Building A Great Church Requires that You Gather the Resources
Exodus 36:1-6
The LORD has given to Bezalel, Oholiab, and others the skills needed for building a place of worship, and they will follow the LORD’s instructions. Then Moses brought together these workers who were eager to work, and he gave them the money that the people of Israel had donated for building the place of worship. In fact, so much money was being given each morning,that finally everyone stopped working and said, "Moses, there is already more money than we need for what the LORD has assigned us to do." So Moses sent word for the people to stop giving, and they did.
How did this happen? These were not special people. These were regular people, ordinary people with families to feed, bills to pay, gas tanks to keep filled. How did it happen that in the course of building a place of worship that the people were giving so much that it was becoming a distraction to the actual work and Moses had to tell them to stop?
It is a simple thing really. It is the difference between taxation and generous giving. It’s the difference between the token offering of $5.00, $10.00, or $20.00 and the grateful return of a tenth of your increase to God. It’s the difference between guilt driven, duty inspired, grudgingly presented contributions of a major donor and the cheerful giving of joy filled widow.
Jesus said that “God loves a cheerful giver”. This morning I want to talk to you about you becoming that kind of person. In fact, I want to talk about this church becoming a body of believers who are cheerful givers. I mean wouldn’t it be wonderful – really – to be able to have so given that we have enough to do everything we need!
We have a lot!
We have a solid and experienced leadership with Godly Elders. We have a young, energetic staff who want to rock the world. We have a warm, loving and encouraging body of believers. We have good solid and basic programs in place.
What we need:
We need to minister to believers who are here.
We need a powerful men’s ministry; a vibrant women’s ministries; a solid marriage ministry that builds good marriages and saves rocky marriages.
We need to build up the lives of our people through personal discipleship. To teach, encourage, and prepare you to become dependent on your prayer life and focused on the reading of the word of God for your own growth and strength.
We need to further develop the leaders and their abilities of the leaders in our body through Leadership Training Seminars and regular training activities.
We need to build up our children’s ministries
We need to reach out to the regular normal people in our world. Listen, it’s time to tell them about what we’ve discovered!
We need to tell people boldly! Lets tell the people we know that we want help them find their way home – to experience the joy of a guiltless life without the weight of sin; to experience the warmth of acceptance no matter what they have done or where they have been.
We need to tell people by investing in relationships with them. I’d like to build an active sports ministry. Not just a team or two but entire leagues - a winter volleyball league; a summer softball league, a soccer league, and a soccer camps for kids.
We need to tell people by meeting their needs. The Meridian Angels activities are a big piece of this! We need programs and places where the Meridian Angels can work, plan, and prepare to meet community opportunities for ministry to others.
We need to minister to the children
Children’s Ministry
To be able to build a Children’s ministry that really rocks – not just on Sunday mornings – but also throughout the week. To prepare the curriculum, build the stages, purchase the equipment, and organize the programs, which will change a 7-year-old child’s life forever. I would like someday to be able to build a day care ministry for families who want their children to be trained up with Godly values. Even better to create a latchkey program running from 3-6 pm to help parents who work and provide safe positive environments where caring people give daily guidance
We need the resources to make this place our own home until the day we can build our own home
A rented home is ok. I’m not complaining. It’s a little warm in the summer. It’s not easy to run around and set up every Sunday. It’s a little tiring to work in a basement under florescent lighting for hours on end but it works for now. We have to get really good at setting up and tearing down.
Someday we need our own place to call home. We need land and buildings where ministry, leadership training, preaching and teaching God’s word is a 7 day a week operation – how through a ministry to men; to women; through an active sports ministry – believers and seekers together playing softball, volleyball, soccer, flag football and discovering that the only difference is that we are the hurting hungry people who found the spring of water that gives life and joy.
What does it take for that to happen? A generous people who have a vision
Generous Giving is a Matter of the Heart
Jesus wasn’t afraid to ask people to see their checkbooks. Your checkbook speaks volumes about what you really value. You can see your real priorities and the real answer to the question, "Who is God in your life?" Jesus talked so much in the gospels about our money and possessions.
Twenty-seven out of forty-three of the parables in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John deal with money and possessions. In other words, sixty-three percent of the parables deal with how we spend our money or how we give our money. Why is our spending and our giving such a big deal?
Every time we make a decision to spend or to give, we are dealing with a spiritual issue.
Matthew 6:21, 24, 33
21: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
24: "No one can serve two masters; for 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 God and mammon.
33: seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.
Matthew 6 is part of "the sermon on the mountain." It’s amazing how much of the Sermon on the Mount deals with money or possessions - how we spend or how we give. Our spending and giving are given so much attention because generous giving is a matter of the heart. It is a spiritual issue. Spending and giving are matters of heart.
Treasure gets down to the bottom line in your life. What is it that you ultimately value? What you work for, what you go after, what you think about most of the time, what you invest in. That is what is on the altar of your heart. That is what you love the most. God wants to be your treasure. God desires to be your bottom line. You can’t have two bottom lines.
Consumer living is centered in self
Impulse spending is the rule of many lives today You decide you need some new furniture for the family room. But you don’t have money to buy the new furniture. No problem, you can go down to the furniture store and put it on your credit card. So you put $2,000 on your credit card. If you pay the minimum monthly due, that two thousand dollar purchase at the current 19.8 % rate of interest will take you 32 years to pay off. You will have spent $15,000 real dollars to pay off your $2,000 impulse purchase, and where is the furniture 32 years later?
For the next 32 years you work to serve that debt instead of serving the mission and purpose of God. You cannot serve God and debt. You cannot serve God and materialism. Debt takes on a life of its own, and it’s always asking for more. And God desires to be your treasure.
Go home and figure how much money you will give to paying interest this year. Then figure how much you’ve given to God this year. It is scary to see how much of our energy is going to serve interest compared to how much we give to God. Generous giving is a matter of heart. Generous living, unlike debit living, is a lifestyle that serves God. It is grounded in my decision today that my whole purpose in life is to serve God, to know God, and to love God.
There are four ways to live
Above your income: Debt and bankruptcy and there is nothing left
At your income: day to day and paycheck to paycheck with only tokens for God
Within your income: They have enough. They are most often tithers and savers. God prospers them
Below your income: very rare. These are the people that have more than they use and they give to God’s work in powerful ways.
Giving Living Honors God
By avoiding debt today by living within my income, I am freeing up future income to serve God. Instead of my lifestyle expanding to meet my raise every year, now my giving expands with my income. This is a life that honors God.
Proverbs 3:9-10
“Honor the LORD with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.”
Generous Giving is a Matter of Mind
I Corinthians 16:2
On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that contributions need not be made when I come.
Generous giving is a matter of planning. You have to make a plan to give generously. It doesn’t just happen. Here is a big word for this culture, delayed gratification. Here’s another word, discipline
And listen, it is important to consider where we are giving. The majority of my money is connected right here to this place where God has placed me. I don’t try to do the money stuff myself. I buy mutual funds because some one else is much better with stocks and bonds than me. That’s why we bring our offerings to the store house and let those charged with the responsibilities take care of the church.
Generous giving is a matter of faith and trust.
Luke 6:38
Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back."
2 Corinthians 9:6-7
The point is this: he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
Do you really believe this? Or do you really think that your security and prosperity is dependent on you? People are looking for real people. Not people that manage image. Not people that have a fake outside. People who really trust God.
The needed resources come God’s people. Go back again to Matthew six, beginning at verse 25. Jesus says, "Don’t worry about your life, what you’re going to eat or drink. Look at the birds of the air. They don’t give a thought about what they are going to eat or drink, but God always provides. And how much more will God provide for you." Then verse 28 says, "Why do you worry about clothes and all those silly things? Look at the lilies of the field and how God has so clothed those. And how much more does God want to do for you?"
Verse thirty-three puts first things first. "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness." If we seek God first and keep on seeking God first, everything else, our food, our clothing, all of our needs, will be taken care of. Generous giving is a matter of faith. It’s about seeking God first, and continually seeking God first. It means that God is our bottom line.
The whole question of this fall is Will You Grow? Not can you grow, I know you can. But only you can make the decision that you will. This is my prayer every day - that we go from belief to faith. Belief doesn’t become faith until we act on God’s directive.
Accept two truths
Accept the truth that God supplies all your needs
Accept the truth that God has supplied you with more than you need so you can supply the resources for His house.
Take three steps to become a Generous Giver.
1) The Heart Step: Give yourself to his work
2) The Mind Step: Get out your checkbook and plan to give to God’s Work.
Not a tither – begin!
Debt loaded – start somewhere
Offering giver – living beneath your income to bring resources to God’s house
3) The Soul Step: Let it go. Hold loosely to the stuff called money
Even when we fail we will not fall. But he says, "Trust me, follow me, because I want to do greater things in your life." Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together. By the measure you give will be the measure you receive back.
