Priorities

You know - we’ve been doing this series on money and following God this past month - and this is what I hope to be true about myself and my family. I want to be generous. At the end of my life I want to be able to stand in front of God and have God say to me, “your life was filled with generosity.” What about you? What do you hope God will say about your life? What do you hope God says about our church? About your family? I heard another pastor in the Zero Collective say the other day that “you are never more like God then when you are generous with what you have.” But if I can be honest, that’s really hard. I feel like if my hand represents my entire life, like my whole life is just right there in my palm. I have this temptation to curl my fingers. I want to grab onto it and hold on so tight. And following God sometimes it feels like a process of uncurling my fingers. Does that make sense? Like something will happen and I’ll want to tighten my fist. I’ll want to close my hand.

A couple years ago, six years ago - now that I think about it. Some of you know my first church was up in the UP, little town called Ishpeming. Great church, even better people. We loved our time up there. But once we started having kids, we realized we needed to be closer to family. Now at the time I was in a system where they would appoint me to a church. I had no say in it. So I requested a transfer, to be closer to family - and it was granted - they moved me. It was a little bit crazy though. We were going to move from the UP down to the Flint area, a town called Flushing. And we moved six days after my wife gave birth to my second son Amos. And we were thrilled - the closest family was going to be like 45 minutes away, which is way better than seven hours. But I was stressed about money. I’d been a pastor for four years. I’d done really well, my church had grown - pastors don’t make a lot of money, but my salary was fine, we were very stable. But still I worried. We just had another baby, moving to another town - this was a whole thing. And boy I just didn’t see how I was going to feed TWO WHOLE BABIES in a single income family on a pastor’s salary. (for those who might be new, the reason that’s funny is because I have five now). And so I did something I’m a little embarrassed about. When we moved, we were tithing at our old church. We were giving 10%, but when we moved I started to close my hand. I was stressed and scared and so we stopped giving at our old church and we didn’t give to our new church at all. For like three months we just gave nothing. And I’m so grateful, I had somebody on my leadership team come alongside me. They asked me what some of my giving goals were - and I realized how far away I was from generosity. Fear and stress had gotten me off track and led me straight into greed and selfishness. 

You might remember a few weeks ago we talked about how greed grows - it expands to fill the space you give it. And that’s what happened to our budget. When we stopped giving, we found other ways to spend that money. And so I looked at my salary. I was making $48,000 a year. And so to give ten percent - you know, you just move the decimal - I would need to give four thousand, eight hundred a year - that’s four hundred a month. That was my new goal. And it took a few months - we had to peel off a few things that we added into our budget instead, but we got back up to our giving goal. I had to uncurl my fingers, to hold the things of this world loosely in my hand. Not cling to this world. And I tell you this - not because I want you to be impressed with me, but in fact for the opposite reason. I don’t want you to be impressed. I want you to see that I struggle with this too. Love of money and greed has its hooks in my heart too. Generosity doesn’t come natural to me - I have to work on it. But I want to be a generous person. What about you? What do you want God to say about the life you have lived with all the abundance he has poured into your time on this earth?

Today is the last sermon in our series called Affordable. We have been wrestling with the parable of the rich fool, and covering some of the most challenging topics for Christians in modern America. We talked about greed, we talked about security - last week Jack gave us a great word on anxiety - because the truth is how we engage with money ripples into every part of our lives. And I want to say, if all you get out of this series is, “well the church just wants my money” - then I have done a terrible job. Because that is not what this is about. This is actually a heart issue, not a wallet issue. We’re not launching some big campaign, I’m not about to announce some major spending initiative. This isn’t about us taking something from you - we actually want this series to be a gift TO you. And in that vein, I wanted to mention a few resources that our church has for you. We created a webpage just for this series - if you go to centergr.com/affordable, you’ll see a bunch of free downloadable resources that can help you in practical ways to organize your finances as a Christian. We’ll leave that page up, even after this series - because the question isn’t really “Can I afford to handle my money God’s way?” the question is “can my heart afford not to?”

So if you want to grab your bibles, or find it on your phone - I’m going to be diving into Luke chapter 12, and I’m using the NIV translation today. Now to give you a little framework - Jesus was in the middle of teaching to this giant crowd of people. Verse 1 says there were thousands of people - and he was teaching them about how we should only fear God, but not be afraid of others. It’s a teaching about not worrying and he gets interrupted. If you’ve been with us through this whole series you know this, he gets interrupted by this guy who calls out and starts whining about how his big brother won’t share his inheritance with him. And so Jesus pivots, but doesn’t really change the subject, and he tells the parable of the rich fool. The man who has abundance, but rather than love God or love his neighbor with his abundance, he decides to try and love himself. But he’s a fool, because God tells him - “Actually, you’re going to die tonight - so what was the point of building bigger barns?” And then after that parable, around verse 22, Jesus pivots back to his teaching on worry. And so what you see when you look at the whole section is that this teaching on money and greed and security all comes wrapped in a larger teaching about trusting God and worry. And last week - Jack got into the whole thing about the flowers and the birds, remember this? Verse 27, [read v.27-28]. We talked about money anxiety, and how - on a super simple level - God cares about you more than flowers. A lot more. Flowers are beautiful, but God’s love for you is even better. 

So that’s all the stuff we’ve covered so far, and that brings us all the way up to verse 29, where it says [read v.29-31]. God knows you need the things of this world. He knows you need food. He knows you need clothes. But Christians shouldn’t spend their lives running after those things. It says we need to run after the kingdom of God FIRST, and all these other things will be given to you as well. That actually gets into the first major thing I want you to grab from the text today - God doesn’t want your leftovers. For a  lot of us, we view God as the icing on the cake - like he is the extra, after we’ve done all the important stuff first. I’ll spend time with God, totally - but first, work and my kids and my hobbies and just right as soon as I’ve watched every video on netflix and every reel on instagram. Then, I’m totally going to give God all my attention, all my love. But then here comes GOD - the all powerful creator of the universe who holds all of existence in the palm of his hand, from the tiniest atomic particles all the way up to the very galaxies themselves he is not interested in being at the bottom of your to do list. Seek his kingdom, and all the rest will be added in as well.

Verse 32 [read it]. Okay, now there’s some really cool stuff in here that I don’t want you to miss. In one sentence Jesus uses THREE different metaphors for his people. Lord knows we church people love a good metaphor. Let’s put the verse on the screen for a second and walk through it. Do not be afraid little FLOCK. Flock like sheep, because Jesus is the good shepherd. For your FATHER - because we are his children - your father has been pleased to give you the KINGDOM, because he is the king. So you can pick your metaphor - Shepherd, Heavenly Father or King - these are roles of affectionate authority and guidance. Someone who deserves our first priority. Because God wants to come first in our lives. God doesn’t want our leftovers.

This idea of God coming first, of making God a priority, this goes WAY back into the Old Testament. You don’t have to flip to it, but let’s put Proverbs 3 on the screen [read Proverbs 3:9]. If we don’t want to treat God like leftovers in our schedule, our wallet, our life - then we need to honor him with our priorities. Now, to understand this idea of “firstfruits” is so easy. These guys were mostly farmers, right? And so they would take their crop, and take the first chunk of it - the first 10% and dedicate it to God. The idea of putting God first with the things that you have - it sort of predates money. If you were a shepherd, you would bring the first fruit of your sheep. If you were a farmer, you would bring the first fruit of your crop. They would bring it to the temple. It was used to provide for the priests and their families, the tribe of levi, and then it would provide for the needs of the temple and the community. But the word they used was FIRSTfruits, because literally it was the first thing that grew out of the ground. It was an act of trust - I can give God the first part of my crop, because I know he will let more grow. 

Back in Luke 12, verse 32, it says [read v.32] and THEN it says [read v.33] [long exhale] whew, and this is the part where you all sort of hold your breath and hope that I’m going to say “Jesus didn’t really mean it.” I’ve heard a lot of money sermons in the church. And a lot of them are really bad. Some of them are bad because they’re dishonest - they scare people or give false promises in order to put more money in the pocket of the preacher. They’re con artists, televangelists and prosperity gospel preachers. They wrap themselves in holy language and then go purchase a private jet. Those are bad money sermons. But there’s another type of bad money message - where a preacher gets up and says, “no, God doesn’t want to challenge you.” Imagine with me for a second - imagine that Jesus meant what he just said. “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail.” This gets us into our second major point I want you to catch this morning. The longer your investment plan, the better your decisions are today. The further out your planning with the way you live your life - the better decisions you will make today. And I’m not talking about retirement, I’m talking further than that. We are investing in heavenly treasures when we give and sacrifice for other people. Sacrificial love is one of the greatest indicators that you have riches waiting for you in heaven.

I think I have mentioned that Francis Chan is a personal hero of mine. He loves Jesus so well, and I’ve been inspired by the life he has lived. And I read this scripture that says “sell your possessions and give to the poor” and I’m reminded of a story. For those who don’t know - Francis Chan was a very successful pastor - built up a huge church with 6 thousand people and then he spent some time in China and Africa and he saw church a different way. So he actually left the mega church world and started doing house churches - and he’s written a bunch of books. But he tells this story of the first time he visited Africa. And he fell in love with some of the people there. And he and his wife they have seven children, and they had been saving up to buy a new truck. Or a downpayment on a new truck. And he realized, “I’d rather build them a high school than buy a new truck.” So they took the money and they donated it. And in a strange way he sort of got addicted to giving. To generosity. It gave him so much joy to give. So he came home from Africa and he said to his wife, “okay, let’s just see how much we can give - let’s figure it out, let’s start selling things.” This is probably 20 years ago, and God put it on his heart to give away $50,000. And he realized, that’s about how much I make - don’t know how that’s going to go. But they made it work - they sold some stuff and were able to give away 50,000 that year. And then God started pulling on his heart again, and he felt God was calling him to give away $100,000. Now this is a pastor, and he wasn’t famous yet. This is crazy. They sold their house, moved into a smaller house - with their seven children. And he said, “we didn’t know how it was all going to work, but God just continued to provide.” And then it happened again, He felt this conviction that God was leading him to give away a million dollars the next year. And Francis Chan, I was watching this interview, and he sort of laughs. And he says, “At this point we’re getting silly. This is ridiculous, This is stupid.” But that next year, his first book came out. It’s called Crazy Love, came out in 2008 - and it’s amazing, if you ever want to purchase it. But before it came out he signed over the rights of the book to something called a “Charitable Gift Fund” - so all the proceeds went to this charity. And he did that so he wouldn’t be tempted to doubt. Couldn’t even touch it if he wanted to. It made over a million dollars in the first year. Sell your possessions and give to the poor - such stupid advice for living in the modern world. But I guess living in the modern world is not my long term goal. The longer your investment plan, the better your decisions are for today. If heaven is your investment plan, maybe Jesus isn’t so crazy with this. And by the way, it wasn’t 1 million - it was five. Five million dollars went to that charity from that one book. And years later, Francis Chan has written a bunch of books - and he’s done this a couple times, designated different groups to get all the proceeds, so cool.

Luke 12, verse 33 [read v.33-34]. That’s probably one of the most famous lines right there, and it’s the final point I want to make today - “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” If a love of money fills up your heart, there’s no room in there for Jesus. But if Jesus fills your heart - you will be fulfilled. Honestly that’s where this whole series comes from. If I can just level with you guys - this has been such a challenging sermon series to write. I like writing messages - you give me a bible passage and I will teach the heck out of it. I love crafting these messages. But money? Ugh, people get so tense about it! But God KNOWS how important this is. God knew that money was going to be one of the chief competitors for our affection. Of all the things in this life, God knew that we would try to turn it into an idol and try to base our entire life on it. That’s why he warned us. 

Because God’s truth today is that there is nothing in this world that will satisfy your soul other than a relationship with Jesus. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. I mean, one of the greatest promises of the bible is when Jesus tells us if we put our eyes on him, we can have him. God knew that money, while it can be used for good, it can be used as a tool to build God’s kingdom, so often it becomes an obstacle instead. As people of God, we want to put God first. To push back on the creeping influence in our hearts of greed or anxiety or selfishness.

I think, for a lot of us, when it comes to God in our life - we treat him like a leftover, and if we do that - it shapes our heart in the wrong way. But if we make God a priority, it shapes our heart in the right way. Let me see if I can explain it like this: Leftover God is the last thing that gets added to your schedule if you have time, and he’s the first thing that gets taken off when things get busy.  Oh no - the schedule is really full this week? Let’s cut out devotion time. We alter the amount of God we put in our life to fit around the more important things. Same with our budget. Whew - we ate out a lot last week, and the kids needed new jerseys for the upcoming season, let’s take a week off from giving to church. But if God is the first thing we trim and the last thing we add to our schedule and our budget - we’ve got our priorities upside down! God should go first! He should be the LAST thing we take off our schedule and the FIRST thing in our budget.

When Francis Chan was interviewed about giving away a million dollars he said, “This is not because I am such a godly man. It is because I am an ungodly man. I know my own selfishness. I would just buy stuff for myself I don’t need.” Because, and this is so important, as a society - we are getting less generous. In America - the average Christian gives 3% Old Testament standard, the tithe - 10%. American Christians? 3% There was this article I was reading from philanthropyroundtable.org - and they had all these statistics, but it was a really bleak picture. Non-Christians give 1%, Christians give 3%, so our national average was roughly 2% of income in the wealthiest country in the world is given away. And it’s getting worse! We, as a society, are getting LESS generous. In 2022 people gave 1.7%, the lowest rating since 1995. So while I may not like talking about money - the truth is that we have to talk about it, because we’re actually - as a group, we are getting WORSE at this! Where your treasure lies, there your heart lies also - and our priorities are simply upside-down. We need to say, with our life, God - you are going to come first. 

There’s a famous old story about a professor who began class with a big glass bowl in front of him. And he took some big rocks and put them in the bowl and said, “Is the bowl full?” The class nodded and so he pulls out a jar full of pebbles. He pours the pebbles into the bowl, and it’s clear so they can watch all the pebbles fill in every nook and cranny between the rocks. And then he asks, ‘Now is it full?” The students laugh and nod - ‘okay, now it’s full.” And then he brings out a jar of sand, and he pours it into the bowl and he shakes the bowl a little bit - getting the sand down in between every single pebble. And he asks, ‘is it full now?” And the students laugh, but they’re not sure. Surely the bowl is full - I mean, what else could possible fit in there? And the professor pulls out a jar of water. And he pours the whole thing in the bowl. Everything fit. Then he pulls out another glass bowl. And pours in the jar of water, and then the sand and then the pebbles. It’s three quarters of the way full - and so when he goes to try and fit the big rocks in, they poke out of the top of the bowl. They can’t fit. And the moral of the story is not “professors love to fool their students” - although they do. The moral of the story is that the big rocks have to go first. So that’s my challenge for you today. And not just today. but from this whole series - put the big things in first. Put God in first.

And I want to push that challenge into the practical. I know a lot of times, we hear a message about God, we hear a teaching from the bible and we think “that’s a good teaching” and then by the time we get to the parking lot, we’ve already forgotten what we were supposed to have learned. But I don’t want you to leave this up in your head - this is an immensely practical challenge. In your schedule, and in your budget - put God first. In the world of money, sit down, take a moment and do the math. I’m not trying to be legalistic about it - but remember most American Christians give 3% - so 10% would be an incredible stretch goal for some folks. Look at your income, your W2 or your taxes or whatever - calculate 10%, move the decimal one place. For me personally, I used to give based on vibes. I’d throw a couple bucks towards a ministry that I wanted to support throughout the year. And then Sara and I took a class called “Financial Peace University” and we got more organized about our money. And we sat down and added up how much we had given. And I thought we were living generous lives. It FELT like we were being generous. Donating on vibes is like asking “how far did I run’ based on how sweaty I am. It’s like going for a run and then stopping and saying, “Man, I bet I’ve run three miles already” - then your buddy says, “No man, we’ve gone two blocks - you can still see the house.” It FELT like we were being generous, but when we actually looked at it? We were giving like less than half a percent of our income. I was embarrassed, and that was the first time we set a goal of tithing. We wanted to hit 10%. 

And let me tell you - we’ve held on to that. Even when we added more babies, and we moved to a new city and my salary got cut - I had all these temptations to close my fingers. I wanted to cling to the things of this world. The temptations pushed me to let money security and money anxiety and greed and control get into my life. The urge to cling to the things of this world is so strong, everytime we hit a bump on the road of life. But we have worked hard to uncurl our fingers. Because I want to follow the example of Jesus. I want to live generously. I want to put God first in my life, and have something to point to - This is me, putting God first. I don’t want to treat God like leftovers, I want to put all my investments in heaven and more important than anything - I want my treasure to be in the person of Jesus. Because nothing in this world will satisfy your soul other than a relationship with Jesus. Let’s pray.