Set Free To Love
Glenville Proverbs 3:5-10 Luke 10:25-37 5/22/2011
We are in a new series entitled Set Free. How many of you know we all have something in our lives that we need to be set free from. Pastor Toby preached last week on Set Free To Worship. will preach on being Set Free To Love, and Pastor Kellie will preach on on being Set Free To Serve. Each week you will receive a card with today’s topic on it. You fill out the back, and make it your aim to go home and do it.
Have you ever blessed someone with a surprise gift that you knew he or she was going to love? There was a sense of expectation of joy and delight in your own heart as the person open the gift. Sometimes the person’s smile or ahhh made it worth it to you to have paid for the gift. You recognized that there is a special joy in being a blessing to someone else. When you are free to love others, you can be a tremendous blessing.
But then there is also a sort of dark side to be a blessing. Take for instance Karen who was a single mom. Even though times were hard, she saved together $75 to have a special day for her 12 year old son John. Karen decided she would give John $50 to go buy some shoes and she would spend the $25 on herself. She took the money out of her special hiding saving place and called in John. She said “today is our special blessing day”. John was as delighted to receive the $50 as she was to give it. She put the other $25 back into the hiding place.
John rushed down to the store to purchase the shoes. The ones he intended to purchase came to 48.99 with tax. But John saw a later style of shoes and they came to $74.88 with tax. John then decided to go back home and get some of the money he saw his mother hide away. John took the money out of the place and went and bought the shoes.. Boy, was he ever going to impress his friends with the new shoes that he had brought.
When Karen comes home, she sees a piece of paper on the floor. It’s a receipt for a pair of shoes, $74.88. Karen goes to her secret hiding place and looks for her special day blessing envelope. It’s not where she placed it. She finally discovers the envelope in the trash torn in half. If you were Karen, how would you feel inside. Hurt, Angry, Disappointed, Sad. Would you rush to find John, or would you wait for him to come and admit what he had done?
Suppose you put the envelope on the table at dinner time, and asked him, “John did you get the shoes and were you thankful.” Suppose he ignored the envelope and said “yes mom, I got the shoes and they are wonderful. Thank you so much for blessing me with them.” Now how are you feeling about the gift and about John.
Well you may have a glimpse of what goes on in the heart of God when He blesses with things to make us happy only for us to come back and take from Him. You see, all the money that we have comes from God, because everything in the world belongs to God. God says here, I give you this money. You keep 90% of it and let me have the other 10%. At first we are glad to get such a huge amount, but then we go out and we see things that we want. And rather than wait to get them, like John, we sneak back and take the 10% that God had wanted to use to bless others. How many of you here intended to tithe, but then the car note was higher, the cell phone bill was more, or the mortgage with taxes, costs more than you had thought it was going to. There’s a lot of John lurking in the hearts of believers.
When we talk about love, there is always going to be a cost involved. It costs the good Samaritan something to love his neighbor. He was set free from his fears of what might happened if he went over to help. He was set free from his prejudice of what if this guy is a Jew. He was set free from his money of what if I don’t have enough to take take care of me in the end.
How many of us would like to be set free to trust and to love God. God trusts you far more than you trust God. God was long ago set free to erntrust us with all his possessions. If I entrust you with a $1000 of my money, how much do I expect to get back when I come to get it.
The amazing thing about God, is that God only asks for the 10% in order to bless us with more than what we had before. Yet so many of us are not willing to be set free to love the Lord with our whole heart, body, soul and strength step up to a new level of blessing. There are three reasons we do not give when we have something to give. 1. We simply are not thankful for what God has done for us. 2. We are simply greedy and do not care for what God has done for us. Or 3 we are afraid that God will not come through for us. For those of you who are in group one or two, this sermon is not for you. Your problem is, you have not gotten saved and you need to make Jesus Christ Lord and Savior of your life. I want to talk to those of you who are afraid to trust God. That’s what’s keeping you from helping us to be a church that you can genuinely have the resources to love people.
First let me ask you, what are you trusting in? Is there anyone foolish enough to trust in their job as their source of income? Do you know how many people have lost good paying jobs in the last few years. The recent actions of our governorr and legislatures have drastically altered people’s futures. Jobs that they thought would be there for a lifetime will soon be gone. Some of our members who are teachers have already received job loss notices.. Most of us are at will employees which means we could lose our jobs tomorrow by doing absolutely nothing wrong. Someone in a boardroom could make the decision to want to make more money and your job is gone.
Is there anyone foolish enough to trust in their retirement savings plan. The stock market bust has proven how quickly our 401k’s can go up in smoke and how others can steal our wealth out of greed. Most of us have our retirement funds in places controlled by people who do not follow the ways of Christ. Yet we have entrusted our future to them. There are plenty more Bernied Madoff’s handling our money.
Are you trusting in your own financial savy. You know you will always be able to get a job. You know you will always be able to get ahead. The reality is, we are all just one day away from disaster. The flooding along the Missippi is showing that everything you have worked for all your life can be taken away in just a moment of time. Can you really predict the future. Who foresaw all the tornadoes that struck the south just last month.
Money is the greatest threat to our relationship to God, because money can in fact become a God. Money tells us what we can and cannot do, where we can and cannot go, who we can and cannot be with, where we can and cannot live, what things we can and cannot have, and what dreams we can and cannot aspire to attain. Money determines who we will and will not love. Our money and our ability to spend it in the way we want is what we trust in. But Jesus said, “Matthew 6:24
"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” In other words, your trust and your faith is either in God or in your money. Do you believe God is good enough and loving enough to want to bless you? If the answer is no, than I’m no longer speaking to you.
We must get away from this idea of thinking, God does not want me to enjoy life. God does want you to enjoy life, but sometimes we short change ourselves into thinking what it means to enjoy life. To enjoy life is not necessarily having the right care with all the gizmos, or the right designer clothing or the right home or whatever. To enjoy life is to have the favor of God upon your life, because God even prevents things from happening that were headed directly for us. To enjoy life means being set free to love.
The other side of the coin, is that sometimes God will send some headaches into our lives, just to show us we cannot trust ourselves and our great plans for the future. When we trust in our money, we have put our feet on slippery rocks. We’re standing, but for how long.
God is straight forward and hones with us about long term life. Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Why do we believe we can sow deception and reap blessings. If we were read your name and your giving, some of you would get angry or embarrassed and would not show back up to church. God has said, we reap what we sow. How many of you would like to have an abundance. God has an abundance plan. It’s called Proverbs Proverbs 3:9-10 Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; [10] then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.
If you’re scared to trust the Old Testament, are you at least willing to trust what Jesus had to say. Luke 6:38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Do you see how God gives you the choice in the matter. Wasn’t it a serious mistake for John to have taken the blessing money? It made him dishonest, it put a strain in his relationship with his mother, and he could not really enjoy those shoes if he had much of a conscious. Worse than that, he missed out on the next thing His mother was probably planning on giving him. What have you missed out on, because of your unwillingness to give as God ask you to do? Have you ever thought about what you may have left behind.
Would you like to be set free to love God. How many of you want a bountiful harvest in your health? …In Your Home where everybody gets along and love each other?…on your Job with peace of mind? At school, where you excel in class and stay out of trouble…in all of your business affairs with profits going up?… in your marriage where love stays alive?….in your income where there’s money, left over at the end of the month. And then some ?…in all that you do, as you walk through life. All of these things have a relationship to tithing which indicates where we are putting our trust and our confidence. You don’t move to new level of blessings, just by trying to get things on your own.
If you are to receive God’s blessing then agree with God in your financial planning. God has given us so many great promises concerning the sowing and reaping of our increase into His kingdom. One such passage in the Bible is found in 2 Corinthians 9:6-11, "But this I say, He which plants a few seeds is only going to get a few plants, but the one who sows a lot of seeds is going to reap a lot of profit.
Giving to God of our tithes and offerings is directly related to our attitude toward God and our trust in His faithfulness to fulfill the promises that He has given to us! It does not matter which type of church you are in for the vast majority of Christians who go to our churches, their attitude toward giving to God is that they will only give to Him what is extra or what we might consider “leftovers” after they have used up as much as they needed and wanted first.
We look at the number of people in church, and we sometimes think, there are enough other people to give so I don’t have to. Unfortunately, there are other people thinking the same think. Somebody giving more does not excuse my need to give what God has required of me. I need to do what God asks of me, regardless of what you do. I need to give because God has been good to me. I need to be set free to love others, because God has set me free. I need to offer my best, because in Jesus Christ, God has offered me God’s best.
When you stand before God at the judgment do you want to hear God say, “Well, you almost did well in being faithful to me.” I want to hear God say, “Well Done” when it comes to my giving. I don’t want to have a bunch of excuses of why I would not give as I was supposed to do. God deserves our first fruits, not our left overs.
What would you think of a friend who only invited you to come to dinner to help them get rid of their leftovers from Sunday meal. You get a left over chicken leg, a leftover piece of corn, and a leftover piece of cornbread. But they keep telling you about what it was like when they first sat down to eat.
That’s how we treat God with a lot of our giving. Let me find something leftover. If we don’t like leftovers, as special guests. I don’t think we should expect God to like them either! God expects our best and only our best.
Why is money so important in being set free to love. Our surrender of our money puts God in back in charge of our lives of what we see when we see people. Do we see people as an opportunity to express God’s love or as something to be avoided because they might cost me something. Will we like the priest and the Levite and walk on the other side of the street, or will we take a risk to help someone get back on his or her feet. Our church is not about whether or not we like the worship service. Our church is to about meeting the needs of people that God sends our way. You can’t love others if you only think of yourself.
Being set free to love is not just about our money. We need to be free to love with our ability and our talents? What do you do service wise for the good of the church. We should realize that any talent, ability or knowledge that we have are the result of God’s blessing to us! What do we do those blessings? We need your participation as a church. God needs your participation and your talents. The Good Samaritan knew something about washing and bandaging wounds. Was he perhaps in the medical field. Was he using his professional skills in being the neighbor. Was he set free to use what God had given to him, wherever it was needed.
Glenville is going to be a great church because more of us will get the vision of wanting to make a difference in loving people. Loving people is going to involve going out and finding the lost. Most of our energy goes into loving each other that are already here. Imagine if we shut down all our activities for a month, just to go find people for the cause of Christ. How many of us would be terrified at the prospect. How many of else would immediately find something else to do? How many of us would say, “God if that’s what you want, here am I send me.
To be set free to love people means we say no to some of our own little projects to being available to make a difference in someone else’s life. The Good Samaritan had a number of places to go and several things to do, but out of love he set them aside for a moment. Are you willing to pray God, set me free by upsetting my schedule at least once a week to show me somebody to love? That’s a dangerous prayer because God will probably answer it.
To be set free to love will cost us money, it will cost us service, and it will cost us time. Churches get into trouble when the majority of its members insists on holding on to these three things, rather than yielding them over to God. It all comes back to just how much do we really want to trust God. What you did in the past is not the issue today? It’s what are you going to do today from this point forward.
We need to start realizing, all of our financial decisions are indication of whether we are trusting God or not. When you decide to go into debt for a purchase, that’s not necessarily trusting God. You have to have something in hand and be willing to give it up in order to have made a statement of trust that God will replace it and add to it in the process. All of our giving is a sign of what’s taking place in our hearts. For the most part, we decide how many bills we have and what it is we’re willing to commit ourselves to any period of time.
We need you to be growing in the area of giving, because our giving is like a spiritual thermometer for our souls. You see we all suffer when you refuse to chose to be set free to love. When you miss out, we all miss out, because we are one family, one body of Christ, with one Lord. I don’t know how to get you to be willing to trust God in more. I do not want to pray, Lord teach so and so to trust you more, because I’d be praying for some very hard times to come into you life in which everything around you would fail you, and only God would be left.
I think we grow more when we make a choice on our own to choose to trust God. Because then it’s a choice to love God. When we choose to love God, we value God for who He is, and not necessarily for what we are begging Him to get us out of. Our giving of our money, is proof of what’s in our hearts. God never asks us to give what we do not have. No one needs to be ashamed of what they give, because a tithe is a tithe. The person giving $60 a month may be a far more faithful giver than the one giving $600. Young people your tithe of .50 cents is just as much as the tithe of $550.00 10% is still 10%. Getting more will not increase your desire to tithe unless you have first voluntarily decided to do away with some other things for good.
I doubt if there is any faithfulness involved in the person who is giving nothing. You ought to be ashamed of yourself now and change, rather than be exposed before all believers of all times at the judgment seat of Christ.
Being set free, always means choosing to first be a blessing to others. It begins with your attitude toward giving back to God
Set Free To Love—Pastor Rick
Proverbs 3:5-10 Luke 10:25-37
A. New Se –Set Free
1. Worship, Love, Serve
2. Blessing With A Gift
3. Karen, John & The Shoes
4. How Do You Feel
B. God’s Gift To Us
1. The Presence Of bills
2. Love The Cost Involved
3. Desire To Be Set Free
C. What’s Holding Us Back
1. Not Thankful, Greed, Fear
2. Where’s Our Trust
3. Unpredictable Economics
4.Who Do We Trust
D. The Amazing Power Of Money
1. It Calls The Shots
2. No One Can Serve Two
Masters
3. Is God Good
4. The Good Life
5. God Is Able
F. The Principle Of Sowing &
Reaping
1. Galatians 6-7
2. Proverbs 3:9-10 9 Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; 10 then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.
Luke 6:-38 (NIV)
38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
G. What Are We Missing Out On
1. What Are We Leaving Behind
2. Do We Want What The Lord Has
3. Giving Affects Our Relationships
H. Is Our Blessing A Gift Or Not
1. My Responsibility Is Mine
2. I Need To Be Set Free For Me
3. The Leftovers Invitation
4. How Do We Treat Guest
5. How Do We See People
6. How Do We See Glenville
I. Set Free To Love With Talents
1. You Are Needed
2. Your Skill Set
3. Choosing To Be Available To Love
4. Prayer For Change
5. The Cost-Money, Service, Time
K. Choosing To Change Today
1. We Are Affected By Each Other
2. The Choice To Love
3. All Tithes Are Equal
4. Set Free To Be A Blessing
