1 Corinthians 13:1-14:1 [NLTse]
If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages[b] and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10 But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.[c] All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
14:1 Let love be your highest goal.
Sermon – “Keeping Money from Keeping You and God Apart”
Once upon a time there was a pastor who was in the Sanctuary praying. While he was praying, he asked God, “Lord, how long is a million years to You?” The Lord replied, “To Me, a million years is like one second.” The next day as the pastor was praying again, he asked God, “Lord, how much is a million dollars to You?” And the Lord replied, “A million dollars to Me is like a penny.” The next day, as the pastor was praying, he asked God, “Lord, can I have just one of Your pennies?” And the Lord replied, “Just give Me a second…”
Those of you who know me well know that I can come across as a fairly calm and easy-going person. Different people I’ve known have told me how “chill” I seem to be, seeming to take so much of life in stride.
That being said, I go through times of intense temptation. (They don’t tend to last all that long anymore, at least, they don’t when I respond to the temptations God’s way, because, as the Lord has promised, when we stand with Him, Satan does, indeed, flee.) That being said, the temptations I do face, though often short-lived, are intense and do seem absolutely overwhelming in those times! Sometimes, those temptations have to do with money…
You see, my family and I live in a house about a mile outside of town. We have our bills and our taxes to pay. Our oldest is in college. Our middle is going to college next fall. We homeschool, so we have to buy all our own school supplies and course books and materials for art projects and science experiments, even though we have to pay school taxes like everybody else, as well. And we’ll be doing all that for our youngest, who’ll be going into ninth grade in the fall. Amy’s and my parents are in their seventies. My folks live about five hours away and Amy’s mom lives about fifteen, and, especially as they’re getting older, we want more and more to honor them, and that includes more regularly visiting them. And, of course, our house needs work, and Amy’s been going through one medical trial after another, and our son, Noah, needs dental implants this summer, and on and on: You know the drill!
I’m not saying any of these things because my life or my family’s circumstances are so unique or special. As a matter of fact, it’s just the opposite. I share all this with you because you’re all facing your own version of these same kinds of circumstances, too, aren’t you? I think you know what I’m talking about when I say that I can be tempted to be afraid that I won’t have enough money to pay my bills during any given month! I think you know what I mean when I tell you that I’m afraid we’re going to rack up so much credit card debt on account of all the surprises and emergencies we’ve been facing in our lives that we won’t be able to ever pay it off! I think you know what I’m talking about when I tell you about the knot that twists in my stomach when my wife tells me about needing another test or procedure, or about our kids not having seen the dentist or doctor in a couple years. Maybe you respond like I do, because I want her to be well, and I want our kids to be healthy and well, and I tell her in those moments, “My love, make the appointments. That’s what money’s for!” And it is! Because it’s just money!
But maybe you know what I mean when I talk about that knot that tightens in my gut when I hear about such things, because it can seem to be so overwhelming sometimes: One important thing after another. And during those times I can be tempted to fear that we won’t have enough money to pay for it all! And I can be tempted to think that money, and more money, is the answer to it all…
But the Holy Spirit tells me, “No! Jesus is the answer to it all.” (And, of course, that’s how I win these bouts with temptation, when I am finally able to sincerely trust Jesus as being the answer to all my troubles and trials, and when I am finally able to sincerely entrust all my troubles and trials to Him.)
So, when I am feeling most afraid about money I tithe. (Don’t get me wrong. I tithe all the time. Amy and I have been tithing for about twenty years, beginning just after we moved here.) But when I am being most tempted to be afraid of not having enough money, and when I am being most tempted to put my hope in money, I consciously and intentionally remember that I tithe. Because in the middle of my temptations, when the devil is mocking me, “Do you really trust God, Ben? Really?” one thing that tithing does is prove my faith in Christ: It puts my money where claim to trust Christ is. It can be easy for me to say, “I trust the Lord,” and to then have the devil point out to me that my actions show that in truth I trust in something very different.
But when I tithe, and seek to be generous on top of that, then the devil has to keep his mouth shut, and he has to leave me alone…
It’s at such times that I recognize the power of Jesus’ words when He said, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew 6:24) I recognize the truth of these words at such times because, whenever I start to consider not tithing I begin feeling more and more concerned about money. The temptations towards worry and fear increase, and guilt gets added to it. And I can start to feel bitter towards God for not giving me more and for not getting me out of my situation…
But when I tithe, it’s like opening up a pressure-release valve in my chest. When I tithe I’m not only telling Him but I’m showing Him, too, that I trust Him. And somehow, in that act, the Lord does something miraculous in my spirit. He takes the burden of all my fears and worries off of my shoulders. I’m no longer bearing it. I don’t know where the money is going to come from. But it always has come. And what my Father’s been so faithful to do in the past, I know I can trust Him to do in the future, because He’s a good father!
And yet, tithing is not just a shield to protect us from self-doubt, worry, fear, and the devil’s accusations. Tithing also plants seeds of hope and expectation about the future!
The prophet Malachi spoke these words of the Lord: “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in My House. Test Me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of Heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it!’” (3:10)
“Test Me in this,” the Lord says. It is one of the few places in Scripture where the Lord calls us to test Him. He knows the power of money! He knows it’s power to tempt us toward worry and fear, and burden us, and wear us out! So the Lord calls us to test Him: Tithe, He says, and if nothing’s changed in your heart or mind or life in three months, six months, a year, well then…
Proverbs 3:9 echoes the exact same thing: “Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing.” The “firstfruits” was the very first reaping of the harvest, the estimated first 10% of the entire crop. “But what if you harvested 10% and then the rest was eaten by locusts or burned by bandits?” you might ask. Yeah, that might happen, said the Lord, but trust Me. Trust Me with the tithe and just see if I don’t fill the barns of your soul to overflowing!
(Notice how I said that the Lord would fill the “barns of our souls” to overflowing if we tithed, and not necessarily the barns of our bank or investment accounts. I say that because the Lord doesn’t promise us material riches. He promises us “enough”, that we will always have enough to live for Him. There are a lot of Christians out there who tithe but are not necessarily wealthy, and the Lord takes care of them. He gives them their daily bread, as He’s promised. There are a lot of Christians out there who don’t tithe and are wealthy, and they have to take care of themselves. So, you may not become rich by testing the Lord and tithing, but I’ve never met someone who tithed and regretted it.)
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So, whether the Lord has plans to grant you wealth so that you might support and fund His work around here and around the world, or whether His plans for you are more modest when it comes to money, but are riches beyond measure in faith and character and in the fruit of the Holy Spirit, tithing nurtures a sense of expectation as we invest in Heaven and in the wealth of our souls.
I share this message with you because I think that many of you might want to tithe, but you’re afraid to, and because I think that others of you want to tithe but believe that you need to get out of debt first. As I’ve shared, I believe that God’s given us the tithe to help us face and overcome our fears about money. And, I believe that God desires us to tithe as a part of helping us get out of debt more quickly and more assuredly.
For what it’s worth, there are two things I would change (and am planning on changing) as Amy and I continue this spiritual discipline of tithing into the future. First, I would (and plan to) have Amy write out every other tithe check. I get paid twice a month so, instead of giving weekly, we only write two tithe checks, the first checks we write as soon as I get paid. I would (and plan to, from now on) have her write one of the checks each month because there’s power in our actions: Putting our faith into practice, as I’ve already said. And I would let Amy benefit from the grace that comes from that action, as well.
Second, I would (and plan to) begin praying with Amy over our tithe check each time one or the other of us writes it. This would be a change for me because sometimes I treat the tithe like any another “bill” to pay: I don’t offer it to God in any kind of special way, nor do I offer myself and my worries and fears to Him specifically, either. I hope (and plan) to change that so that I might intentionally cooperate and partner with the Lord in all of the good things He has for me and for us in the tithe.