The Power of Giving

THE POWER OF GIVING

MIKE MAZZALONGO

In his book, ''Take God At His Word'', Dr. Kregg Hood says that of all the subjects that a preacher
can talk about, giving is the most sensitive one, especially on a Sunday where there's a lot of
rain and you've had two collections. But I enter undaunted nevertheless. People would rather
hear about hell and damnation than about the issue of giving money in the church. Now there are
several reasons for this. First of all, sermons about giving rarely come at times when we're giving
sufficiently.

So giving lessons usually point out some deficiencies and people don't like that. It's simple as
that. Also lessons about money may remind us that we don't agree on how the money is being
spent sometimes and that could cause some resentment.

Also, we may feel guilty for having indulged ourselves and maybe a little too much in worldly
pleasure at the expense of our offering and giving lessons kind of make us feel a little guilty so
we don't like those kind of.

.. We don't like those kinds of lessons. And then of course some think that churches are always
asking for money. And so a lesson on giving is just one lesson too many. As I said, especially if
you've made a super duper effort to come out in the rain and the hail and you've risked a hail
damage to your car and the preacher's talking about money of all things, but giving is also a
biblical topic and it has to be covered from time to time.

Now, one of the primal reasons, however, may be that we are afraid of the future and lessons on
giving tend to tap into that fear if you wish. We're afraid that if we give too much away, we won't
be able to make ends meet.

We won't have enough ourselves. Christians read passages about God providing all of our
needs and think that the Bible only talks about spiritual needs, but in the world's economy, the
future is never sure, but in God's economy, there is always enough for everyone's needs.

In the kingdom of God, there is no need to worry. Now, if we weren't worrying, we would've really
amened that statement. The Lord owns everything. The Lord is not stingy. He's not possessive
about anything.

The Lord wants to bless his children. All he asks is that we trust him. It's all he's asking for. Now
our giving here at Choctaw is below average for our weekly contribution. Just giving some
specifics here.

We're at about the sixth month mark of the year and we're a $24,000 below our budget.
However, we're generous when it comes to special collections. So I don't know how that all
works out, but those are the statistics.

So in this morning's lesson, I want to share with you three promises that God makes to those
who give to him as a way to motivate and empower our giving to the point where we can
continue being generous when special needs occur.

And also, and maybe this is the point I'm getting to here, more responsible in making budget
from week to week. The budget is a kind of a mmh, kind of a contract if you wish, between the
leaders of the church and the congregation.

They say, we're going to invest money... This much money this year in doing all of these things
and the congregation is saying, yes, okay, we agree, we'll provide for that kind of work. So here
are a couple of promises that God makes to help us have confidence in our giving.

Promise number one, God will make you rich. What? God will make you rich. Second
Corinthians chapter nine, Paul writes, now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for
food will supply and multiply.

There's rich, by the way, multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your
righteousness. You will be enriched in everything for all liberality which through us is producing
thanksgiving to God.

When it comes to God's provision for us, we have to learn to differentiate between source and
means. The means are our jobs in the bank and our skills and the companies we work for. The
ways that money and other blessings flow to us.

Those are the means. The source, however, is where the blessings, the money, the necessary
things we require each day are created, where these things begin and who controls them. A
pump or a faucet are the means by which we get water, but rain and the springs and the wells
under the earth, those are the source.

We have many means which we can improve and develop, but only one source. And for us that
source is God himself. And as far as God being as source is concerned, Paul says the following,
and my God will supply all of your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

The Bible teaches that when you give generously out of love for God, you tap into the very source
of God's blessings or God's wealth. Tapping into the source by giving generously out of love will
produce two specific riches for us.

First of all, we will be made richer in our giving. Now, this is not the gospel of wealth preached by
a lot of TV preachers, send money and the Lord will bless you for it. This is the give to get theory
of religion.

Generous giving to the Lord will bring many kinds of blessings on our heads, which include
material and emotional blessings. I mean, look at Abraham and Job and Solomon and
Barnabas. However, the greatest of these will be the additional resources to be able to give
more to the Lord.

It's a sort of you give so you can give again type of theory. No one ever went broke giving to the
Lord. As a matter of fact, the more we give, the more the Lord enables us to give. Sometimes he
does it by giving us more resources, sometimes he enables us to live more simply so we can
give more generously, but either way we are richly blessed.

To be able to give is a great feeling and a great blessing, to be able to increase our giving
regardless of the reasons is even a greater blessing. Now, let me ask you, have you ever been
unhappy because you made a generous offering to the Lord? What was the feeling? Tell me
now.

You got a bonus, I don't know, income tax bonus or your uncle Joe that you didn't know died and
he left you some money. He left you 100,000 bucks and you sat down with your spouse and said,
you know what? Let's give half of this to the Lord.

Why not? Let's give half of it to the Lord. We didn't earn it and we weren't expecting it, it just
came in as a gift from heaven. Let's just give half of it to the Lord. We've never done that, let's get
crazy.

And you write that check for 50K and you drop it in the plate. Tell me, tell me, did you go home
and cry after that? Did you feel somehow that God would abandon you after doing such a thing?
Such a generous thing? Of course not, of course not.

Another blessing of giving generously is that you will receive more than you give. In other words,
you cannot out give God. We believe this, but we don't practice it. God promises us that
whatever we give, we will receive back a hundred fold.

Did he not say that? Yeah. For example, you give a smile, you receive back many smiles and
good vibes. You give a hug and you receive not only a hug, but gratitude in return. You give
forgiveness and you receive devotion and loyalty in return.

When you give your money to God, he promises to give it back to you with interest, with interest.
And so the first promise of God to those who give generously is that he will make you rich in the
way that it is important for you to be rich.

I remember when Liz and I were working in California, you ask any preacher, would you like to
work in California and San Diego? Would you like the church to provide you a 3,000 square foot

condo? Would you like that? Would you like your office, the windows of your office to overlook
palm trees and a valley? Would you like to live four miles from the beach and get paid to preach
in this paradise? Would you like to do that? And then only after a couple of years, I get a phone
call from a brother in Montreal where it is cold.

There are no palm trees in Montreal. And he says, brother, the church here in Montreal is
struggling and it's dying and we need help and I know you're in the warm country, would you
consider coming back? That was like signing over a 50,000 bucks.

That was the equivalent to that. To leave a place where the mean temperature is 74 degrees and
go to a place where it's winter for six months of the year. I hated winter even when I lived there.
But Liz, I'll blame it on her cause she's not here. She asked the question that she asked even
when I originally went into ministry on the day that I got a promotion at work. I quit to go into
ministry. And on that day my wife announced that she was pregnant again.

Oh great, wonderful. So this time she says to me, in doing this, are we seeking the kingdom
more powerfully? I had to say, yeah. Alright then, let's pack, back to Montreal. Seven more years
of mission work in the cold.

You're probably wondering where is he going with this? Fast forward to now, the church in
Montreal is stable, they have a new building, they have their preacher, their support is
guaranteed, they're doing well.

But Liz and I are back in Choctaw and our children that were scattered all over the United States
have all moved back to Choctaw and our 12 grandchildren all come to church at Choctaw as
some of you may already have found that out.

With the screaming in the hallways. You don't think this is a blessing? You don't think there were
winter days in Montreal when we were up there thinking, how's all this going to end Lord? You
don't think that the situation that Liz and I are in now has not been a 100 fold blessing for us?
That in two days in a row, we have celebrated the 50th anniversary with some of our oldest and
dearest friends in person.

We didn't have to fly in for that, we just drove over for that. We received from the Lord so much
more than we gave to the Lord. So the first promise of God to those who give generously is that
he will make you rich in the way that it's important for you to be rich.

Sometimes we do everything spiritually we can and still our lives are filled with struggles.
Perhaps we need to examine and revive our giving so we can become rich the way God wants
us to be rich. The problem is we always want to be rich the way we want to be rich and he wants
us to be rich in the way he wants us to be rich and there's a difference.

Many times we want to be rich so we can have and use stuff. He wants us to be rich so we can
give stuff and know him more perfectly. The second promise, quickly here, second promise is
that God will reward you.

Malachi 3:10, God says through the Prophet, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse so that
there may be food in my house and test me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open
for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.

Now, one of the problems with the Jews that Malachi refers to here is that they did not fulfill their
financial commitments to the Lord. They were, if you wish, behind budget, and the consequences
was that they were suffering economic and social problems as a result.

Some say that in the New Testament, we're not required to tithe 10% like they were required to
do in the Old Testament. Well, it's true, the New Testament does not mention the percentage of
our income, but it does state that we have a commitment to the Lord to give, just like they had a
commitment to give to the Lord as well.

First Corinthians 16, on the first day of every week, each one of you is to put aside and save, as
he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come. The commitment in giving in the
New Testament is as follows.

Each Sunday, regardless of where we are, to set aside for the Lord, we give each week, not
each time we're in church. Not each time we're in church cause we're not in church every week.
And then the second thing, every member gives, this includes young people, old people, single
people, married people, pensioners, part time workers, every one should give.

Listen, if you take from the communion plate, you should contribute to the collection plate. And
each should put aside and save. This means a conscious decision and effort to earmark some
money for the purpose and this purpose only.

Save means you could use it somewhere else, but you've chosen not to. You've set it aside for
the Lord and you do that first. And then the other instruction, we give as we're prospered. Each
give as he or she is prospered, this is where the percentage comes in.

In the Old Testament, the percentage was set at 10. In the New Testament, we're not limited to
10, that's the essential difference. God wants us to commit to him financially so he can reward
us. Oh, I wish we understood that idea.

In Malachi, God invited the people to examine or to test him to see if his promise concerning his
blessings was true. He said, go ahead, try me. Stop giving me the leftovers. Stop cutting down
what you're giving.

Stop falling behind. Go ahead, test me now. Watch and see what I'll do if you do I tell you to do
when it comes to the giving. A weekly financial commitment requires a change of habit. It
requires faith that God will provide.

It requires discipline to continue with the commitment regardless of changing circumstances. But
God promises that if you commit to him financially, he will reward you for that commitment. But

remember, he will reward you in his way for his purpose, but you can be guaranteed of one thing,
you're going to like it, you're going to like it.

You're going to like the way he blesses you. And then the third promise, the third promise is that
God will surprise you. He'll make you rich, he'll reward you and he'll surprise you. In Ephesians
3:20, we read, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think
according to the power that works within us, that you know, abundantly beyond all that we.

.. That's surprised. In Luke chapter five, Jesus needed Peter's boat in order to move back from
the crowds who are pressing in on him on the shore. And Peter was tired from fishing all night,
but he agreed to take Jesus out in his boat.

And after the sermon, Jesus told Peter to cast this net into the deep part of the lake in the
morning sun. Now, Peter had failed all night at fishing, had caught nothing and that's when you
fished. He had just cleaned and stored his nets and fishing in the sunshine was not a good thing
and the deep part of the lake was the worst area to fish.

All experienced fishermen on on the lake knew this. But Peter obeyed Jesus anyways and made
the greatest catch of fish in his lifetime. Not only did he make a great payday, it was this day that
Jesus invited him to become one of his apostles, an invitation that would change his life forever.

God surprised him. In 1984, there were only 25 people in the French congregation in Montreal,
meeting in a small room at the back of this building here, the English Church building in Lachine.
We had outgrown the small room, but we seemed to few to go out and buy our own building.

Then one day we saw an old Presbyterian church building for sale, it was $156,000, but this was
a very large church building. It was near a subway station and buses. It was in a very populated
area. It was old and run down, only costs 156,000, but we were only 25 people.

We decided to trust in God, commit ourselves to giving and wait for him to reward our faith.
People put up their houses as collateral for the loan. We found an organization to rent the bottom
floor during the week in order to help us make mortgage payments.

The Lord blessed our faith and our giving and then he surprised us. The church doubled in size
to help pay for the mortgage and expenses. I think that year we baptized 30 people. The US
dollar increased in value and my work funding increased by $4,000 a month just because of the
rate of exchange and we were able to pay all of the renovations with my work fund.

Several years later, a little boy playing with matches in the alley behind the church building
accidentally set it on fire. No one was hurt, but the building was completely destroyed. The
building, by the way was insured for $450,000, which was enough to pay off the mortgage and
build a brand new building with the balance.

The congregation built a brand new building, this is it here. The inside was brand new. The only
thing that was left was the brick, that brick front, the only thing that survived the fire, everything

else was gone.

The engineers told us that the front would stay so long as we built around it. And so that's what
the church did. Brand new building, no mortgage payments, no tenants sharing the building, the
building completely paid off.

This is how the Lord surprised us. I can imagine if that meeting had gone the other way. Well,
we're only 25, come on. That's a big thing, but what if I lose my house? Is the church going to
support us if we lose the house? And you know, it's so hard to work in this thing and you know
you're being supported.

What if one of the churches drops you all of a sudden? Happens all the time. Churches, you
know what? We can't continue with our support. Sorry you'll just need to raise the money
somewhere else. What happens then? No more work fund.

A surprise means you're not expecting what will happen, you don't know the outcome. The Lord
promises those who commit themselves to regular generous giving that he will not only bless us,
he will surprise us.

And so the true power in giving is the power of God to fulfill his promises to those who give.
That's where the power is and that is the promise to make rich those who give. Rich in the ability
to give joyfully, rich in the blessings that follow generous giving.

And what are those blessings? Peace, joy, satisfaction, hope. Secondly, a promise to, excuse
me, a promise to reward us. Our social and economic welfare is directly dependent on God's
ability and willingness to make us prosper and live in peace.

God is able to do this, but his willingness is connected in a large measure to our faithfulness and
our generosity in giving. And also a promise to surprise us. Go ahead, see if you cannot give
God, go ahead.

See for yourself how creative and generous God can be in blessing you. We never know where
and when the blessings come and he blesses us in the most ingenious ways, so we are
surprised, we are in awe, we are amazed at how wonderful he is.

This will require three decisions on your part and I close with these this morning. Decision
number one, a decision to give as a Christian. Christians give according to the Bible as I read
previously.

We set aside a certain amount, a percentage if you wish, from all of our income and wealth,
salary, commissions, bonuses, tax backs, interest, gifts, whatever. If I get a gift, part of that goes
to the Lord.

We give every Sunday, not just when we're here. If we miss, we keep that portion for the Lord
and we add it when we come back. If you are a Christian, then you should give like a Christian is
instructed to give from the scripture.

Not the preacher saying, not the elders saying, this is what the scripture says. Secondly, develop
a giving plan. We plan for our pensions and they only take care of us for a few years. We should
also have guidelines and plans for our giving to the church that will last forever.

Give the bulk of your offering to your home congregation. I always encourage that. If the local
church and leadership is strong, then the programs for youth and missions and benevolence will
also be strong.

Give first and foremost to your home congregation because it is responsible for your most
important assets, your soul and the soul of your family. Part of the plan of course, is to give first to
the Lord.

If we wait until the last to figure out our offering, then there's usually not much left. And in the first
portion goes to the Lord, the Lord will enable us to live on the rest. Another element of this plan,
increase your offering regularly.

Look for extra ways and times to give as the Lord leads you. Review your giving also so you can
increase. Liz and I, we have a little, we have a kitty, so we call it our crazy money, but our crazy
money isn't crazy for us, it's our crazy giving money.

Giving to something that just comes up out of nowhere. We have a fund for that because we
know that a need will arise at some point that we'll be called upon to give. So we've got this little
crazy money here that we have access to so we can give when the opportunity presents itself.

We plan for it. Review your giving so you can increase your percentage on a regular basis and
make sure the church is in your will. Remember you can't out give God. Increasing your giving
merely increases your blessings.

And so give like a Christian, develop a giving plan and then finally dedicate all of your wealth to
the Lord. Everything we have belongs to God and by rights we should give it all to him. He
recognizes that we need to live, so he permits us to give him a portion of our wealth as a way of
dedicating or purifying all of our wealth beforehand.

Every time we remove the first portion to give to the Lord, we have made a holy and acceptable
everything else in our life. If we don't, it remains unholy and unacceptable to the Lord. Well, I pray
that today will be the beginning of dedicated plan, generous giving in this congregation for many
individuals who have not done this in the past so that we may begin being surprised by the many
blessings that God will rain down upon our heads.

And he will and he will and he has. And so if you need to come forward to become a Christian or
to be restored as a faithful Christian, then we'll sing a song in a moment. If you also need to
make a change in your giving, then please make that decision to do that.

Talk to your spouse and have a serious discussion about this part of your Christian life today. If
anyone needs to respond to the invitation at this moment, Johnny is going to lead us in a song

now. Shall we stand and sing as those who need to will come forward.

https://bible ta lk.tv/the -pow e r-of-giving