Mark 8:34-35 & 10:29-30
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
November 10, 2024
A church member, who now worships in the Church Triumphant, once said with a twinkle in her eye, “Whenever you preach on giving, I grab my purse and hug it tightly.”
We do get defensive when people ask for money!
But if the Christian lifestyle is all about giving, isn’t giving money an essential practice of the faith?
Have you ever had a doctor poke, prod and press in various places on your body, and observe your response? If at one point you wince with pain, one of two things has happened: Either the doctor has pushed too hard or, more likely, there’s something wrong and the doctor will say, “We need to check this out. It’s not supposed to hurt like that.”
When pastors preach on giving, some wince with pain. Either the pastor has pushed too hard, or there’s something wrong and the Great Physician has to do a healing, for it’s not supposed to hurt like that.
Now, this is a Presbyterian church. The Presbyterian branch of Christianity was born in Switzerland, but grew up in Scotland. As some of you know, the Scots have a reputation for being tight-fisted about money.
The story is told of a Scotsman boarding a train dragging behind him a heavy suitcase. When the conductor came to collect fares, the Scotsman protested the price and tried to argue him down. The two of them disputed back and forth with increasing heat until, just as the train crossed a river, the fed-up conductor flung down a window, grabbed the Scotsman’s suitcase, heaved it to the window ledge and tilted it over to fall into the water where it made a big splash. The infuriated Scotsman exclaimed, “My God, man, it’s bad enough you’re trying to overcharge me; now you’re trying to drown my poor wife!”
We don’t have to be Scottish to resist parting with our money. We all have to fight viewing our money what’s there all for us. Presbyterian pastor John Ortberg ran headlong into that attitude in his six-year-old daughter.
As soon as the children were old enough to receive an allowance, John and Nancy Ortberg introduced their kids to an envelope system for organizing and prioritizing their money. They taught the kids to put different amounts into envelopes labeled “Giving”, “Saving”, “Buying Presents for Others,”, “Fun”, and so forth.
John thought it was working until the day he was wearing a band-aid on his arm from a blood draw. His little girl asked if he’d hurt himself. “No,” he said, “it was from a medical exam to get life insurance.” “What’s life insurance?” she asked. He replied, “Well, Daddy loves you and Sissie and Mommy so much that, in case anything were to happen to Daddy (which of course it won’t, but if it did), a company would give a million dollars to the Ortberg’s.” His sweet, tender-hearted girl, whom he knew wanted her Daddy to be there forever, looked up at him with wide eyes and a troubled look on her face. She said, “Daddy, I’ve got to know something. Is that for all of us together, or is it a million for each one of us?”
It suddenly occurred to John he hadn’t yet succeeded in conveying a Christian view of money!
Jesus taught that living as His disciple means denying ourselves, embracing our cross as a tool by which the person we’d been before gets killed off, and following His example of self-sacrifice for the good of others. Jesus put it bluntly: “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”
Now, wouldn’t you think that if you’d already committed to losing your life for the sake of Jesus and His concerns, you’d be OK with losing for Him some of your money (say, 10%, to grab a figure at random out of thin air) – especially if He promises that any sacrifice you make will lead to a great gain for you? And, if you’ve already trusted Jesus enough to give your life over to Him, can’t you also trust Him to give you a good return on the money you give over to Him?
Jesus illustrated the general truth that sacrificing for Him leads to big gains when He promised: “There is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, who will not receive a hundred-fold now in this age…and in the age to come eternal life.”
Bearing in mind eternity, as well as God’s grace right now, helps us get perspective on our sacrifices for Him.
Some years back, Christianity Today writer Gary Thomas shared how he is reminded of that every year when he owes in taxes. During the year, he delights in every paycheck and other item of income, but often flinches when he pays his tithe or makes an offering in worship. At the end of the year, however, his outlook reverses. As he calculates his tax liability, he winces at the size of his income and thanks God for his generosity to the church; for more income means higher taxes, and greater generosity means more deductions and lower taxes. Everything then, he notes, “is turned upside down, or perhaps, more appropriately, right-side up.”
Indeed, as Jesus turns everything topsy-turvy but right-side up, we realized we become wealthy, not by the money we have, but by the money we give to bless others. We are full by our letting go of things to serve God and neighbor.
In the topsy-turvy world of God’s grace, to lose money in loving others is to become wealthier in other ways. If we sacrifice the one treasure, we gain richer treasure of a different kind: soul-satisfaction, inner joy from having an impact for good, and empathetic delight from the happiness we’ve brought others.
We’ve been greatly blessed by previous generations of Covenant folks who by their generous giving built the foundation on which we have built the ministries that are uplifting the people of the present generation. We can pay forward our gratitude for their generosity by being generous ourselves to bless those of this generation and of future generations. The gain of joy over being one more link in a long chain of love will more than compensate for the sacrifice we make in being generous. Truly, we will, as Jesus said, save our life by losing it for His sake.
Whether you’re online or in person next Sunday, you can enact that step of faith when, in the context of worship, you make a pledge either virtually or physically. A pledge is a faith promise to give, over the course of a year, a certain amount of money, with a certain rhythm of regularity, to fund Jesus’ work through a particular church.
Only God knows what amount you should promise. All we can do is ask that you pray and listen – and then obey God’s will as you discern it. Only God knows what you should do, but we all know what Jesus promises: we’ll gain by our sacrifice!
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