Church Write-Up: Giving Because You Want to Give

Church this morning talked about the story of the rich young man in Mark 10:17ff. Here are some items:

1. The youth pastor talked about how it is difficult to give some things up. When the rich man was exhorted by Jesus to sell all that he has and give to the poor, he should have responded that he could not do that. He needed Jesus because his heart was not right and his heart was attached to his possessions.
2. The pastor’s sermon included a couple stories. The first story was about when he was a pastor years ago. He had Saturday off and company was over, so he was looking forward to a day of relaxation. But he received a phone call from someone who needed help. The pastor was trying to think of ways to brush the man off or to refer him to somebody else, since the pastor did not want to give up his Saturday. The pastor’s brother-in-law, however, was eager to help. The pastor and the brother-in-law picked the man up, and the man looked ragged. They drove him to a hotel, and the woman behind the counter looked like Granny Clampit. She had a frown on her face, and there was no way that man would stay in her hotel! But the pastor showed her his card, which identified him as a pastor, and suddenly her entire disposition changed. She was now happy to do something for Jesus. She let the man stay at the hotel and fed him dinner.
3. In the second story that the pastor told, the pastor was a child. He earned a dollar and was very possessive of it. His dad came up to him and said that, if the pastor gave him his dollar, he would give him what was in his pocket. Inside the dad’s pocket was a great big Eisenhower silver dollar. The pastor replied, “No,” so possessive was he of his dollar. The dad was disappointed because his son did not trust him.
4. The Sunday school class was about giving. We see in the Bible laws and warnings about giving. In the Torah, the Israelites were required to give, according to the degree that God blessed them. In the New Testament, there are exhortations to place God above one’s wealth, along with warnings about the negative consequences of materialism. God does not want us to give because we have to give (law), but because we want to give. God does not need our money, for it is all his to begin with. What concerns God is our heart. Remembering God’s love and mercy for us can give us the proper motivation to give; God has lavished us with spiritual riches, even though we do not deserve them. We can therefore offer ourselves as living sacrifices, trusting that God accepts those sacrifices because of Christ’s atonement for our sins. When we love others, we are pleasing to God. We do that imperfectly, and sometimes far and in between; if our hearts were where they should be, we would not need a capital campaign, for our lives would be characterized by giving. But it is a process. The teacher also defined stewards. Stewards are managers of somebody else’s wealth. We manage the wealth that God gave us, as well as creation.