raises. I was pretty happy about that because they do a lot of work.

And then when the seminary profs got paid what the staff was getting paid, I thought that was outstanding because the seminary guys were woefully underpaid.

And I want to just talk a little bit about what this looks like. I mean I worked for 21 years as a deputy sheriff.

I know what it's like. I have to tell you the truth. One of the best feelings in the world because I never really, some of you are going to think this is a little weird,

I never really was comfortable with being a police officer. And so one of my favorite things to do was to put my uniform back in my locker, close the door and stop being a deputy sheriff.

Now obviously I still had a gun and badge so I was still a deputy sheriff, but I didn't like to just carry around that idea with me that I was a deputy sheriff all the time.

And a lot of you are salaried, meaning like I know Andrew Smith is, a lot of guys these days it's become very popular to put people on salary.

Why? Because then you can work them like indentured servants and not have to pay them any more money. But there's something about being a pastor, these things don't go away.

You can't just, you know, when I go home today and I take off my suit, I don't just get to close the closet door because we don't close the closet door.

But if we did, if I did, I don't get to stop being a pastor just because I've taken off my suit and tie.

It doesn't work like that. And it really is an unusual position.

Emergency phone calls, husband left, someone's in jail, someone died.

We get rumors about complaints, people are upset about this, that or the other thing.

But I want to just talk about a moment about the pressure of the pastorate. You know, we talk about most people last, most men last about five years in the ministry.

That's the average amount of time because they're just done. Let's look at 2

Timothy 2. And we're going to look at the

Iwana verse. But the Iwana verse in context isn't written for little kids.

It's not written for little kids. This is to Paul writing to Timothy, his last letter that he wrote. We think it's his last letter that he wrote.

He's getting old. He's dying. And these are instructions to a pastor.

And he says in 2 Timothy 2 verse 15, Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

Now, the idea of rightly handling is what? Many of you know this. Some of you know this.

To cut straight, thank you. I knew somebody would know. And listen to how the biggest

Greek dictionary describes it. They say that it means to cut a path in a straight direction or cut a road across country that is forested or otherwise difficult to pass through.

So here's the picture. You have things in your path and you're going to flatten everything.

You're going to straighten everything out to make this road straight so that the traveler may go directly to his destination.

So in this context, they say, this would probably mean to guide the word of truth along a straight path like a road that goes straight to its goal without being turned aside by wordy debates or impious talk.

So the idea is that they handle it accurately, that they preach it directly, that they give you the pure, unvarnished word of God.

That's the idea. In 2

Timothy 2 verse 24, it says, And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach.

Which is kind of an interesting translation because able to teach doesn't mean just they have the capacity for teaching.

It means they must be skilled in teaching. They must be good teachers. And Paul's point there in 2

Timothy is that these men are going to be...

I mean, also we can look at James where he says, Let not many of you be teachers. Why? Because you're going to be held to a higher standard.

And this is what he's saying. He's saying handle it accurately. You must be skilled to teach. And then going back to where I was in 1

Timothy 5, the point there is that all elders should be honored, right?

Every single one of them. But those who labor in preaching and teaching should be double honored.

And why? Well, I mean, we know, for example, that Scott and Pradeep have full -time jobs.

They're busy guys. I mean, just trying to get an elders meeting together, it's not easy.

And it's not because I can't adjust my schedule or Mike can't adjust his schedule. Those guys are busy.

Listen to what Simon Kistemacher says. He says, The word labor means to exert oneself physically, mentally, or spiritually, to work hard, to toil, to strive, to struggle.

How many of you, and I know there are several men here this morning who have done this, how many of you have preached a sermon before? Okay. How long does it take to prepare one?

Two minutes? Two weeks? Well, I mean, just in hours, 40 to 50.

I mean, if you've done it enough, you can probably get it down. I think I could probably do it in about 15 to 20, but it takes a long time.

You know, call my house sometime when I'm preaching on a Sunday. Call me on a Friday night or a Saturday and see how quickly

I try to handle your problem. Because it's going to be like, oh yeah, house is burning out.

Okay. Get a big call on another line, you know.

It's hard. I mean, it might look easy. It might seem easy.

I'm sure people think it's easy until you try to do it. I mean, is it easy? Anybody?

Anybody? I mean, if you think it's easy, probably you're in the wrong line of work. You could probably do it. It takes a lot of...

And, you know, here's the trick. And I don't... I'm not even going to pretend to have this wired. But the trick is there's a big leap between knowing what a text means and then knowing how it preaches.

It is... It's a chasm. And if somebody gets up... I remember once in a seminary preaching lab, we were doing these really short sermons.

I don't even remember. They were so short, it was like ridiculous. And the prof said, you know, they have to be exegetical and they have to be like five minutes.

Really? You know. And they have to have an intro and everything like that. And the first guy gets up, or maybe it was the second guy, and he says, you know,

I'm not going to tell you guys anything you don't know. So he gets done after his five minutes.

And the prof says, if you're not going to tell us anything we don't know, don't get up. Right? And I'm like, that's why it's hard.

Because anybody can just read the passage and go, well, this means...

Well, most anybody can do that. You listen to some sermons and you go, well, people apparently can't do that.

But it's harder to say, okay, this is how a particular passage preaches.

And some passages are eminently more preachable than other passages. They're easy ones.

Mike sent me an email the other day. He was like, oh boy, this next passage or this next part, gulp. I'm like, yeah, tell me about it.

I mean, I'm in the part of John where he's gathering his disciples. Oh, that's a barn burner.

You know, I mean, so now everybody's like, oh, we'll just be watching for that one.

It's not easy. And that's just getting a sermon prepared.

You know, then we talk about issues like church discipline, marital counseling, counseling with all kinds of problems, people wanting to leave the church, whatever, the church budget.

I have nothing else to say about that one. New building, two services, people not liking going to the two services.

I just think sometimes people have the wrong idea that, you know, it's like how many housewives do we have here?

How many of you before Oprah went off the air just sat around watching Oprah and eating bonbons all day? You know, that's the idea, right?

Housewife. Sit around, you know, you're a stay -at -home mom. Pshh. Pshh. Easy.

Yeah, Peggy. Well, Peggy's right, and that's where I'm going.

You know, it's how much you value what the pastor does. It's the same with being a stay -at -home mom.

You know, people would say, you know, ask about our kids. And I'm going, well, you know what, here's one of the amazing things.

I not only love my kids, but I actually like them. And I give, I mean, you know, everybody can say they love their kids.

That's nothing. But how many of you actually like your kids? That's a whole other, you know, that's a whole other matter.

And I like my kids, and I give all the credit to my wife because she's the one who raised them.

You know, so what was the opportunity cost, if you remember all the way back two weeks ago when we talked about opportunity costs for her staying home?

I mean, she kind of got out and made more money, but she stayed home with the kids, and I think that was invaluable.

Well, that was said way better than what I had here. Anyway, so let me just try to recap that.

What Charlie was saying is, you know, when calamity strikes, when disaster strikes in your life, and you've been sitting under the

Word of God, how do you respond to it then? Is it the same way as you did before you came to a church where you heard the

Word week in and week out? And the answer is probably not. You know, you still may be sorrowful, you still may be shocked, you still may have that moment of panic, but you step back and you just think, okay, now what did

Pastor Mike talk about when this kind of situation happens, or what have

I been listening to that would help me think about this rightly? And that kind of thinking, just having your mind transformed by the washing of the

Word, by listening to good preaching, that kind of thinking is invaluable, you know, that kind of reshaping of your thinking.

I'll get to how I phrase it in just a minute here, and it wasn't nearly as good as Charlie just did, so if you didn't get to hear him, sorry about that.

But the heart of the matter I wrote is threefold. First of all, I would just say, again, we have to think about who we're giving the money to.

I'm not giving the money to Pastor Mike, I'm not giving the money to Pastor Steve, I'm not giving the money to the new building necessarily, unless I've designated the building fund or whatever, but I'm giving the money to the

Lord. This is my first fruit, this is my offering to Him. Second question, who will be held accountable for the manner in which the

Lord's money was dispensed? It's the Lord's money. When it comes to the Bethlehem Bible Church, it's not Pastor Mike's slush fund.

He doesn't sit around at night, you know, just kind of rubbing the money together, you know, and I've said this before, we don't know who gives what, we don't get to spend whatever we want, you know.

In fact, if there's anything, I mean, we do small things, we do little behind -the -scenes things for different people, but if it gets up over $500, we take it to the other elders.

If it's a deacon's fund matter, then we handle it at that level, but it's not anything that we have direct control over.

And my third question is, which is more valuable, the word of God or money?

We know the answer to that, I mean, that's what Charlie was talking about. Will you trust a man to rightly divide the word and worry about what he does with the money the

Lord provides for him? If you don't trust him with the money, then I think there's another problem. If you think that he gets too much or there's, you know, that things aren't done rightly, then you really have a problem with 1

Timothy 3 and you need to go talk to him or me or Pradeep or Scott.

Listen to 1 Timothy 3, talking about the qualifications for an elder.

Starting at verse 1, the saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, elder, pastor, he desires a noble task.

Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach. The husband of one wife, sober -minded, self -controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, there's that word again, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, and listen, not a lover of money.

And I think if you think about it that way, then it's either an issue with them or it's an issue with the way you're framing the question.

Let me move on to what MacArthur says here. Let me give you the context.

We should go to 2 Corinthians. Since I didn't put the verses down there,

I'm going to have to wing it. 2 Corinthians, and I think it's chapter 8. Sometimes I'd like to fire myself as secretary.

It probably only happens once a Sunday. 2

Corinthians, yeah, it is chapter 8. And I'm just going to read.

We started talking about the Macedonian thing here a few weeks ago, and I'm going to read verses, what, is that 16 and 17?

I'm going to read verses 16 and 17, and then we'll get to MacArthur's comments. Talking about this collection for Jerusalem and how the

Macedonians gave. But now he's addressing the Corinthian church. He says this, This is somebody else that they're saying.

And the whole point of this is he's setting up, Paul's setting up accountability beyond himself for this money that's being given.

Listen to what MacArthur says. Fundraising.

And my message to everyone here this morning, anybody who's struggling with that issue is,

I know Mike said this before, but he doesn't set a salary. It's set by the elders. And guess what?

I get no vote on what Mike gets paid. So if you think, well, you know, he's

Steve's boss, and so Steve's going to give him whatever he wants. Steve doesn't get a vote either. It's between Scott and Pradeep.

And before that, it was before, it was between Dave, Pradeep, and Scott.

And before that, it was Louis, Pradeep, and, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In other words, it has never been,

Mike decides that he gets a raise, and that's just the way it is. And it's never been that Steve gets a raise either.

And I have, or Steve gets to decide his raise. And finally,

I would put it this way. This is kind of my variation on what Charlie said. If you're going in for heart surgery, do you ever think to yourself, you know what?

I think my heart surgeon gets too much money. I'd be happy, you know.

So whether he's the highest paid or not, I don't really care, but I want the best, right? And so here's my question for you this morning.

What's more important than your physical life, and it would be your spiritual life? And that's exactly what

Charlie was addressing. Okay, any questions about that before I move on?

If you have any, you can send them to me, and I'll anonymize them. I sent them through an anonymizer on the

Internet, and no, I don't. But, I mean, we're wide open on that.

I mean, it is what it is. I just know that, you know, not only this church but other churches in the past, and I'm not talking about now, but in the past, have liked the idea of keeping the pastor on impoverished because, you know, it keeps them humble.

And I just don't think that's biblical in any way, shape, or form. We're not supposed to muzzle the ox.

And I talked about before about how the biblical picture of that was it was basically cruelty to animals, and he's using that picture and saying if you wouldn't treat an animal like that, why would you treat your pastor like that?

Let's see. Here's another question I got. How much should parents contribute for their kids' college education?

It's a tough one. Biblically, how much should you give? Well, biblically, there is no answer to that.

Well, what seems right and reasonable? Well, I think, you know, for some parents, the answer is going to be zero. They can't really do anything, right?

I mean, if you're making ends meet, and you're just barely getting by, and you've got an emergency fund, and you're working towards something else, then the answer might be zero.

But let's say everything aside, here's what I know. I've told the story, maybe

I haven't fully explained it, but when I went to college straight out of high school, I had a free ride at the

University of Southern California. It wasn't based on my academic prowess.

Or, sorry, it was based on my academic prowess. I don't know how that happened exactly, but it wasn't based because I was an athlete, because, you know, people say, hey, did you play football in high school?

And I was like, well, no, there were just a couple problems. I was too slow, too weak, and I didn't weigh enough.

Other than that, everything was good. 6 '2", 160 pounds, and I couldn't have bench -pressed a bologna sandwich.

And I'm not exaggerating. But, you know, basically it was a combination of need and academics and SAT scores, which is really amazing because in the

SAT, I think I was running out of time on the math, and I just filled in the bubbles, and then I scored, you know, higher on the math than I did on the verbal, but thank you very much.

And so I was at USC for one entire semester, free of charge, one semester.

What happened? Well, they wanted me to go to class and do my homework and stuff like that, and it didn't work for me. Now, it was sometime after that, probably about a year after that, that I joined the

Army, and I got out of the Army and I started going back to school, and guess what? I did really well at school.

Why was that? Because it was my money! It was kind of a joke when the state was paying for it,

I mean. And I think a lot of kids are like that. Stupid, like me.

And yet, you know, when it is your own toil, sweat, and tears, you take a... Now, you know, there may be exceptions to that.

Some kids move right along, well then, go ahead and help them. I don't think there's any hard and fast rule on that.

I think you have freedom there. There's no biblical thing. And, you know, frankly, for some kids, some people think that every kid should go to college.

I think it depends on what they want to do. I mean, if your child, particularly probably your young man, is good with his hands, he likes to build things and, you know, stuff like that, well then, what's he going to go get a degree in?

Carpentry? You know, is he going to go get a master's degree in auto mechanics? For what?

So he can go work in a shop? I think that would be kind of silly. I don't think you need a master's degree for that.

So I think it all depends. I mean, I don't have any hard and fast rule for that. And in fact, I think

I said this in the beginning of the class, that one of the funky loopholes in the law, and you know this if you've had kids who've gone through college, if you save money for them, it counts against them.

And it reduces the amount of financial aid that they can get going to college, which is really perverse.

I was talking to somebody here not too long ago who said, you know what, we save for our kids' college. And we know some people who are, you know, in the same general ballpark financially as us.

And every year they go out on these wild vacations and they live it up and they got nothing in the bank. Their kids are going to get more aid to go to college than we are.

Because we were responsible, they weren't, so they get more money. It's dumb. But those are your tax dollars at work.

On the other hand, if your grandparents save money, it doesn't show up on the government application.

And therefore, it doesn't count against them. And, you know, like I said, it's a dumb loophole. But that's the way it is.

Because grandparents aren't expected to give anything to their grandkids for college. So how much do you give to your college?

It's up to you. I think it would be a good idea to sort of work that out with your kids ahead of time.

And I would say, too, you know, we did this with our own kids, two years of junior college, just because many of the classes, not all the classes, but many of the classes are going to be the same or similar required courses.

So why spend thousands and thousands of dollars more to do that?

And there was another reason why we did it, too. The other reason that we wanted to do that was to keep them closer at home.

We believe that they were Christians. But we didn't see any reason necessarily for them to go a few thousand miles away from home and be subjected to every manner of temptation and told that they're morons if they don't do

X, Y, and Z to find out if they were Christians. Because there is a little bit of a transition, as I discovered, between high school and college.

There's a big difference just in terms of maturity and everything else. I mean, it is a big challenge.

So I don't see anything wrong with a couple of years of junior college. Another question do we have yet?

We have time for one more. Somebody says,

OK, I get a salary, and I'm going to tithe on my salary.

But what if I get commissions, or what if I have gifts, or what if I have this, that, and the other thing?

Even inheritance, tax refunds, whatever. Anybody have any thoughts on that?

No one has a thought. OK, I'd like to say it a little differently.

But, yes, you voluntarily give, free will offering, joyfully give.

Yeah, I mean, I think you give on all of it. Maybe not. Let's put it this way.

If your parents give you, if you're my age, and your parents give you $100 for Christmas, let's put it this way.

If they gave you a $100 box of candy, wow, would you tithe on that box of candy?

So I don't know about, you know, small little inter -family gifts or whatever. I don't really think that's necessary.

But if you're, I used to work for the Sheriff's Department. We had, every year, we got a $1 ,500

Christmas bonus. They called it a uniform allowance, but if it was a uniform allowance, why did they give it to us on December 15th?

OK, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more, say no more. And I think it was right to, excuse me, to give based on that, too, because it really was part of our income.

It was taxable income or whatever. So, I mean, but I think it is basically the idea that we need to have is it's an increase.

It's the first fruits of what the Lord has granted us, and I think that's how we need to look at it. Any other thoughts on that,

Charlie? Yeah.

Yeah, so, and I think that's right. If what you do, and I don't mean this in a legalistic way, if you've said,

I'm going to tithe, I'm going to give 10 % on my gross, and again, I just don't even like the term.

And the reason I don't like the term is because, as we discussed last week, the only time it's mentioned in the New Testament, it's not in a good light.

So tithing isn't the commandment. The commandment is to give sacrificially, to give purposely, all these other things.

But if that's what you're doing, if you're tithing 10 % of your gross, and then you get a tax refund, well, if you tithe again on that, then,

I mean, you're certainly welcome to do that. But then, in essence, you're tithing, you're giving on something that you've already given because you already paid that money before, and now you're getting some of it back.

But the church doesn't rebate into that money. Steve? Yeah, it really is,

I mean, well, let's just put that aside for a moment. Why do you suppose it is that we could get a large gift like that?

Not that I'm anticipating one, but I have absolutely no idea who in my family could die and leave me a lot of money.

Let's say some distant cousin gave me, passed away unexpectedly, and who knew

I was in his will? And he gives me $100 ,000, so I just go, gee whiz, that is great that I got that $100 ,000.

And I put it all in my wallet, which you all know I love to carry lots of money in. I mean, is that how we should think about it?

I think Steve hit the nail on the head. We ought to think about it as, what a gift from God. I didn't expect to get this money, what a blessing.

And not, I'm going to give all $100 ,000 to the church or whatever, but I ought to think about how

I can use this for the Lord and for his purposes and his glory. Let me do one more, because I can do this real quickly.

If you buy something small for the church that the elders know or approve of, is it okay to just subtract that amount from your normal giving, or is there a benefit to having the money move through the church and submit a receipt?

Tax purposes. You know,

I think that's just a matter of conscience. I mean, there might be tax benefits for that.

But, I mean, here's how I've looked at it before. If I can see a need at the church and I think

I can afford to do that, I'm probably just going to do it, and not really, you know, unless it's some astronomical amount, and I've never had to do that, but where I wanted to, like, say, hey,

I'm going to designate it for this and, you know, include it in my giving or whatever. But I think we,

I just want to get us out of the mindset that there's some legalistic threshold that we have to meet and to not have us look at the money as if what we give to the

Lord, to the gospel ministry, to BBC is somehow a loss on our part.

You know, money that we give here is not something that is, I mean, it's something that won't be in our checkbook, but it's not something that we lose because we've just invested in something eternal.

It's amazing. We have absolutely no idea. Not too long ago, Pastor Mike, I don't know when he'll may use this as an illustration.

I mean, sometimes it's just small things. Somebody hears the radio show. This woman called or sent an email.

She had just all kinds of marital problems, this and the other thing. Well, her real problem was she had absolutely no idea how to submit to her unbelieving husband.

So Mike said something like, and this is a big paraphrase, you know, you need to get some counseling.

And, you know, you need to find such and such a church or whatever. Well, the church was pastored by one of Mike's friends in Texas.

This lady went, got some counseling, changed her behavior at home. Her husband got saved.

Her husband got saved. And you just think, well, okay, now here's what I would say to you. In an indirect way, the

Lord used your giving to save that man. You might say, well, how does that work? Because the giving here allows

Mike to do what he does. And because he needs no sleep, etc.,

etc., etc., and he can do this radio show, and it goes out all over the place, and people hear it, and he can send somebody like that.

The Lord used that in this woman's life and then saves her husband.

And we did that. Mike didn't do it. Actually, we didn't do it.

But the Lord used us as a collective body to save that guy. I think that's worth it.

And so I just, if anyone struggles, and I'll say this openly, if anyone struggles with giving, if they think, you know, this isn't done well, or that's not done well, or I wish the

Christmas concert was on a Wednesday, or whatever the issue is, and you just, you grudgingly give that check, don't give.

Just don't give. God loves a joyful giver. He doesn't love people who just cannot stand to depart with their money.

He loves people who are joyful when they give and who understand that what they're doing is changing the lives of people.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, I just pray for each one here, for me as well, that you would just give us hearts that would long to see your

Son lifted high and exalted, for the gospel to be proclaimed in every corner of the earth.

Father, what a joy it is to think that we can even play a small part here in the middle of Massachusetts, really touching lives all over the world.

Father, I just pray that you would continue to grow the impact of the ministry here as the word goes forth, just that many people would be saved.

Father, I even think about one particular woman who's been writing and just really upset with the radio show.

Father, I just pray that you would save her. Lord, I pray that you would correct her thinking about ADD, ADHD, and all the other issues.

Father, I just pray that she would open her heart to your word, which she's been reading. I pray that you would open her heart to your word.

Father, for each one here, I would just pray that you would make us just really joyful givers, understanding that what we are giving we cannot keep, and what we get in return can never be lost.