Tag Archives: giving

Sunday – December 23, 2018 Christmas 2018 – Acts 20:33-38 “The Blessing of Giving”

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Sunday – December 23, 2018

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Word On Worship – Sunday – December 23, 2018

John 3:16-17
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

As Christians we should be able to think of numerous texts which encourage or even command us to give. Likewise, the Scriptures give us directives as to how much we should give (generously), how we should give (cheerfully), and to whom we should give (e.g. those who proclaim God’s Word, and those in need).

There are no commands for God to give, only instances in which He does freely give, and give generously. So, what is it that prompts God to be a giver? Giving is God’s nature; it is God’s predisposition. He delights in giving freely, and He savors the opportunity to do so. Christmas is the season we celebrate the greatest gift ever given by God to mankind – the free gift of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. It is amazing to ponder the truth that our Lord left the splendor of heaven to come and dwell on earth, to live among sinners like us. But what is even more amazing is that the incarnation qualified our Lord to die as an innocent sacrifice in order to bear our sins on the cross of Calvary.

Many efforts to convince Christians to give come from the exhortation or instructions found in God’s Word. But the ultimate basis for becoming a giver is because God is a giver, by nature, and when we come to faith in Christ we become partakers of His divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). We should not be surprised, then, when the first thing we read about the new believers in Jesus in the Book of Acts is that they gave, and gave generously (Acts 2, 4, and 11). And saints like those in Macedonia gave gladly and enthusiastically, even with their limited means (2 Corinthians 8-9).

We may think that our giving nature is adequately expressed by giving gifts to friends and family at Christmas time, but we should give this matter more thought. The magi did not come with gifts for Mary and Joseph, but rather with gifts for the Lord Jesus. To what use were these gifts put? We are not told, but one plausible option is that these gifts were the resources which sustained Jesus and His parents in the years they spent in Egypt. The gifts supported the person and work of the Savior. I want us to consider the privilege that is ours to be a generous giver, because we share the nature of a generous, giving God. Give, not just because you are instructed by the Scriptures to do so, but because it is your nature and predisposition to do so, as it is with our Great Giving God.

Sunday – May 25, 2014 Ruth 2:1-23 “Can Christian Mingle Beat This?”

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Sunday – May 25, 2014 – Read the Word on Worship

Ruth 2 verses 1 to 22 “Can Christian Mingle Beat This?” from Sunrise Community Church on Vimeo.

Word On Worship – Sunday – May 25, 2014 Download / Print

Ruth 2:15-17
“When she rose to glean, Boaz commanded his servants, saying, “Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not insult her. “Also you shall purposely pull out for her some grain from the bundles and leave it that she may glean, and do not rebuke her.” So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley.”

For many years the issue of giving to the church and charity to the poor has been one of the great debates in the Christian community. Should our giving be to the church allowing the church to meet the needs of the poor or does the Christian have an obligation to meet the needs of their community as an individual. And when you finish wrestling with that, does giving to the poor offset your tithe to the church or should it be above what you give to Christian ministry?

For many years, I thought of giving as a New Testament teaching. Since we are now under grace, rather than under law, the Christian is not obligated to tithe or give a tenth of what they make to the work of the kingdom of God. The Christian still has the obligation to give because this responsibility is clearly taught in the New Testament, but the amount that is given was a matter of personal choice. When it came to the amount that was to be given I had lost my way in the discussion over tithing. I was caught up in the details of giving and lost sight of the heart of the giver. To put the matter in the mind of Jesus, I had fallen into the trap of straining gnats while swallowing camels.

Reading the account of Boaz’s generosity in Ruth 2 challenged me to consider giving in a new light. The Israelites of that day were “doing what seemed right in their own eyes,” which is but another way of saying that they disregarded the Word of God as it was revealed to them in the law. Boaz was a man who (like Paul in Romans Chapter 7) loved the law and who delighted (like the psalmist teaches) in doing it. Boaz, like Ruth, had the law written on his heart, a heart of flesh, not a heart of stone. As a New Testament believer, that should be true of you and me as well.

The instructions of the law pertaining to giving (particularly to the poor) were not a burden to Boaz, but a delight. He did not strive to figure out how he could reduce his benevolence to the bare minimum, but instead he went far beyond what the law required of him. The law was just a baseline for Boaz. This, my friend, is the kind of heart we should have toward giving to the poor and all those who are in need. No more debates for me about the minimum requirements of the law, or of the New Testament, for that matter. I pray God would give us all the heart of Boaz, who gave bountifully and joyfully.