1. Giving Matters IV
“The Call to Give”

2. Part 1-The Historical Practice of Giving on the part of God’s people
Part 2-The Heart of Giving and what moves us to give (love).
Part 3-Supporting Ministry and Mission Through Giving
And what does this have to do with me?
Part 4-”The Call to Give”. YOU are called to be a giver.

3. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard
work we MUST help the weak, remembering
the words the Lord Jesus himself said, “It is more blessed to
give than to receive.”-Acts 20:35
Mother Teresa said…It’s not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving.
Anne Frank said…No one ever becomes poor by giving.
Francis of Assisi said “For it is in giving that we truly receive.”

4. When we offer ourselves to God that is a spiritual act of worship.
It does not confine itself to “church settings” or worship services.
Today we will cease our corporate worship at about 11:30. The songs will go quiet, the amens will have been said. Will we truly be done worshipping?
Romans 12:1-2 tells us that our lives are an offering. Every part of us is given to God. That is worship.

5. We are called to be givers.
Givers of heart, givers of time, givers of material resources and expertise.
As we examined last week…God loves cheerful givers.
As we examined 2 weeks back…its easier to be a cheerful giver when we give out of love rather than pure sense of duty.

6. 1 Timothy 6:17-19 Command generosity Don’t place hope in wealth.
In this way (generosity) we lay up treasure.
This passage comes from a directive given to Timothy the young church leader and evangelist, from the Apostle Paul who had training him for work in the mission field and ministry.
It sums things up pretty well.
Shamelessly, COMMAND generosity.
Don’t place hope in wealth as if it is some fortress of security that can protect us in ways that ultimately matter.
By being generous what does the scripture say? (we lay up treasure).

7. I want to ask something of each disciple in this fellowship…rethink your giving before you offer another nickel to the Lord and to the ministry/mission of his church.
Truly, where is your treasure. If it is here on earth, than you’d be better served using your resources to take care of what is here on earth.
If you are among those who believe as Jesus did, that this realm is temporary and that life with the Father is eternal than you should consider keeping your treasure on a higher plain.

8. #1-How can I practically go about giving in a way that is cheerful?
-Decide right away that God is smarter than you are. Accept the notion that the scriptures are wise and prove out to be right.
-You’ll win and who doesn’t like winning.
#2-Re-evaluate your spending habits.
-What do they say about where your treasure seems to lie? They tell a story, so listen to it and learn from it.
#3-Adjust accordingly and faithfully
-Can you go without something in order to answer the call to give?
-Will you keep less for yourself so that you have more to share with others?
-Are you being wise with your finances (do you budget, do you give first to God and go from there or is it the other way around?)

9. Giving to those in need is vital, it’s biblical…but it is also not the same as giving to support the ministry and mission of God.
We’ve already discussed this in an earlier part of our series…the truth is that for the vast majority of us there is no need to have to hold back from giving faithfully to the Lord in order to help the needy. We have enough to be able to do both.

10. Jesus’ Parables
Interestingly, of the 38 parables of Jesus that we find in scripture, 16 have to do with how we handle our money and possessions.
Phillippians 4:10-20
Last week we looked at a passage where Paul basically told the Coritnthian church that he didn’t want their money to support him in ministry even though it was not out of line for him to receive it.
Here we see the same Paul, thanking the church in Phillipi for…giving! Their support of his mission helped him to keep ministering and spreading the Gospel and doing God’s work.
They had answered to call to give and it was changing lives. This is a great example for us.

11. We have about 50 members.
By world standards we are wealthy.
By biblical standards we are commanded to be generous.
Quick and simple breakdown…we (last week we were more detailed) we hire 2 workers at about $20 an hour to teach, counsel, pln promote and carry out the mission/ministry work full time and to keep the members of our wonderful fellowship encouraged.
That’s a pretty good rate of pay, but keep in mind that the unique willingness and abilities of the staff is not easy to come by, so the compensation is fair.
If all our 50 members gave $35 each week we would have enough to support the payroll of our fellowship.
You’ll notice that we meet indoors  The cost to do so with all factors from mortgage to utilities and such involved is about $500 each week. Each member giving $10 would allow us to keep doing that.
The Fox Valley Church goes well beyond having a staff and a building. The supplies we use to carry out the mission (like printer ink, microphones, wifi, cirriculum and paper plates…. ) costs us an additional $13 per member each week. It’s important to have the resources to keep each other inspired, focused and built up.
Currently, we do not collect enough to cover all of these costs and have been using some money that was “saved up” during the years when the church had less or no ministry staff, to cover the gap.

12. What’s it for?
When giving generously (as the scriptures command) to the Lord in support of Ministry and mission that’s a quick breakdown of what it’s going towards and how much it actually costs/
50 members each giving 48 on average each week is what it costs.
I share that with you to educate you not to try and make you feel inadequate or to make you feel like a rock star. This is just what it costs.
Not a fundraiser!
I believe that it is good for us to know this. In some cases this may wake you into a realization that more could be used from you. For certain (let me be clear), we will not all have the income to give the average of $48. That is not the idea really. Remember, we give in keeping with our income (1 Cor 16). Surely, many of us can give beyond that amount in keeping with our income (let me be clear again), we are commanded to be generous.
We are called to give. In keeping with out income we should give.
With a heart of love for God and for others we should cheerfully give.
Our giving does impact our growth (as we looked at last week the church has grown at a more abundant pace in both tangible and intangible ways since we hired a staff to help in the ministry of the Lord.
This 4 part series was geared at teaching us what the Bible has to say on the subject of giving because “giving matters”. It matters to God, it matters to those in his church and it certainly matters to the community around us who need the church of Christ far more than they probably realize.
After hearing these 4 messages each of us should have a pretty good idea of what God expects from scripture, we should understand the difference between OT tithes and offerings and NT generosity and sacrifice and we should have a good idea about what our congregation is doing with the Lord’s money.
All this was done in the hopes of teaching us to be generous, faithful and cheerful givers.