Preached · June 20, 2017
We Are the Rich Ones
If you have your Bibles, I invite you to join me in the book of 1 Timothy. We are in chapter 6, looking at verses 17 and 18. Next week we'll get into verse 19. We are in a series called How to Be Rich, not How to Get Rich, because the reality is that if you are in this country, if you are part of the 21st century in America, you're probably already pretty rich. And so how do we be rich? How are we good at being rich? Those are the questions that we are asking and trying to answer this morning and this month in June.
And basically what it comes down to is this. We, as your staff, as your leadership, we want you to know what God's plan is for your finances. We want you to be confident in what God's plan for your money is. That's our responsibility as your teachers. And what it comes down to is that if you're not following God's plan for your money, you either didn't know or you knew and you decided to disobey. Those are basically the two options. So our job, our role as your teachers, is that you would know. And the disobedience part is left up to you, not up to me.
So we're in 1 Timothy chapter 6, verses 17 and 18. Here we go:
Command those who are rich in this present world.
And remember, we're talking about us. We don't get a free pass on this passage just because we don't think we're rich. If you make $25,000 a year, you're in the top 10% of income earners in the world. If you make $37,000 a year, you're in the top 4% of income earners in the world. If you make $50,000 a year, you're in the top 1%. Congratulations. You did it. You're rich. Job done.
Now, command those. Paul is a teacher. He's a church planter. And he's writing to his protégé, Timothy, a pastor at a local church.
Command those who are rich in this present world
to do what?
to not be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain.
Side Effect One: Arrogance
Over these past couple weeks, we've talked about the side effects of being rich. Having wealth, being rich, it has side effects. It does things to you. And so we're not just talking about what to do with your money. We're talking about what money does to you. And we see that, first of all, it can make us arrogant, prideful, boastful.
Last week, Steve, our family and children's pastor, talked about the parable of the rich fool. This is a story that Jesus tells to answer a question about what to do with our money. And in the parable of the rich fool, we see this farmer. He has a great year, an abundant harvest, far more than he planned or expected. So translate that into modern-day terms. Your stocks come in and they're looking great. Your 401k turns into a 501k, turns into a 601k. What? Oh, that's not how 401k's work. Okay, well, you get the idea. It's a great year for this guy. He's got more riches than he knows what to do with.
So what happens? Well, he becomes prideful. He becomes arrogant. And he says to himself, Self, what am I going to do with all this abundance? I'm going to build bigger storehouses. I'm going to get a better bank. I'm going to get a better stock portfolio. And God comes to him and says, You fool. Tonight you die.
And what I love about this story is that Jesus is bringing together so many older stories from his tradition, Judaism, and from his religious texts, what we now call the Old Testament. In these Jewish scriptures, they would say things like this. In Deuteronomy, it says:
You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." But remember the Lord your God, for it is God who gives you the ability to produce wealth.
You may say to yourself, Wow, I did a great thing. Look how rich I'm getting. I'm just so smart and rich. And everything that I've done, that's what's made me rich. That's what's given me wealth. That's what's made me a self-made man or self-made woman. And Deuteronomy, this Old Testament, this Jewish wisdom from a long time ago that Jesus is referring to, says, No, it's God who gives you even the ability to produce wealth.
There was a political party a few years back that used this as their slogan: We built it. There was some other person that was trying to recognize the importance of accomplishments from those that came before us, and the fact that our present reality was made possible by those who came before. And some folks didn't like that very much. And so they came up with this slogan, We built it. Which you can say if you want to. But it's just the opposite of what that Jewish Old Testament wisdom is saying. You may say to yourself, my power and the strength of my hands may have produced this wealth for me. We built it. I built it. But remember the Lord your God, for it's he who builds it. It's he who gives you the ability to produce wealth.
So wealth has side effects. First of all, it can make us arrogant. It can make us say silly things when, in the scheme of things, we didn't build it. God builds it. I own a car. I know nothing about how cars are built or really much about how they're run. I know not to put oil in the gas tank and gas in the oil tank. That's about the extent of it. Now, there's somebody who put together that car. They know about iron ore and plastics and all these kinds of things, and they put it together. But the person who put it together, they don't know how to smelt iron into steel. They don't know how to take oil and put it into plastic. And the people who do, they don't know how to invent iron ore. They don't know how to invent oil. Who does? It's God. God is the one who gives us the ability to create wealth. So don't be arrogant. Side effect number one.
Side Effect Two: Hope Migration
Side effect number two. Also, don't put your hope in wealth. Side effect number two is hope migration. Hope migration is when we move our hope away from God, who is certain, who is unchangeable, who is not going to have an economic downturn, who's not going to have a depression, and we put it in riches, we put it in wealth, we put it in money instead.
Remember this chart? If you make under $25,000, you're going to donate about 12% of that. And the richer you get, the more money you make, the more you keep it to yourself, the less that you want to give away. When we get more money, we feel like it's ours. Extra money, very quickly, doesn't feel like extra anymore. It feels like ours.
So how do we get better at being rich? How do we get better at being wealthy? And some of you are thinking, Well, this still isn't for me. I'm not rich yet. I don't foresee a day when I'm going to be rich. Why am I here today? But if you're convinced that no matter what I say, you're not going to be rich or you're not rich, this verse still applies to you. Because what would happen — miracle of miracles, God can do the impossible — what would happen if one day you got rich? Even you thought you were rich. Would you want to be good at it? Well, how do you get good at things? You practice. That's the only way you get good at something. By preparation, by practicing, by rehearsing. So if you're not rich today, and you don't think you're rich today, despite the statistics telling you otherwise, but you want to ignore them — that's okay, that's fine. But you can start practicing how to be rich. So just in case one day you do become rich, you'll be practiced up and good at it.
Put Your Hope in God: Do Good
So how do you get better at being rich? Paul continues. He says they are to put their hope in God. Those who are rich in this world, don't be arrogant, don't have hope migration, put your hope in God, this God who richly provides everything for your enjoyment. So you want to fight the side effects of being rich? You want to fight arrogance? You want to fight hope migration? Put your hope in God.
How do you do that? Glad you asked. Paul continues:
Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.
Now, quick note. Paul is a church planter. He's a pastor to pastors. He's writing to a pastor, and he says, command them. So when I'm studying my Bible and I see a verse written to a pastor that says command them, that means I, as a preacher, I get to follow that command. I better follow that command. I'm being commanded to command you. So that whole "I didn't know, or I knew and I decided to disobey" — that applies to me, too. So I am commanded. God's word emphasizes the importance of me, our preachers, Steve, myself, preaching to you God's plan for your finances. So if you don't like this sermon series, don't get mad at me and Steve. Get mad at God. He can handle it better than Steve and I anyway.
Now, back to the verse. It says, command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, to be generous, to be willing to share. In biblical studies lingo, this verse is an example of particularization. Fancy word. And what it basically means is that you have the beginning of this verse as a general statement. It's pretty vague, and it moves to something more particular. So it says, command them to most generally do good. Pretty basic command. Just do good. Well, what kind of good? How much good? More specific yet: be rich in good deeds. Paul's playing around with language, a little wordplay. Those who are rich in this world, be rich in what? Rich in good deeds. So don't just do good, brothers and sisters. Be rich at it. Go above and beyond. Be the best do-gooders out there. Put everybody else to shame because you're doing so much good. Be rich in good deeds. Okay, well, what kind of good deeds? More specific yet: be generous. Well, what's it mean to be generous? Be willing to share.
The Readiness to Share
Now, let's talk about generosity for a second. Paul uses a word, eumetadotos, a fun word to say, and what it means is the readiness to share. It's a state of preparation. It's a state of readiness. It's being on high alert so that when the time comes to be generous, you're ready to do it. There's no question. You've got it all set up. Jesus says it like this. He says, let your light so shine before others that they're going to see your good deeds, and they're going to glorify your Father in heaven. And so it's this readiness to share. It's this do-goodiness that you're so ready to do that when the time comes, there's no question, you're ready.
Priority, Percentage, Progressive
Now, last week, Steve preached about the three P's of generosity. He talked about generosity as a priority. It's the first check you write after payday. It's ingrained into your habits. It's not debatable. The scriptural word for this is the idea of first fruits. In an agricultural culture, you would have your first trees, your first blossoms, your first fruits, the first things that are coming out of the ground. You would take those, and what would you do with them? Would you hoard them? Would you keep them just in case nothing else grew? Would you keep them just in case a hailstorm came along? No. You would take those first fruits, and you would give them away. You would give them to God's church. You would give them to God's organization that would then disperse them.
Now, first fruits — that term is used about 30 times in Scripture. 31 times in the King James, 33 times in the New American Standard. Depends on what translation you want to use. Do you know how many times the term last fruits is used? Can you guess? Zero. That's right. Last fruits doesn't show up, no matter what translation you're reading. There's no such thing as last fruits. That means if my generosity, if my do-goodiness, if my readiness to share is a priority, it's the first check I write. It's the first line in my budget. And for my budget, it literally is. It's the top line.
The next two P's are percentage and progressive. Last week, we also took a look at the story of Jesus watching this widow give away her mite. These just couple of pennies. It's a fraction of a penny. While everybody else next to her is giving away thousands of dollars. And Jesus says this shocking thing. He says this widow is giving away more than anybody else here. Why? Because she gave a higher percentage. While these people are giving more money, more dollar amounts, more of whatever dollars were in Jewish-Greek times, this widow is giving everything that she has. So God doesn't just look at dollar amounts. He's looking at percentages.
And it's progressive. As we move forward in life, hopefully, we pray, we ask that we are given more and more abundance because we're so good at being rich. God sees that, blesses us more, and so we give a higher and higher percentage away. Author and pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life, pastor of Saddleback Church, he writes this:
Kay and I became reverse tithers. When we got married 30 years ago, we began tithing 10%. And each year, we would raise our tithe 1% to stretch our faith. 11% the first year, 12% the second year, 13% the third year. Every time I give, it breaks the grip of materialism in my life. Every time I give, it makes me more like Jesus. Every time I give, my heart grows bigger.
You want to be a church that's like Jesus — radical, reproducing apprentices of Jesus that does what Jesus does, that says what Jesus says, that has the patterns of life that Jesus has. Every time I give, it makes me more like Jesus. Every time I give, my heart grows bigger. And so now, mega-pastor, superstar author, he writes, we give away 90%, and we live on the 10%. And that was actually the easy part, what to do with the money. Just give it away, because I'm storing up treasures in heaven.
Planned, Pre-Decided Giving
And so we see giving, generosity: it's about priority, it's about percentage, it's about progressive. And I want to give you one more P word. We're pastors. We're all about the alliteration here. One more P word: your giving is planned, or pre-decided. Paul is telling his protégé, Timothy, that rich folks are meant to be generous. In other words, they're prepared to give, they're prepared to share. That means our giving needs to be planned. It needs to be pre-decided. To decide before the moment comes. When you go on a vacation, you get in the car, you get into the airport — don't you have a destination in mind? That means you pre-decided. You have a plan. Our giving, our generosity, it should be the same way.
Imagine if Good News's volunteers, those who come and serve, who teach your kids, who pour your coffee, who greet you at the door, who sing, who play an instrument, who run the projectors, who teach the adult classes — imagine if all those volunteers served the way the majority of us give away our money. Well, we'll see this week. Well, maybe next week, we'll see. We'll see if the music is good this time around. We'll see if I like what the preacher has to say. We'll see if I agree or not. We'll see, we'll see, we'll see. Imagine if volunteers served the way that most of us give away our money. We wouldn't have a church. I wouldn't be preaching. You wouldn't be here. It just wouldn't work. So if we don't volunteer like that, why would we plan our generosity like that? Why wouldn't we plan our generosity like we plan the rest of our money?
Now, last week, Steve brought up this idea that if we were to survey you all, amazingly, not a single one of you would say that you're rich. And yet every one of us would say that we're generous. No one is rich, and everyone is generous. Amazing. How did that happen? But what if you don't just want to say that you're generous? You don't just want to check a box on a survey. What if you actually want to be generous?
How many of you here want to be great at something? Put up your hand. A great parent, a great father, a great employee, a great boss, a great husband, a great neighbor, a great wife. You want to be great. You want to be one of the best. You want to be known for it. Now, does that happen on purpose or on accident? Some of you are like, Yep, I'm great on accident. God just made me that way. Good for you. For the rest of us, does that happen on purpose or on accident? On purpose.
The average American is going to give away about 6% of their income accidentally. Because most of our giving is spontaneous, sporadic, and sad, or guilt-induced. You see the pictures of starving children. You see Sarah McLachlan singing about puppies up in heaven. Someone gets up, gives some impassioned sermon about generosity. And so despite the fact that you really don't kind of want to, you give anyway. It's spontaneous, it's sporadic, it's sad. That's not how you get good at something. That's not how you get great at generosity. You don't learn the piano spontaneously. You don't get great at free throws by sporadically practicing. You don't become a great parent by just feeling this weight of guilt all the time. How do you get good at something? You pre-decide to. You plan on it. Proverbs 21 says, Do you want to get rich? Do you want to be good at being rich? Then you've got to plan on it.
Two Practical Steps: Automatic Giving
So I'm going to give you two really practical ways to pre-decide your giving. Number one, online automatic giving. I'm going to be entirely honest. You would make a whole bunch of your staff, your leadership team, and volunteers really happy if you signed up for automatic online giving for your church. There are a couple reasons for this.
One, it reduces the amount of cash and checks passing hands. There's no chance of it getting lost or stolen. Did you know every week there is a deacon here at the church that takes a bag full of cash and checks to the bank? Can you imagine how stressful that drive is? I feel like I'm a shooting-range target when I go to the ATM for 20 bucks. I feel like Bonnie and Clyde are going to jump me at any moment. So if you have online automatic giving, that's that much less cash going through human hands, and that's that much less stress that poor Doug or Carol has to go through when they're making that drive.
Secondly, online automatic giving to your church smooths out our monthly giving. And again, this is just for reasons of your church leadership, but I just want to be honest with you. Our giving has this kind of pattern. There's some, but very little, predictability to it. We know that February giving is low because we're all paying off our Christmas credit card debt. We know that if there's a snowy Sunday, we're not going to make that offering back up again the next week. So if you set up your giving to be automatic and online, it smooths some of that out.
Thirdly, you, brothers and sisters, have a responsibility that if you have a temptation in your life, to get as far away from that temptation as possible. Many of us encounter a million different ways to spend our money each week. So if you set up your giving, your generosity to the church, to be automatic, it's now a first fruit. It's now the first check that you write, and you don't even have to think about it. There's no debate — well, I've got this bill to pay, maybe I shouldn't give this week. No, there's no debate anymore. You've already set it up. You're saying to God, this money is yours, and even though there's a million other ways I can spend it, I'm going to give it to your church.
How do you do it? Well, for Good News, you go to gncconline.com/give. It's easier than buying something on Amazon. You don't need to create a new password or set up a new account. If you're visiting, if you have another home church, this applies to you too. I'll take the thank-you cards from your pastor personally. Give to your local church, and even better, do it automatically and online. Right now we have about 11 folks who do it automatically and online. I'd like to see that number be closer to 40. Right now about $5,500 of our monthly income comes automatically and online. I'd like to see that number be about $25,000, about half of our monthly giving come through online.
Two Practical Steps: Pre-Decide with Charity Navigator
Recommendation number two. Tell me if this sounds familiar. You're at JCPenney — this just happened to be yesterday — you're at JCPenney, you're at McDonald's, you're at Walmart, and the cashier asks you this question. They ask, would you like to round up to the nearest dollar to give support to something, something, something? It's always something impossible to say no to, right? It's never, would you like to round up to the nearest dollar to support politicians you didn't vote for. No, it's always, would you like to round up to the nearest dollar to support veterans with no limbs, or to support children with no parents or food, or to support puppies with only three legs? How do you say no to that?
Can I tell you a secret? Here's my secret. I always tell them no, and I never feel guilty about it. Do you know how? Because I pre-decided my giving. Full disclosure, my wife Emily and I, we have always tithed to whatever church we've been a part of. Partially it's just because it's how we were raised. If you were given a $10 allowance, you better believe there was a $1 bill in the offering plate. So, just what mom and dad taught me, I've always tithed to the local church. But Emily and I, we also want to support local and international charities and ministries. So we've set aside another percentage for charities.
How do you know that that money that you're rounding up to at McDonald's or JCPenney is actually doing anybody any good? Well, I want to tell you about the website Charity Navigator. Charity Navigator is a website that tells you how much of each dollar you give is actually doing what you think it's doing.
And today, I want to use Back2Back as an example. Right now, there's a team of folks who are working like crazy to get the pancake breakfast ready. There are pancakes, gluten-free pancakes, sausages, strawberries with sugar and blueberries — I can smell it right now, it smells delicious. And they're working to raise money to go on a trip to Mazatlán, Mexico, to work alongside an organization called Back2Back Ministries. And Back2Back is a global organization that works with orphans and social orphans, works with children. Father's Day is a great opportunity to not only honor our fathers but to follow the biblical command to love those without a father. Back2Back Ministries is a four-star charity, according to Charity Navigator. They have a four-star system, and you can go to any charity and check them out. So at our pancake breakfast today — which my wife just texted me and said everything's ready, good — every dollar that you give, 87 cents of that is going directly to help orphans and the programs that they do. Eight cents is being used to pay staff and other administrative costs. Four cents is being used for fundraising or marketing purposes.
Let's use another example. The Make-A-Wish Foundation you've probably heard of. They help kids who are in terminal situations. They're a three-star charity, so they're decent — 81% score on financials, 97% score on accountability and transparency. But sometimes there are charities that ride the fame of another charity, so they have a similar name. So here's Kids Wish Network. You may have been asked to round up to the nearest dollar for one of these. They have a financial score of zero. They have zero stars. Every dollar you give, 75 cents of it is being used for more marketing, only 22 cents for the actual program.
So if you want to give to a charity, local or international, that's great — check it out first. And then the next time that cashier at JCPenney asks you to round up to the nearest dollar, you can look them in the eye and say, No, my giving is pre-planned. And no longer does your giving have to be spontaneous or sporadic or sad.
Offering and Prayer
So I'm going to invite the ushers, the worship team, to come forward. We're going to move forward in our service this morning. And as we give our offering today, I want to remind you that I want your giving to be a priority. I want it to be a percentage. God wants it to be progressive. God wants it to be pre-decided, planned. And so if you want to give sporadically, spontaneously, and sadly today, that's your own business, but it doesn't have to be that way.
So the worship team is going to lead us in a closing song, our ushers are going to take up our offering, and each week we say to you, we do our best as your leadership team and staff to use the money that you give to your local church in the best ways that we know how. You saw a video earlier today about some special giving that we're doing for our building. The reason we're doing it is we're doing everything within our community to use the building that we have in the best way we can. So when you give today, we thank you, and we ask God's blessing on you.
God, thank you so much for your word that teaches us what we're supposed to do — how to be rich, how to be generous, how to be ready to share. So God, we pray for these tithes and these offerings. And if there is a sense of guilt, if there is a sense of sadness about those who are about to give, God, I ask by the power of your Holy Spirit that you would take that away, that you would give them instead a sense of joy, a sense of opportunity. God, I don't want anybody to give today that feels obligated. I want folks to give today because they planned on it and because it's a joy to be a part of. So bless it, multiply it like fishes and loaves, God. May it feed thousands the good news of your gospel. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.
