Northside Church - Sydney
Boundless Generosity
We're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Have we got any Melanchoschi fans in the house? Melanchoschi with sunrise? What's your sunrise? I've got a couple of years. I said that hand. I said that hand. Thank you. Thank you. I love... I love seven sunrise. The other week there was this new story of this guy. He was a pastor in a church called Tim Lucas of Liquid Church in New Jersey, and he decided one Sunday morning like this to give his congregation $30,000, so I thought we'll sing his grams over in the U.S. this morning. No, we're not going to go there. But it sounds like a lottery, right? It sounds awesome. I've got $30,000. But he was the catch. He gave them $30,000, so they would then go and take that money each. There was an envelope in front of the chairs, and they were to go and pay that forward back into their communities. And rafts of news stories later and coverage on CNN and even Melanchoschi and Seven Sunrise all the way over here in Sydney, Australia were talking about this Liquid Church and how they were giving money into their community. What it shows us guys is that the boundless generosity is not the normal pattern of the world, and I had the world watching. You see, what's true of the church today is just as true as the church back when it first was growing, right? I'll read through the book of Acts, particularly Acts, Chapter 5. You see the stories of Ananias and Sephora and the way that the Christian community would come in and care for each other and give their possessions to one another. What it was, what's true, the church back then in his today is that when God establishes a relationship with you, he calls you into a community of boundless generosity. And when people saw this, the news of this community ripped through First Century Palestine and the society, like lightning rips through the ground when it hits it. You see how the church used their money and their wealth was not a means to doing their mission, it was a communication of their mission. And so in that sense how the church used their money was part of the way that they communicated the gospel. You see, this funny thing is too, the gospel's like a gobsstopper, have you heard anyone ever had a gobsstopper? There's a funny little hard lollies that your kids buy for 20 cents outside of Franklin's. The gospel's like a gobsstopper, if you want to bite straight into it, it's going to hurt you. So you need to suck on it for a while, you need to reveal the layers underneath, you need to taste its flavours over a long period of time. And what it means for us is that if to truly get the gospel means to shape your perspective of, your relationship to your money, without giving there can be no spiritual growth. Why, because it's one area of the life where the action actually dictates the intention. Jesus says where your treasure is, your heart will be also. Do the action first and then your intentions will follow. So this morning, guys, look, I can put you at ease, I know what you're thinking, we're going to get hit up, it's going to be cards coming down, bucket, look, there's not going to be a big offering at the end of the message this morning, it's just we're going to share what Jesus says about money. And when we ask the question, how much should Christians give we see that when Jesus interprets this Old Testament law that we heard from in Deuteronomy, it's something radically different. He assumes that these followers are going to be boundlessly generous. And so of course that's a question, how do I know that I'm being generous? How do I know? Well, whenever I've got a question now, there's a new iPhone out called the iPhone 4S. There's a great little application on that now called Siri. And Siri is a little lady in your phone, artificial intelligence, and you can ask Siri all sorts of questions like Siri, what's the weather going to be like today? And it pops the weather, it's going to be 23 degrees. And so you can ask Siri, all these sorts of Siri, how do I get to the nearest petrol state and Siri can tell you? So I thought being an iPod generation sort of guy I asked her in the phone, I said, Siri, how much should Christians give? And she said, ask Jesus. So that's what I had to do, I had to go to see Christians aim. First of all, when I asked Jesus, what I saw from these passages is that Christians aim for the standard of generosity, the standard of generosity, the tie of 10%. And so what Jesus is saying in the Luke passage that we read from is that there's actually a standard to giving, there's actually a benchmark to see if you're actually living in generous proportions, it's called the tie of 10%. He wants us to be generous, and so he says in Luke 1142, woe to you Pharisees because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs. Now this is great, see what Jesus is doing here? The Pharisees were tithers, they were tidying, they were obeying the Old Testament law where God prescribed that a tenth of one's income, this is in the book of Leviticus, was to be given into the temple or the church of the day in order to help build ministry and to look after the poor. And so they were giving away 10% of their income. Now here's what's so intriguing about this Old Testament guideline, is that how does Jesus regard it? What's fascinating about Luke 1142 is, you see, because for years people, I don't know about you, but people are always debating how we relate to the Old Testament laws. Does that apply to me, what I would do with this? Because we find all sorts of interesting Old Testament laws back in those early books, like not mixing the fibres of your clothes, you can't mix wool and linen together, duh, look ugly. You must grow a beard, which I thank the Lord for Jesus Christ and that he's fulfilled the law because it would take me about 30 years to grow a beard with the baby face that I have. Here's an interesting one, ladies, it says if your man is fighting, if two men are fighting then no grabbing them by the private parts. I kid you not, Deuteronomy 25 verses 11 to 12, you can look it up. And then we go into the New Testament and we hear of course Jesus saying, well you must love your neighbor as yourself, and you say, look, I can do away with the grabbing bit, but the love of your neighbor as yourself, I can handle that. That one doesn't apply, but this one applies to me, which is it? Which is it? Now look, it's one thing to wonder about some of the more obscure parts of the Old Testament but if Jesus pulls something specific from the Old Testament and speaks and teaches on it, then we should listen. And if ever there was a place that, you know, Jesus was always doing away with the regulations, right? If ever there was a place in which Jesus would do away with an Old Testament regulation, it would be here, right? Because he's with the Pharisees. You know, Jesus always seems to be yelling at the Pharisees. He's the only ones that he yells at. He doesn't yell at the pimps and the prostitutes at the Pharisees because they're taking these laws and they're turning them into regulation. And so he's saying, "Woe to you, you vipers." And so here's the thing, if ever there was an opportunity for Jesus to loosen the tithe and get rid of it, it would be here, right? If ever there was a place, you know, for him to say, just don't worry about it, it would hit. You know, we often think Jesus is about just freedom, no more rules and laws, but what does he say? Does he say you legalist this idea of the tithe that's old school, it's oppressive, forget about it? But what does he say? He says, "The tithe, it's not enough." Luke 1142, "Why do you Pharisees? Because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden." What he's saying is the tithe is good, the tithe's good, but you're neglecting the love of God. So what it means, guys, this morning is that we need to take the tithe seriously. So you're asking, "How do I know if I'm living generously?" Jesus says, "Test yourself. Can you give your money away in biblical proportions? How about starting at 10 percent?" Jesus sees the tithe as a very concrete way in which we can tell if we're giving in biblical proportions. So Christians aim for that standard, and we're not all there there, so no need to freak out. It's something we're growing towards. But Christians also experience sacrifice in generosity. See, the funny thing is Jesus is affirming the Pharisees in that verse, he's saying it's good, you keep in the tithe, but you also reprimand them. He gives them a spiritual kick up the backside, and he says, "Woe do you, you're doing the tithe, but you neglect the justice and love of God." What he's doing is he's criticizing them because they're only giving as much as the tithe. He's pronouncing this "woe" because look, if they went and had a bit of peppermint in their herb garden, they'd pick off ten leaves and they'd go and take one leaf away to the temple. That's how good they were at keeping these laws and getting all the leaves and take it out there. They're keeping the tithe, but see, the thing for the Pharisees is they thought once they had fulfilled that, then that's all they needed to do for the rest of the God's community. And that's why as one commentator puts it, the demand of the Christian tithe can become a dangerous thing for it permits the false conclusion that the problem of money has been met and conquered. So what it means is like the church can't demand that you give a certain amount into the church, but what it's saying is that Jesus assumes his followers are actually going to go beyond the tithe. I don't know about you, but my approach, I'm always thinking, "Look, God, if I can just carve away this bit for you, then this stuff is mine. This bit for you and then this stuff is mine." That's what I get to keep. It seems incongruous to give more than 10% away to God because I've worked for all that I have, and I've studied hard for all that I have. It doesn't make sense. I've got myself here, but let me ask you, who gave you the brains to get where you are? Who helped you interview well? It's like the story, two worms fall from the sky. One falls into a crack in the cement and the other falls into a dead cat. The worm, after about three or four days in the crack in the cement, malnourished, weakened. Looks over to the other worm in the dead cat and he says, "Dear sir, to what do you attribute your success?" That worm turned to him, said, "Well, hard work and a sound strategic vision." I'm out of L.A.'s fog and into the leafy suburbs of Sydney's little North Shore, I have come home to my dead cat. Seriously, we live in the middle of a dead cat, where did all this blessing come from? To give God back 10%, I reckon that's a good deal, hard work and a sound strategic vision. The other question is, some of you might be thinking, "What if I can't give 10%?" It's what I love about our God is he thought about that too because when you look through the laws of Moses, there was actually a sliding scale in the giving at the temple there. Some people, if you were poor, you'd offer up a pigeon and if you're really rich, then you would offer up a bullock or an ox or some big offering. The offering was done in animals because that's where you stored your wealth. There was no ING super saver back at the first century Jerusalem there. You stored your wealth in animals and so this whole process of sacrificing an animal to the temple was to loosen our hearts from our attachment to our wealth. There was a sliding scale. When you see that, what it meant, in other words, is that the historical experts tell us that if a certain person was to go and give an ox, it was almost certainly more difficult for the person that was giving a pigeon because that still represented as a percentage a lot more of their income. In other words, a wealthy person could give a gift of 20% of their annual income and still not have any sacrifice in their ordinary daily lives. That's what I love. What we see here is that God is not interested so much in a percentage level of your giving as he is in the sacrifice. I call it the "spin class principle." I don't know if you've been to fitness first. Some of you may not. You're at different stages of life and that's okay. But whenever I went to fitness first, I used to go to other spin classes there on the bikes. They are an interesting social subculture, these spin classes, because all sorts of people dress up in their lycra, and I've got to say no mixing wool and linen. Lycra is certainly a New Testament fabric, and I love my lycra, and I'm there on the spin bike. You can see people that get the iPods, they've got the Heron ponytail, and they're spinning away. It's just great. They're not even breaking into a sweat, and I'm thinking on the other hand, there's this person sitting next to me, and they look green. They're about the vomit, but it's the same music. It's the same pace. It's the same beats per minute. How come one person just be spinning away and the other person about the vomit? Well, I discovered it with my fitness instructor used to look straight at me, and she used to say, "earn the burn. Earn the burn." She sounded like she was on some sort of performance-enhancing things, but she said, "earn the burn and turn it up, turn up the resistance." You see some people in that class, although it was the same music and the same pace, were working at a deeper level of resistance. What it says to us this morning, God is saying when you're giving is that you've got to earn the burn. We can turn up here and do church like a fitness first spin class. We can sing the songs. We can spin at the same pace while some are whistling away, others are giving almost to the point of vomiting, and I know that for a fact behind the scenes. What Jesus's woes are saying to us, he's saying, "it's not enough just to cover your own obligations in life. Christians experience sacrifice in generosity." You know you're being generous if it involves sacrifice, and then Christians exhibit the signs of generosity. I was talking to one of our leaders, and when they were processing this, they're saying, "you know what? After coming to talk about all this generosity stuff, I don't know if I even want to change change. I don't know if I want to do this. I feel scared. I don't know if I want to give this sort of stuff up. Jesus is asking a lot of me, and God said to me in that moment, when I've been processing this for self, he's saying, "Sam, if I could turn you into the sort of person that could give away 50% of your income and be more joyful and more satisfied than you are now, he said to me, "would you be interested?" You know what, some people hear that, and they go, "Yep, I'm in." And other people say, "No, forget it. This is impossible." No one can give away 50% of their income like that, and that's what I love about God. He's a great master chef, isn't he? He's sort of like, "Here's one I've prepared earlier." And in Luke 19, we hear the story of Zacchaeus, and he's a guy in the Bible, probably one I can relate to the most, because he was a shorter guy. He was a little guy, and in other ways, he understood what money was all about. He was a tax collector, he was defrauding people, he was ripping him off, he was rich. And he sold out for his national heritage for the sake of money, and see what with Zacchaeus, it shows us that Jesus can change your attitude towards your money. When Jesus calls him down out of the tree, because he was shorter, he had to get up to see Jesus. When Jesus calls Zacchaeus down, he says, "I'm going to have dinner with you tonight." He says, "As Zacchaeus places his trust in Jesus, he's saved." And look at what happens when he receives a God's grace and his salvation, his actions, he says, "You know what, I'm going to give away 50% of my income." And not only that, he offers, anyone that he defrauded restitution, he says, "I'm going to pay back four times over. If I've swindled you out of money, I'm going to pay back four times, whatever you did." And the interesting thing is when you look back in the book of Numbers in the Old Testament, the rules said, if you defrauded someone, you only needed to pay them 120%. So rules say 120%, this guy is giving 400%. What it's saying is these actions go way past, these actions go beyond, they're boundless, they go beyond the requirements, and not just to change in action, but he's in his attitude. He's joyful, he's happy about it, he doesn't complain about it. He goes up to him and he says, "Look, Lord, look what I'm doing." And it wasn't an egotistical look, Jesus, see what I'm doing, giving away my money. It was the same way that a young kid would go up to their parents and say, "Look, mummy, look daddy, look what I did for you." How do you go from being a fraudster to one of the greatest givers that we see in the Bible, it's because people who get grace move beyond regulation with joy, they move beyond. Now, some of you got to be saying here, Sam, I don't get it, because you hear the rich young ruler, Jesus tells him to do 100%, give away 100% of his money, now Jesus is happy with only 50% here. And then you're telling me that the Old Testament says 10%, what is it, 10%, 50%, 100%, here's the point, if you're looking for rules, if you're thinking that way when Jesus is calling you into an adventure, you're looking for percentages when he's looking for you to join him on a pilgrimage. What I learned from the rich young ruler and Zacchaeus and all this sort of stories in the Bible is that we've all got a tendency to say, "How much have I got to give? Just give me the requirements." But when you get the freedom from money and you experience God and all that he's done for you, you're going to start saying, "I can't find a way to push beyond the 10%, I can't find a way to bless people." Jesus says, "I'm calling you into an adventure and you're sitting around saying, 'How much is this going to be?'" Here's the thing, if you're saying, "I don't know if I've got that sort of freedom to be that generous," if you're saying it's ridiculous to even be talking about 10% or 20% or 30%, then you haven't got the gospel. Something like a religious person thinking, "What great thing have I got to do in this realm so that God has got to bless me?" And the other side of it is if anyone's out there starting to feel guilty by what Sam's saying, starting to feel guilty here in this sort of stuff, then you're not getting the gospel either. Gospels like a Godstopper, right? It's got to keep sucking on it, bite down on it hard and it's going to hurt you. You've got to do what Zacchaeus did, get up in a tree, do whatever you can in order to get a closer look at Jesus. Zacchaeus got up for a glimpse of Jesus and instead he got an eyeful of grace. And when he looked at Jesus, you know what he saw? At the cross you see Jesus becoming poor so you can become rich. At the cross you see a God not emptying his pockets of money, but emptying his pockets of his own son. And when you see at the cross why God is doing that, because he sees you as his treasure, then you can make God your treasure. Friends, do you need to see Jesus a bit closer this morning? He calls you not into rules and regulations or guilt for that matter, but into a great adventure. And that's the generosity equation for Christians, the generosity, when Christians think about calculating, giving, they don't reach for the calculator, they reach for a cross. And they see what God had given up in the person of Jesus Christ and his own son, because will power is not going to do it. You've got to get up in a tree, you've got to see Jesus a bit closer. Christians don't give in response to regulation but in regards to grace. So finally the question is how do I become that sort of person and the answer is community. It's community. It might take you years to bring yourself into a situation in which you give like this. That's okay. That's what we're saying this morning. We're just learning about it. Hearing from Jesus. It's a gradual process. Call it the "Pantene" process. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen. And here's the thing, you cannot trust yourself to do this on your own. You can't, because why? I'm speaking from experience. The minute you start thinking about increasing your giving, there's going to be a little self-justification engine that's going to start up in your heart like a pull pump. It's going to start up, it's going to give you all sorts of reasons why you shouldn't be giving. I've got this coming up, it's going to kick in like a pull pump. But the interesting thing is I said to the guys, I went for a ride with the Northside Peloton a couple of weeks back, talking about Lycra. And we went on exactly the same run at Westhead and I went out there with them and there was a bunch of us that went out there and up and over the hills and I completed that ride six minutes faster than I did the week before. I know, incredible. Well, that's like over 20% of the ride. If you can say I'm boundless generosity, Lycra, how did you do that? That's because every time we would get to a hill, they'd go, "Come on, Haddon, stop slacking off." Every time I'd start to feel the burn in the legs, instead of backing off, they'd go, "Come on, come on, you can make it. Let's get up the hill. Let's go." See, whether you're on a road bike or here in church, it shows us that the power of community to encourage you and to hold you accountable. Community is so important. That's why commitment to a church. Stop and wipe. A lot of people don't want to commit the church because they know in this area, church is going to call them to a commitment in this area. In the minute we feel like there's any resistance against our own desires, we just back it off a touch. But you see, guys, the teachings of Jesus is like a whopping great hill in the distance. And we look at it and we go, "That is impossible to get up in the gears that I'm in in my life at the moment." And we finally get against it, everything within you wants to back off and sit back. You can't trust yourself in this area alone. So get alongside someone, get into a connection group, get into community, pray through it with a spouse or a friend, someone to call you accountable. Come on, Dad, get up the hill or to encourage you. You can do this. It's not impossible. Let me finish with this. There was a generosity study by Ronzvale and Ronzvale called the Midas Trap. And in it they demonstrated that if all American Christians would tithe, they would not only would all the Christian ministries continue to be supported, but theoretically, there would be enough money if distributed to all the poor in the world to lift them all above the poverty line. The greatest problem in the church today is not that people don't give – I know many of you give in incredible ways. I know many of you have given in incredible ways. But the biggest problem in the church today worldwide is not that people don't give, it's that they don't give in biblical proportions. And so I'm here to ask you, Jesus is asking you this morning, are you living a life of boundless generosity, are you living a life that aims for the standards of generosity that's experiencing the sacrifices of generosity that's exhibiting the signs of generosity? Guys, we can talk all we want Sunday about mission and gospel and salvation, all the great big words of the Bible, but until we enter into the discipline of giving our money away in biblical proportions, there will be no growth. This place is going to look like a fitness first spin class. You've got to earn the burn. And if we're serious about our growth individually and corporately as a church, then we have to be constantly, not just once a year, looking at how the gospel shapes our view and our relationship to our money. We need to examine how we spend our money, why we don't give more than we do. We need to repent of the reasons why we don't and then rearrange our lives bit by bit until we gradually grow into it, because if we don't push through the fear and the pain and the resentment of such examination of our own hearts, we'll deny ourselves the greater joy and the greater freedom and the greater healing for our city that only boundless generosity can bring. Let's pray. Lord, I know this is such a tough area. Lord, I know there are so many emotions. There could be people right now going, this is frustrating, it could be agitated, it could be angry. Whenever we bring money into the sphere of the church and allow the gospel to be applied to our lives, it stirs up many emotions in us. Father, we recognize that this morning, we just pray that by your Holy Spirit that you might just open our hearts and melt our hearts and open our eyes to what you are teaching us through the radical words of your son, Jesus Christ. I need your help, Lord, to continue to grow in this area. We all need your help, Lord, to grow in this area. So we pray this week that we do community with one another, where you speak to us through the friendships, through your word, through the very people around us, what each and every one of our parts in this place might look like. Lord, greater than that, we have helped to paint our minds a vision of what if this humble little church, in the middle of this dead cat that is the lower nor sure, might stand up and say, Lord, we recognize all of the blessing that we have in our life comes from you. And so in that way, we want to honor that, we want to be responsible stewards of that. And so therefore this week, Father, we each individually take a tangible step forward, get back, and allow you to grow us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.