'Tis the Season

This morning I heard the best sermon on finances that I’ve probably ever heard.  The last of the messages from the Proverbs series, this morning we talked about Earning and Using Money Wisely. 

Some interesting statistics.  This Christmas the average American spends $1,000 in Christmas gifts (per individual not necessarily per family), and $500 in holiday travel.  $1,500 per person this Christmas alone, and that doesn’t count the inflatable snowmen in the yard, lighted Santa Clauss and reindeer paraphernalia on the roof, and the electricity bill for the Christmas lights.  Oh boy do we know how to spend. 

What’s more shocking is this.  The US consumes 40% of the world’s resources. 40%.  We only make up 5% of the population.  So we could say that on average we consume eight times more stuff than the rest of the world.  (And we weigh about eight times as much too but that’s another post.)  Of that 40% that we consume, 70% of that is spend between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  70%! Ugh. ‘Tis the Season. 

The answer, as I’ve said before in other posts on money, is not only to spend less (although that’d be a good place to start!), but to spend wisely.  Most of us think that if we only had a little bit more money, then we’d be set.  But the truth is, we don’t need more money, we need wisdom to manage the money that we have.  10% of the book of Proverbs is devoted to issues surrounding money.  About 25% of Jesus’ teachings revolved around issues of money, possessions, etc.  Since we know that God doesn’t need our money (how ludicrious is that?), we know that issue is our hearts, and God knows that best way to expose the state of one’s heart is to expose the state of one’s checkbook.  Where our treasure is there our heart will be also (Luke 12:34).

My prayer is Proverbs 30:8-9, “First help me never to tell a life.  Second, give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs.  For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” and if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name.”  Lord, give us this day our daily bread.  Provide for our needs, and make us conduits of your resources and grace. 

Probably the biggest thing that stuck out to me about this message was the reality that worship is sacrifice.  In the Old Testament, you didn’t come to worship God with empty hands.  And more than that, you didn’t bring your lame three-legged goat with eye sores! You brought the best!  The book of Malachi is full of God’s rebuke to His people for their nasty ridiculous sacrifices.  God’s saying, “I don’t want your three-legged goat! I want your best or not at all.”  God doesn’t want our leftover change.  God wants our hearts.  He wants the firstfruits (Prov. 3:9-10), the best portion, the very first check we write every month.  Now that Jesus has once and for all satisfied the sacrificial offering of the Old Testament, Paul tells us to “offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship” (Romans 12:1).  We are to continue to sacrifice as our act of worship, through the giving of our lives.  This includes our time, our talents, and yes, our money.

But perhaps it is in that word “our” that we fall prey to misconception.  The real reason that many of us still struggle with sacrificial giving (I’m lumping myself in there too!), is that we don’t truly understand the concept of possessing nothing.  We don’t truly understand that none of it is ours.  Joel asked, if someone handed you $50,000 and then asked to have $5,000 back, would you feel cheated? Of course not!  It wasn’t yours in the first place.  But with God we seem to have forgotten this critical truth.  Perhaps the right question is not, “Lord how much do you want me to give?” but rather “Lord, how much do you want me to keep?” 

Though Joel purposely doesn’t know what any of the people in the church give, he did share some amazing statistics from our business pastor.  The nine elders of our church give 15% of the total budget. Oh my goodness that is startling!  The staff give another 5% of the total budget.  So of the entire church budget of over 800 adults, 20% of the entire budget comes from the 20 elders and staff.  20% of the budget coming from 2% of the church.  Hm…  I have a feeling our church isn’t alone in this trend. 

I must say, something must have been right about the spirit in which Joel shared this morning because I left feeling excited about giving more.  I left feeling inspired to think of ways to curb our spending and energized to look at our budget and ask God where He wants to change things.  I know that God loves a cheerful giver, and this message definitely made my heart feel this way. God has been so absolutely amazingly generous to Jeff and me, richly blessing us with health, amazing family, eternal life (!!!), peace, joy, the comfort of the Holy Spirit, an incredible son and thriving daughter.  He has given us shelter, food, clothing, rich friendships and an awesome marriage. Why wouldn’t I want to give back every ounce that I can?  Freely we have received, free give!

So as we head into the season that is characterized by consumption, spending, and materialism, let’s what it means to be thankful and content.  How sad is it that Thanksgiving, the one day of the year that our nation sets aside to express thankfulness, usually only includes a 30-second prayer of obligatory thanks?  And how sad is it that mere hours after this supposed holiday of thankfulness our nation begins the frenzy of shopping on Black Friday. Isn’t that ironic?  Black Friday, which now begins at midnight after Thanksgiving, has crept closer and closer into the sacredness of Thanksgiving, until now we almost immediately turn from our offering of thanks to thinking about all the new stuff we can buy the next day.  Perhaps this year could be different.  Perhaps this year we can offer up a sacrifice of true thanksgiving to God, content and grateful to the core.  And perhaps this year we can give a little more, spend a little less, and enjoy the wonder of Christ, the most beautiful, valuable, and captivating treasure our hearts will ever know.  ‘Tis the Season.