Friends,
How many of you like to speak about your money? And how many of you like when a minister speaks about money? See I don’t know about you, but I can tell you that there are certain topics in the Bible which are hard to speak about and one of them is about giving, which is relatively close to our money. I have heard many times “oh I don’t go to church; they are always asking money”. So here we are with this topic, which should be taboo in our church life but when I started to serve God here in Kirkwall there was a special Sunday about giving. It was the planned giving Sunday and because I was pretty new I thought it was better to wait to talk about this topic later. See, I didn’t like to speak about money and I didn’t want to ask for money. This was until our Christmas eve service when we had to decide about the Christmas Eve offering. How many of you were here on Christmas Eve? Do you remember that we had an offering? Because traditionally the Christmas Eve offering is not part of the order of service I had to figure out something about the offering for those who didn’t know about our new addition. I spent time figuring out something when I realized how many times we misunderstand the meaning of the offering. Just imagine that God gave the most wonderful gift to us, which is Jesus Christ, He was the real gift, the real meaning of Christmas and we don’t know what would be our answer to him. It’s not about our money. It’s about our hearts and our lives. That is why on Christmas Eve I prepared white hearts as a true offering to God.
When we give our offering to God it should be an important part of the worship, because offering is part of our answer. But I am not speaking about the five minutes when we collect the gifts. I am speaking about how we answer to God when we get something from Him, when we hear his voice, when he helps us, when he calls us, when we have joy in our hearts, or when we have sadness in our lives. Giving is a kind of worship. How you can give thanks to God will speak about your relationship with God.
In the Old Testament, Proverbs says that we should give our best to God because if we do this the Bible says: “your barns will be filled to overflowing.” Yes, I read it right OVERFLOWING. When we can give our best we will see amazing things. But what does “best” mean? Sometimes it’s problematic. So let’s look at the money question. Is it easy to give offerings? Do we think about how much we should give compared to how much we actually give? And I don’t really want to speak about why we should give the best ten percent to God but I want you to understand why God wants us to answer to Him with our giving.
We all can agree that it’s easy to give when we have plenty. Ok, it’s not true for everybody but let’s see if I have $10 it’s easy to give a cent to God. But I would give him $1, because $1 is ten percent. And I, as a good Christian, will give the $1 to God since I have $9 more for me. But later I realize that I have to pay my bills, I have to pay for my food, my clothing, so I will change my mind and give only 1 cent to God. I am still giving to Him, but I’m in a bad situation, I need money.
But what the Bible says is that before we spend on anything else we should give to God. But why does God need our money? Is it not only about paying the salary of the minister and other utilities? Actually no. If we look at Proverbs again, and closer this time it says that if we give our best we will get more.
I told you already that giving is a real worship to God because if you believe that God will keep this great promise you will give your best. Do you remember last week when Heather, without even a second thought, poured the water on to her hair? She trusted in me. But can you trust in God that if you give Him your best then He will bless you with amazing things?
I hope you understand that’s not only about our money. What is your best? Yes, you can give your “best” money to God and you can see what He will do. Just try for a month and see. But I also wanted to speak about the best part of your lives: the best time, the best thing you can do, do it for God and He will bless you.
Remember the little boy in our New Testament story? We know from the Bible that 5000 men were there to listen to Jesus but we don’t know how many women and children were there too. And they got hungry without food. The disciples were in despair but couldn’t think of how to help. Only a little boy had something to eat.
Peter said: “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”Among thousands of people, only a little boy had something to eat and he didn’t want to keep it for himself but gave it to Jesus and through a little boy thousands of people were fed. Do you know what the miracle was? That Jesus used the five loaves of bread and two fish and somehow he multiplied them? Yes, it was a miracle by Jesus. He fed more than 5000 people. But it was also a miracle that a little boy had something that nobody else had and most importantly he was ready to give Jesus what he had.
I read this story again and again over several nights and do you know what my wish was? I would like to be the little boy because through him Jesus fed the hungry. What if I don’t have anything to add or I want to keep everything for myself? The little boy was ready to give his food to Jesus who made miracles from those bread and fish. The bread and fish were the little boy’s best. He didn’t give his clothing or his sandals to Jesus, but what he gave Jesus multiplied.
Friends, do you want to be the little boy who wants to give Jesus his best? On the night I read this story from my Bible I made a note to myself:
A child of God is the one who has fish and bread and through her Jesus can feed the world.
Today I wanted to speak to you about how you can survive financial difficulties. I wanted to show you a way when you can give easily without even worrying about your future. But friends, I have a strong feeling that today Jesus is the One again who gave us His best. He fed our soul. We are so special to Him that He visited us. Thanks be to Jesus.