C199 11/29/59
© Project Winsome International, 2000

WHAT CHRIST DOESN'T WANT"
Dr. John Allan Lavender
Lk. 6:39
It must be obvious by now that the subject Jack Hibbott, Carl Chatters and I are talking about this morning is money. We do so with the knowledge it's a difficult subject. For one thing, there never seems to be enough of it to go around. As one fellow said:
"When I was a baby my mother hired a woman to wheel me around and I've
been pushed for money ever since."

I read about a man who said he had an uncle working on wall street. His friend wanted to know if his uncle was rich and the man replied,
"He was once. He used to have a corner on the market, but now he has a market
on the corner."

I got a real chuckle out of the story about the Texas wildcatter who finally after drilling dry holes for years, finally struck it rich. He and his wife packed up and headed for Miami Beach to enjoy their hard-earned millions. The second day, the wife arrived on the beach to find her husband prostrate on the sand with a crowd around him and a lifeguard bending over him.
"What happened?" she aksed.
"He nearly drowned," the lifeguard told her. "I'm giving him artificial respiration."
"Artificial respiration!" She cried. "Don't do that. We're rich! Give him the
real thing!"

Well, this morning Mr. Hibbot and Mr. Chatters and I are talking about the real thing. And I'm inclined to think you want it that way. I don't think you'd have any respect for us, and I know we wouldn't have any for ourselves, if, in a time of such great need and opportunity and challenge we dealt with artificialities and trivialites and never got around to talking about the real thing, the business of the Kingdom.

Today America stands at a pinnacle of power and prestige and wealth never before known to mankind. For this we are all grateful. But we must never forget that privilege and responsiblity are inseparable twins. They're like love and marriage. You can't have one without the other.

A visitor to our country said:
"I cannot say that I am in the slightest degree impressed by your bigness or
your material resources, as such. Size is not grandeur; territory does not
make a nation. The great issue, about which hangs a true peace, and the
terror of overhanging fate is 'What are you going to do with all these things'."

This morning we want to talk about money, and we do so without apology. Our Lord never hesitated to speak frankly about God's prior claim on money. He said:
"Render unot Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things
that are God's."
In fact, as I said last Sunday, he was so interested in what men did with their money that he took time one day out of his unbelievably busy life to plunk himself down beside the offering box in the church to personally see who and how much people gave to God.

If our Lord was that concerned about a man and his money in relationship to God, then certainly it behooves us to be fair with you by not avoiding the issue but by coming to the point.

Now when it comes to this matter of giving I think it is quite important that we know "What Christ does not want" us to do as well as what he does want us to do. As you think about what your part shll be in our 1960 March of Progress, I want to make it perfectly clear that whatever you give, Christ does not want you to --

Deprive Your Family Of The Necessities Of Life
We are all deeply grateful to God for the precious gift of children. They add so much meaning and beauty to life.

Dr. Melvin Wheatly of Los Angeles tells how one morning their eight-year old was saying grace at the table. The lad bowed his head and said:
"We thank you, God, for this beautiful day and for this food."
Actually, that day it was gloomy and smoggy in Los Angeles. The boy's mother thought the prayer had been said out of habit. When she asked the boy what he meant by thanking God for a beautiful day when it was anything but, with a spiritual grasp that astounded his parents the lad answered,
"Mother, never judge a day by its weather."

To me there is something beautiful about that. Again and again I stand in awe at the insights of children. They have a view of life that often puts us adults to shame. Of course, they also have their precocius side, like the little boy who went to his grandmother and said,
"Grandma, can you really make a noise like a frog?"
"What do you mean, dear?" asked the old woman.
"Well," replied the little boy, "the other night I heard daddy tell mommy
we'll get $50,000 when you croak."

God bless our children! What would we do without them? And with the example of Jesus as our guide, for he was a great friend of children, we cannot help but know that God does not want us to deprive our children of the necessities of life in order to give his cause.

Of course, the key word here is "necessities." As R.H. Tawney points out in his book, Our Acquisitive Society, much of our modern life is spent in the stuggle to gain and multiply possessions which are not necessities at all, they are luxuries.

Someone said,
"A depression is a time when we're forced to get along without the things
we didn't need anyway."

For instance, our forefathers managed to live without sugar until the 13th century. Without coal until the 14th. Without butter until the 15th. Without potatoes until the 16th. Without tea, coffee and soap until the 17th. Without umbrellas until the 18th. Without railways trains, telegraphs, telephones, gas, electricity and matches until the 19th century. And yet, they seemed to get long okay.

Before we decide we cannot afford to give to Christ and his Kingdom, we had better take a long hard stare at some of the things we call "necessities." For while God does not want us to deprive our families in order to give to his cause, he does want us to exercise --

A Little Bit Of Faith
I think one of the finest examples of faith and reward in giving I've ever heard was told by my good friend, Edwin Dahlberg. He was pastoring a church in the east at the time of this incident and was in the midst of a building campaign.

A young couple had made a very generous pledge to the program and then quite unexpectedly the husband died. Left with three small sons and living on a widow's pension she was hard put for her little family.

Dr. Dahlberg went to her and said,
"Ida, we want to relieve you of your building pledge. This is much too big for
you to carry under these changed circumstances."

But she would not hear of it. Every week she brought in her pledge faithfully. But one Easter morning there wasn't much food left in the house for the week ahead. As she told the story afterwards, she said to the boys:
"Do you suppose it would be alright to take the Lord's money and buy
groceries with it, and pay it back next week?"
The oldest son said,
"Why certainly, mother. We can't do anything else."
But as she was about to open the church envelope she thought to herself,
"What kind of sermon am I preaching to my boys on faith?"
So she said,
"No, we'll give it to Christ the way we planned and trust God to see us
through somehow."

The first person she met at the church that morning was a generous shoe dealer by the name of Harry Bullet. He shook hands with her and when she withdrew her hand there was a five dollar bill in it.
"Nothing could ever persuade me of anything else," she later said, "than that
there was a connection between the incident at the house and Harry Bullett's
five dollars."

Today her three sons are grown men with fine children of their own. One of them was a deacon in the church and Dr. Dahlberg says,
"I have often wondered what would have been the outcome of the story had she yielded to her first impulse and used for herself and her boys the money she had set aside for the Lord? What kind of a lesson on faith and stewardship would her sons have learned in that case?"
She paid a price, but she also gained a destiny.

Certainly, Christ does not expect us to deprive our families of the real necessities of life. But he does expect of us to exercise a little bit of faith in the matter of Christian stewardship. I'm convinced that if we did, we would have the joy of making "a miracle" or two ourselves, for Jesus said,
"According to your faith be it unto you."
"Give and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken
up, running over, for the measure you give will be the measure you get back."

Secondly, as you think about your part in our 1960 March of Progress, I want you to know that Christ does not expect you to --

Undermine Your Future In Order To Support His Kingdom
It's true that Jesus said,
"Take no thought for tomorrow, for the things of tomorrow will take thought
of itself. . ."
But in so saying he was not suggesting that we make no plans for the future, but simply that we not become fretful and anxious about the future.

Certainly we must plan for the future. Certainly we must have some systematic program of savings. We ought to purpose for that "rainy day" which we hope will never come. But I think we can be so conservative in our planning for the future we miss out on much joy for today.

One of our members wrote this story on the back of a registration card and sent it to me. It seems a funeral procession was making its way to the cemetery when inadvertedly a Brinks money truck got caught just behind the hearse. As the funeral procession turned into the cemetery a passer-by said,
"Well, at least someone is trying to do it."

I also got a chuckle out of the story about the wealthy Texan who directed in his will that he be buried in his Cadillac convertible. The grave diggers dug a gigantic grave and a huge derrick was brought into the cemetery. The funeral director drove the baby blue Cadillac up to the graveside, got out and moved the deceased behind the wheel. The top was down, the man was all decked out in a flashy sports coat, slacks and a ten-gallon hat. The derrick swung around. Hooked onto the Cadillac, picked it up, and swung out over the grave. As the "Caddy" was lowered into the grave with the Texan in it, one of the mourners turned to another and said, "Man, that's living!"

Well, we can chuckle at such nonsense but the tragedy is that a great many people are so wrapped up in tomorrow they miss out on the joy of "Living Through Giving" today.

Do you remember the fable of "King Midas" who longed for the golden touch? His wish was granted. He touched a chair and it turned into gold. He touched a table and it, too, became gold. He picked up a vase and it became a gold vase. After awhile he went out to his garden and touched a concrete bench. It became gold. He rubbed his hand across a birdbath, and it was transformed into the precious metal.

Later, he plucked a rose and holding it up to his nostrils to draw in its sweet fragrance, he discovered it, too, had become a lifeless, metallic, facsimile. In a fit of exasperation, he flung it to the earth, a cold, clanking, golden thing. But he rushed off to touch another table and when it became gold, his feeling of exhilaration returned.

That night he sat down to dinner and the chair tuned to gold. His knife, fork and spoon became gold. When he put a forkful of fresh garden peas into his mouth, they, too, turned to gold and he spat them out like so many buck-shots.

After dinner as he sat on a golden sofa before a rosy fire, his darling daughter came in and rushing over to climb into his lap, he reached to hold her and, at his touch, she was transformed into a grotesque golden statue of a child. It was then that he longed for the golden touch to be gone and it was. He came face to face with the truth which we, in this wild, materialistic, sensory-centered society, must discover again. Money and the things money buys are not life's supreme value. For as Jesus put it,
"What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and lose his own soul."

Sometimes, when I observe the feverish, frantic antics of people for more and more of the stuff that satisfies less and less, I want to cry out, Look at all the fun you're missing. Oh, you'll have a better house and a better neighborhood. A finer car. A bigger bank account. Or what may seem at the moment a more secure future. But look at the price you're paying. Look at the fun you're missing. The sheer delight of giving a part of yourself away, while you're still alive and can share in the joy of knowing that while you can't take it with you, you can send it on ahead.
"Lay up treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where
thieves cannot break through and steal."

It isn't often that God calls a man a fool, but he says it of the atheist when, in his word, we read,
"The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God."
He also reserves this epithet for the covetous. If you will turn to the twelfth chapter of St. Luke you will find Jesus' story of the young man who coveted more and more the things that satisfy less and less. Christ says of him,
"Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then whose shall these
things be which thou has provided."
Or to put it more succinctly,
"What good will all your stuff do you then?"

Jesus does not expect you to undermine your future by what we might call "Prodigal" giving. But he does want you to experience the sheer joy of giving a part of yourself away. While you are still alive! While you can see the fruits of your labor. While you can have the joy of knowing that you have invested in that which neither time nor decay can destroy.

Finally, as you consider your part in the work of Christ's Kingdom for the coming year, I would have you remember that --

Christ Does Not Want You To Act Merely On Feelings
A lot of folks say they do not pledge because the like to give on impulse. They like to contribute to something that really catches their fancy or touches their heart.

That's all well and good, but experience has shown that the King's business must be done in a businesslike way. We should use our heads when we give as well as our hearts. To plunge headlong into something we cannot fulfill is often a prelude to discouragement and a sense of defeat.

I don't mean to suggest that if we take a hard-headed, practical approach to stewardship it will result in niggardly giving. To the contrary! I believe it will lead to tithing. Here is a plan that systemizes giving, is fair to the rich and the poor alike, and puts real participation in God's Kingdom work on earth within the reach of all.

God has taken great pains to make it clear that he never asks of us that which is impossible.
"God is not the author of confusion," says the Bible.
He does not require of us that which he knows can't be done. He wants us to finish our task, even as Christ finished his.

He has specifically promised that if we are square with him, not out of feeling, not as a result of some emotional tug, but on the basis of cold, hard facts; if we are square with him and, "Bring all the tithes into the storehouse," he will be fair with us. He will "open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing such as we cannot contain."

Either that's true, or God's a liar. Either he means it, or he doesn't. Either the law of the harvest is true, or it's false. Either we reap as we sow (sparingly or bountiful) or the whole nature of the universe is up for grabs.

God does not want you to give impulsively, he wants you give systematically. He wants you to finish what you begin, in the name of, and to the glory of, Jesus Christ his Son.

At the moment it may seem incredible, idiotic, absolutely impossible, that you will be able to tithe. But I have God as my witness when I say, you can tithe if you want to. And, if you try it you will find what millions of others have found, with God's help nine-tenths goes as far, or further, than the ten-tenths goes without him.

Best of all, you will discover that--
Your tithe becomes another pair of feet to walk today where Christ would walk if he were here himself.
Your tithe becomes another pair of hands to heal and feed and bless the desperate families of the earth.
Your tithe becomes another prayer of intercession, crossing time and space to help answer its own petition in one swift, unselfish gesture.
Your tithe becomes your other self, your better self, not hard and cold and metallic like cash in a cash box, but warm and exciting and compassionate like the Christ you love and serve.
Your tithe becomes tenderness in action, reaching out in the name of Jesus to do his work, in his way, for his glory.
And that's really what you want, isn't it!