Giving God's Way

JANUARY 27, 1995. Former member Ann Haynes filed a lawsuit against the First Baptist Church of Markham Woods in Lake Mary, Florida, demanding access to the church’s records. The church complied and handed over all information except its donation and tithing records.

But on December 7, the court ruled that even personal giving records had to be disclosed. On Jan. 10, the church was finally forced to turn over the amounts and names of contributors.

Attorney John Campbell expressed concern about the decision. “The court’s intervention in the dismissal of a church member and mandating disclosure of donor records sets a dangerous precedent. Secular standards should not be applied to spiritual matters. Requiring disclosure of giving records will harm all nonprofit organizations.”

Two civil suits are now pending in federal court by two of the church members whose financial giving records were made public.

How would you like to be in the middle of that mess? We’re here today to talk about giving: the place of giving in the Christian life; the purpose of giving; and the process of giving.

If that news item from Florida tells us anything, it tells us that giving is a very delicate subject. A lot of people would prefer to keep the subject of giving under wraps. They don’t want to talk about it, and they don’t want to hear any sermons about it.

But Jesus spent a lot of time talking about giving. He certainly taught the importance of it, but he also warned us of several dangers associated with it.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has been teaching us that, if we are truly going to be his followers, we are going to be radically different. We’re going to have different priorities, different goals, a different agenda for our lives.

When you become a Christ-follower, you’ll want to devote yourself to doing what pleases Him. You’ll want to do good works—deeds of righteousness that bring glory to God.

But in the very doing of those good works, there can be a subtle danger. Jesus warns us about it in Matthew 6:1, the verse we looked at last week:

Matthew 6:1 “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

The problem in following Jesus—in living the Christian life— is that we can become spiritual show-offs. We can find ourselves doing the right things for the wrong reasons. Our motive can drift from a desire to please God to a desire to gain the praise of men. And when we do that, Jesus says, we’ve become hypocrites—play actors.

Chapter six contains three concrete examples of how this can happen. Jesus highlights three key areas of the Christian life—giving, praying, and fasting. He shows us how spiritual pride can co-opt our devotion to God so that , even when we’re practicing those good works, we can be caught in the trap of hypocrisy.

Today we want to look at the first area—giving…

Matthew 6:2-4 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

(Incidentally, the best early manuscripts do not have the word “openly” at the end of verse 4.)

Jesus teaches us three things about giving in this passage:

1. The place of giving

2. The purpose of giving

3. (and most importantly…) The process of giving

1. The Place of Giving in the Christian Life

In verse 2, Jesus says “When you give…” not “If you give…” In other words, it’s understood that, if you are going to be a Christ-follower, you are going to be a giver. It’s part and parcel of discipleship.

But many Christians do not practice the spiritual discipline of giving at all. Or if they do, their giving is pitifully small. Someone said, in commenting on this passage, “If you gave as little as some Christians do, you wouldn’t want your left hand to know what your right hand was doing, either!”

I’m not talking about absolute amounts, I’m talking about what we give compared to what we could give and what we should give. The widow’s mite was small, but it was bigger in God’s eyes than the rich man’s bags of money, because it was all she could give. It represented a greater proportion of her resources. And it was the firstfruits—she gave off the top, not off the bottom.

Unfortunately, many Christians have the attitude of the little girl who was given two dollars by her father. He told her that she could do anything she wanted with one of the dollars, but that she was to put the other dollar in the offering on Sunday.

The little girl nodded in agreement, and then she asked her daddy’s permission to go to the candy store. With the two dollars clutched tightly in her fist she happily skipped toward the candy store. All of a sudden, she tripped and fell. The two dollars tumbled out of her hand, and before she could catch it, the wind blew one of them down a storm sewer by the curb.

She got up and looked at the one dollar that was still in her hand and then at the storm sewer. Then she looked up at heaven and said “Well, Lord, there goes your dollar.”

We so often give God the left-overs instead of honoring him with the first-fruits. And if there’s nothing left-over at the end of the month—when we have paid all our bills and indulged all our wants—then we don’t give God anything at all.

And then we wonder why we are not seeing the blessing of God in our lives.

If your life does not include systematic, regular, and generous giving of the firstfruits of your income, then you are not living the Christian life. It’s as simple as that because Christians are people who give.

2. The purpose of giving

In verse 2, Jesus says “When you give to the needy” or “when you give alms to the poor…” What does this teach us about giving? It teaches us that our giving should be directed toward meeting the needs of people.

The highest act of goodness for a Jew was to give to the poor. The Hebrew word for almsgiving was the same word they used for righteousness. The two were considered one and same thing. If you were a righteous man, you gave to the poor. The Rabbis said that a man who gives alms to the poor is greater than Moses.

The Bible is full of exhortations to give to the needs of others. Giving to meet the needs of people who are in need is the kind of giving that really pleases God. That’s where His heart is. Because that’s what He did—He gave us His Son so that we might have eternal life. He gave to meet our need.

So we’d better make sure that the giving we do is motivated by compassion for people who are in need. What do people need the most? They need the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They need to know that God loves them and that Jesus died to save them. So let’s give to meet that need.

3. The process of giving—this is the real emphasis of this passage.

There are a lot of different motives for giving. For example, you can give out of a sense of obligation. Some distant relative unexpectedly sends you a Christmas present. When it arrives in the mail, you say “Oh no! I didn’t get anything for them.”

So you rush out and purchase something, package it up, and send it out in the next mail. Your act of giving is done merely out of a sense of obligation.

Or you can give out of habit. You’re sitting in church minding your own business when suddenly the offering plate comes along. So you reach into your pocket and pull out a dollar like you do every week and place it in the plate without another thought. You’ve given out of habit.

Or you can give out of a desire not to be put to shame. You’re walking out of the Sanctuary when you happen to notice the Fellowship Fund offering plate at the door. You hadn’t planned to give anything, but because others are putting donations in the plate and people may be watching, you reluctantly place something into the plate as well. You’re giving to keep up appearances.

And this comes close to what Jesus warns us against in this passage. There’s a danger that our giving be done not just out of obligation, or out of mindless habit, or just to keep ourselves from looking bad. There’s a very real danger that we will begin to give so as to make ourselves look good.

Jesus said that it’s very easy for us to become spiritual show-offs in this matter of giving. And we can do this very subtly. Look again at verse 2:

Matthew 6:2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men.

Now what is Jesus talking about here when he says “don’t announce your giving with trumpets”? Is he using a figure of speech? Is he saying, in effect, “Don’t blow your own horn when you give.” Possibly. But it’s even more likely that Jesus is speaking of literal trumpets here.

In 1969, there was a remarkable discovery made in the city of Jerusalem. Ever since the Israelis had captured the old city in the Six Day War in 1967, archaeologists had been digging around the base of the Temple Mount.

In 1969, they uncovered a stone that was eight feet long and which had a Hebrew inscription on it. The inscription was incomplete because the stone had been broken, and they never were able to find the other part. But the inscription said “To the place of trumpeting…”

Evidently that stone was originally located at the very top of the Temple wall. That is where the priest stood who blew the trumpet to announce the beginning of the Sabbath day, which of course began every Friday evening at sundown. Whenever the people of Jerusalem heard the trumpet sound, they would stop working, for the Sabbath had begun.

But the priests would blow the trumpet for other reasons as well. They would blow it to gather the people together for special assemblies at the Temple. There were holidays, and feast days, and special days of fasting as well. They would blow the trumpet to call the people together for those special occasions.

Now there were special offerings in conjunction with each of those feasts or fasts, and if you were going to the temple, you would be sure to take your purse with you.

Now imagine that you were a devout Jew living back in those days. You hear the trumpet sound announcing a special assembly at the Temple. So you drop what you are doing, and grab your purse and make your way toward the Temple.

As you hurry down the street, everyone who sees you knows exactly where you are going. And the fact that you are carrying your purse indicates that you are about to make a gift. The fact that you are hurrying shows everyone how zealous and sincere you are. As the trumpet sounds in the background, you have become a spiritual show-off, haven’t you? You are announcing your giving with the sound of the trumpet.

Jesus said when you give so as to impress others, you are nothing more than a pious play-actor. You have turned into a hypocrite. You are putting on a performance.

And the applause that you get from men is all the reward you’ll ever receive. You have been paid in full.

I’m sure that you have been in hospitals where the names of the donors are prominently displayed, perhaps on a great plaque in the lobby. Some of the floors and wings of the hospital may actually be named after the donors of the money to build them.

What a point of pride it would be to go into such a place and be able to point to your name on that wall. What a glow you would get when you thought of the thousands and thousands of people who go through there and see your name, and think “My, what a wonderful person he is to give his money to such a worthy cause.” This is the trap that our pride springs on us when we give.

And it doesn’t just happen out there in the world, it can happen in the church as well.

Several years ago, a well known TV preacher had a big building campaign. He announced that anyone who gave $500 to his campaign would have his name inscribed with a laser on one of the bricks that would be in the lobby of that building.

I’m sure that many Christians gave to that project for no other reason than to get their name written on one of those bricks. Jesus said “I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.”

There’s only one way to counteract this tendency of spiritual showing off—this pathological desire that we all have to be recognized and praised and spoken well of. Jesus said “Do your giving in secret.” Do it in secret to take away the temptation to turn your giving into a publicity stunt.

Now the secrecy is actually for two reasons:

1. It’s so that other people won’t know what we’re doing so we won’t be tempted to play to the grandstand…

2. It’s so that we ourselves won’t be tempted to engage in self-congratulation—in patting ourselves on the back.

You see, it’s possible to give secretly so that nobody else knows what you’re doing. But because you yourself know what you’re doing, you may begin to dwell on just how generous you are, and what a great giver you are. And you’ve fallen into the trap of hypocrisy.

That’s why Jesus says in verse 3 “Don’t even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” Don’t dwell on it. Just give and move on. Forget about it. Don’t listen for the applause of others. Don’t expect to be congratulated, or recognized, or even receipted for your gift Don’t even pause to take personal satisfaction from it.

Not long ago, my wife and I decided to send a check to some friends of ours who were in need. (I’m telling you this not to make myself look good.) So we sent them a check. And we never heard back from these people. I found myself thinking “Hmm. That’s odd. Not even a thank you. Maybe the next time, I won’t be so quick to get out my checkbook.”

And then the Lord convicted me of my attitude. Why did I give that gift in the first place? Did I give so as to make myself look generous in the eyes of those people? Did I give because I wanted and expected to be thanked in return? Was I looking for some kind of a kick-back? Or did I give without any strings attached—simply because it was the right thing to do?

Jesus says “Give and move on.” Don’t pause to pat yourself on the back. Don’t even let your left hand know what your right hand is doing in this matter, lest your pride slip in and ruin you.

When you give, don’t look for recognition—don’t look for your name to appear in the bulletin, or on a plaque on the wall. Just give, because the Lord wants you to, and because you want to please the Lord.

In the world of military intelligence (and some people say that that’s an oxymoron!), when a classified document is distributed, it may have stamped on it the label “Eyes Only”. In other words, that label is a warning that the material is so sensitive, and in some cases so potentially dangerous, that you are not to talk about it, you are not to write about it, you are not to let anyone else know about it in any way. It is for your eyes only.

Perhaps that’s the way we ought to think about giving. First of all, it’s right to give. It’s part of the Christian life. We ought not let the possible pitfalls keep us from carrying out this important spiritual duty. And secondly, our giving ought to be directed toward meeting the real needs of real people. But when we give, it ought to be for God’s Eyes Only.