The Cattle Prod or the Cross May 28, 2006
Part 3 in Stewardship 06, What We Give Pastor Mark Nieting
The Text for this message is Acts 5: 1-11, with a reflection on Malachi 3: 7-12.
The sermon that I am about to preach will be, for some of you, a very difficult sermon to hear. In fact, there are some who just might be glad it is my second last sermon at Emmanuel! I used to squirm when I heard the same sermon preached, since I took it as an indictment of the way I practiced stewardship.
For those of you visiting Emmanuel today, we don??t preach about money here nearly as often as Jesus did, but when we do, it??s no-nonsense and straight from the Bible?ñ.and to begin, I??m going to mention a name: Richard Nixon. When I said his name, what came to mind? Watergate, right? Cover-up, right? For those of you too young to remember, during his campaign for president, people working for him broke into the Democrat headquarters to steal some papers. Nixon heard about it and tried to cover it up, making two problems out of one. Ultimately it wasn??t the break-in but the cover-up that cost President Nixon his job. It was bad.
But the same pattern is true of almost all of us?ñ.we make mistakes and then we try to cover them up and it gets worse and worse. I??ve done it and maybe you have too?ñ..but to protect the guilty, I??m not going to use a personal story here! Instead, I??m going to share three stories from Scripture.
The first is from Joshua 7. It??s about Achan, who was a soldier fresh from battle. He was supposed to give all the plunder to God as a thank-offering for the victory God gave them, but instead, he kept some of the loot for himself: 200 pieces of silver, a gold bar and a beautiful carving from Babylon. After all, times were hard, he had fought for the Lord, so, Achan must have thought, I deserve a few of the good things in life! So he buried them under his tent and life went on.
Then things took a turn for the worse, not for Achan, but for all of Israel. They started to lose battle after battle and finally, Joshua asked God what was wrong. God said, ?¨Joshua, someone has been cheating on me.?Æ So Joshua went through the camp asking, ?¨Are you cheating on God? Are you??Æ When he asked Achan, he denied it. Joshua was suspicious and searched Achan??s tent and sure enough, he found the stuff that belonged to God. Achan committed two sins: one was cheating on his offerings and the other was lying about it. The punishment was terrible: Achan and his entire family were wiped out.
Now, it??s tough to deal with this story?ñ.but the point is clear, right?
The second story comes from Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament. The people of God then were doing what many people of God had done and still continue to do, cheat on their offerings. God has ALWAYS said to bring the first and the best, whether it is money or animals didn??t matter?ñit was a matter of the priority of the heart. Back then every tenth sheep was to be offered to God. One man found that as he counted off his sheep to prepare to give his tithe, the ninth one was a scrawny, little, blind, crippled one and the tenth one was a big fat one. I mean, a perfect 10, sheep-wise. So he figured he would simply swap the 9th for the 10th and he would keep the fat one and give God the skinny one and God should be fine with that. Well, you guess the outcome?ñ.was God fine with that? If YOU were due the offering, would YOU be fine with that one? God??s answer was that the people who did this would be cursed, not blessed! And yet, people still do the same thing, even today, and expect that God??s attitude has changed! Lots of luck!
The third story is about Ananias and Sapphira, from Acts 5. In the early Christian church, people were being very generous with each other. Many believers sold lots of their goods and donated the money to the poor and needy. Last week we mentioned Barnabas as an example of this type of generosity, and we??re in the same sequence here. Ananias and Sapphira, a married couple, saw the fuss made over what Barnabas had done, and they wanted the same kudos for themselves. So they told everyone that they were going to do the same thing Barnabas did. They sold a piece of property, but only brought SOME of the money to the apostles as a gift for the poor. Now that would have been ok if he had said he was bringing just some of the money, if that had been the original plan, but he tried to get people to believe he had brought the entire receipts of the sale, when in fact, he was lying. He knew it. God knew it. Peter knew it, and he confronted Ananias with the truth. Poor Ananias. He got so upset he had a heart attack and died right on the spot. Then his wife came looking for him. Peter went through the same questioning, confronted HER lack of honesty and she died too, right on the spot.
That??s not the happiest story in the New Testament, is it? It??s not a ?¨they lived happily ever after?Æ story, is it? It??s a story that makes some of us downright nervous and makes others of us want to check our blood pressure! In fact, all 3 of these stories can do that to us. We might spin it that these are old stories from the dark ages of the church?ñ?ñbut the truth is, it still happens all the time! In light of these stories, it might be wise if I asked the ushers to distribute NITRO patches and St. Joseph aspirin during the offering today!
As I said before, this is a no-nonsense sermon. Last week I titled the message, ?¨Hannah and the 3%,?Æ since most Lutheran Christians give about 3% of their income to God. Why is that? Why do we think that is acceptable? How can we even pretend that is ok with God that we cheat Him out of what is His? Most of the time I try to be soft and gentle about the problem, but when Don tells us that we can??t even buy stamps this week in the church office (and Debbie had to pay $40 out of her own pocket to do a simple mailing), and we can??t help a member family that is in need because there is no money in the checking account, then it??s time to say something. In fact, it is far past time.
So what??s the problem? Why are most Lutherans in the 3% category, if that? One possible explanation (I won??t justify this as an excuse!) is that we can feel a huge need to maintain our chosen life-style and it costs us a lot of money to keep up with the Joneses, right? Then, there is a lack of spiritual maturity that can lead someone to believe that tossing in a buck or a Jackson now and again is just fine with God, as if God should be grateful for our leftovers. There are also ?¨ala carte?Æ Christians, where people choose which parts of God??s Word to pay attention to and which they would rather avoid. Also, some of us don??t have the discipline to live with a realistic budget. Some of us might say, ?¨Pastor, you have your way of looking at this and I have a different way, and my Bible says 3% is just fine.?Æ
Sad to say, many of us are just plain selfish when it comes to our money. It??s US first and others last?ñ.God included. Lastly, it may come down to a lack of trust in God Himself?ñ. We may trust in Him for our salvation through Jesus Christ, but we don??t trust God??s promise in Malachi 3 that HE will open the floodgates of heaven and bless us if we release our first-fruit tithe to Him!
Are you giving a tithe to Christ? If so, thank you! Bless you! If not, why not?
I was thinking about images to use for stewardship. In the past I have used a bowl of ten shiny apples. We are free to use 9 of the apples any way we wish once we give the first one back to God in thanksgiving for what Jesus has done for us on the cross. That??s a wonderfully positive image?ñ.and the cross wasn??t cheap at all?ñ..it cost Jesus His life and released You and me from that cost! This is a great image?ñbut it doesn??t quite get at the mood of the stories I??ve used today.
So, imagine in my hand I hold a cattle prod. It??s got a fresh battery in it, so when the farmer ?¨sticks it to the cow,?Æ it will shock and stun the cow. It certainly gets a reaction, and WHY? To get the cow moving in the right direction. That??s the way these Bible stories that I??ve told today can hit us: they can give us a jolt, stun us, and zap us. And they do this WHY? To get you and me moving in the right direction. And, to be honest, some of us need to be shocked, stunned, prodded. Sometimes the truth hurts, especially when it is God??s truth, which everything I have said today is.
Christian friends, I struggled for decades over the question of tithing, even after I had become a pastor. But truthfully I can tell you this, along with every other person I know who believes in God??s promise attached to tithing: you will never miss a nickel you give to the Lord when you tithe. In fact, the opposite is true. You will never be blessed so much as how God will bless you when you trust Him enough to tithe. Whatever is holding you back, deal with it prayerfully. Remember the cross of Jesus Christ, who held back nothing, but gave of Himself for your salvation. Trust God gratefully for the cross and there won??t be any need for a cattle prod?ñ.and you too will be blessed, forever!
And to that, the people of God say, Amen.
Please take a moment of silent prayer to reflect on what your commitment to the Lord will be in the coming year. You know what you make each week, month or year. You know what you give to the Lord. Are you tithing, Biblically speaking? If not, I ask you to make a commitment to do so, and receive the blessings God has planned to pour out upon you in your life. Amen!
