MATTHEW 6:19-33

I will conclude my two part series on giving today with the consideration of "The good of gracious giving." I'm not talking about giving in general: to the Red Cross or some other charity. I'm talking specifically about the 10%, the Tithe, that belongs to God. I'm talking about giving through the church for the furtherance of the Gospel. For most of us, the concept of getting, gaining, acquiring and possessing seems to be more desirable than giving, sharing, imparting or donating. But we ought never lose sight of Jesus' words: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive'" Acts 20:35. But why is that true? What is the good of gracious giving?

1. Gracious Giving Acknowledges God's Ownership: V24:
1. What has that to do with ownership? In Biblical context, the master is the owner. So either God owns you or money owns you.
2. Giving says a lot about who is your master and who is the owner. Gracious giving loudly declares:
1. I am not serving, nor am I owned by, money! It is not my master.
2. God is owner of all I have and He is Lord of all my life! 
3. We all serve, and are owned by, some master. It may be power or sex or pleasure. It may be money. But when we freely, willingly, cheerfully give to God's work, we are affirming and acknowledging His ownership - of us and our money. We are agreeing with His claim:
1. "The earth is the LORD 's, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it." Psalms 24:1 (NASB)
2. "For every beast of the forest is Mine, The cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains, And everything that moves in the field is Mine." Psalms 50:10-11 (NASB).
3. "The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine,' declares the LORD of hosts." Haggai 2:8 (NASB).
4. All souls, all material things, all resources have been created by and for Him. He owns it all! When we give, we acknowledge that! So, who is the real owner? Who owns you? Money or God? Some evening, take your check book; read the stubs; they become a chronicle of your spending. They record your tastes and desires; your eating and dressing habits; your amusements; your indulgences. They will tell you a lot about whether God or money owns you.

2. Gracious Giving Breaks The Power Of Material Things To Control Us: VV25-32:
1. How often folk worry and fret and think they have to cling to their material possessions or they'll be poor or naked or hungry; how enslaved they become to the tyranny of things about which they worry and fret.
2. Those under the power of material things are in bondage. They are like the little hummingbird. Envision him. He has taken over a local feeder as his own property. He feeds and then sits in a tree, rising to drive away any intruders. Guard duty occupies all his time. He never leaves the area for fear some other hummingbird will drink his precious nectar. By choosing to assume ownership of the feeder, he forfeits his freedom to come and go as he wishes. He is tied to the duty of guarding his feeder. He is possessed by his possessions. He is caged by a situation of greed. He is under the control of material things.
3. We may be under the control of things. But gracious giving breaks the despotism of those material things because:
1. Freely bringing our tithes and offerings puts us in the driver's seat and money in the passenger seat. We are telling it where to go, it doesn't tell us where to go.
2. Money is no longer giving the orders as master and becomes the servant.
3. Loving money puts it on the throne but using it wisely and giving it generously puts us in control.
4. One old man learned that lesson. He had developed the reputation for being a real skinflint. But he got converted and one day he promised to give one of the hams from his smokehouse to a poor family in the church. On the way to getting the ham, the devil tempted him: "You don't have to give a really big ham; just one of the scrawny ones will do!" As the man walked to the smokehouse, the tempter kept up his argument. At the door of the smokehouse, the man said, "Satan, if you don't leave me alone, I'll give every ham in the smokehouse!" He gave the biggest and best ham! His giving attitude broke the power of material things to control him.

3. Gracious Giving Changes Our Perspectives: VV19-21, 33, 34:
1. Our perspective should shift from the temporal to the eternal. From laying up treasures on earth to laying up treasures in heaven. How do we lay up treasures in heaven? By laying them down by giving here on earth. Giving puts our perspective away from material things and puts it in heaven where our real treasures are. We become not thing or earth oriented, but heaven oriented.
2. Paul said, "If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God." Colossians 3:1-3 (NASB). Gracious giving helps to do that.
3. Those whose perspective is on things, and who are earth oriented, are noted in Solomon's pessimistic writing: "Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless. As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owner except to feast his eyes on them?" Ecclesiastes 5:10-11 (NIV).
4. May we learn to be like the legendary King Monobaz of Adiabene who converted from paganism to Judaism before the time of Christ. He distributed much of his treasure to the poor in a year of famine. His brothers said to him, "Your fathers gathered treasures, and added to those of their fathers, but you have dispersed yours and theirs." He replied, "My fathers gathered treasures for below, I have gathered treasures for above. They stored treasures in a place over which the hand of man can rule, but I have stored treasures in a place over which the hand of man cannot rule; my fathers collected treasures which bear no interest, I have gathered treasures which bear interest; my fathers gathered treasures of money, I have gathered treasures in souls; my fathers gathered treasures for others, I have gathered treasures for myself; my fathers gathered treasures in this world, I have gathered treasures for the world to come." Giving changed his perspective on treasures, on this world and on others.

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