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On Sunday I threw out a quick statement about our relationship to money while I was talking about Jesus' words in Matthew 13. That seemed to intrigue a lot of people so I pulled together a quick video with some of the thinking behind what I was saying.
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Hey, Jeremy here. On Sunday, we were interacting with the parable of the sower and the soils in Matthew 13. And we got to Jesus' explanation of the parable where he talks about the deceitfulness of wealth. And I threw it there sort of a throwaway line around money and our relationship to it, which seemed to peak a lot of people's interest. Here's what I said.
Speaker 1:The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke out the word making it unfruitful. Now, this one's an interesting one here because see how deliberately Jesus pulls finances and money into the equation. Honestly, that is not what I would have gotten if I just read the parable on its own. That's interesting. We don't talk about money a lot here at Commons.
Speaker 1:That's because churches often have a terrible and deserved reputation for caring about people's money more than they care about their stories. But listen to me, you cannot serve Jesus with everything but your resources. That's not a thing. If your faith doesn't cost you something financially then it won't cost you anything because eventually it will end up getting choked out. So here's some of the thinking that sits behind a statement like that on a Sunday.
Speaker 1:At Commons, we don't prescribe to this idea of tithing. This idea that we see in the Old Testament that 10% of your resources need to be given to the church. In fact, in the Old Testament there's a number of different tithes. There's 10% that went to the religious caste. There was 10% that went to the religious festivals and ceremonies.
Speaker 1:And then there was another 10% that was collected every three years that was gathered together in the storehouse to make sure that those who were in need were looked after. And so all of these different ties were part of a system of rules that God put into place to put his people on the right track, to get them headed in the right direction. When Jesus comes along though, it's almost like God is saying, Okay, let's take the training wheels off now. You've had all these rules. What happens if those are taken away?
Speaker 1:Can you still be generous people? Can you still be loving people? Have you understood me well enough that you can follow me without all of these rigid rules? And that's what we're trying to live up to as Christians. It's not trying to make a measure or a percentage or a figure that somehow once we reach that God is going to be pleased with us.
Speaker 1:It's actually about are we becoming more and more generous people in our lives? And that's what Jesus is inviting us into. Now, when he specifically talks to us about wealth and resources and money, this is because he knows that we are holistic beings as human beings. When we try to compartmentalize things and we say, Well, I'll be generous with my time but not with my resources, what Jesus looks at us and says is, That's not going to work because that's not how you were designed to function. You're designed to function as holistic, integrated human being.
Speaker 1:And when you are generous with your resources, that will bleed over into other areas of your life and vice versa. When we try to compartmentalize this, everything falls apart because that's not true generosity and that's not how God deals with us. God is just generous with each of us all of the time and that's what He's inviting us into. So here's what I would suggest. Maybe you're at a stage in your journey where you have just never really considered being generous with your finances.
Speaker 1:Or perhaps you're at a stage in your journey where you have just honestly never had the resources where you've been able to be generous with your money. Well, rather than feel like there's now this 10% goal that you need to live up to, and if you do, God will be happy with you, and if you don't, He won't, what I would suggest is that you begin a process of setting goals for yourself to be more and more generous. So maybe you set the goal of giving away three, five, 8% of your resources. Maybe if you're in a place where you can, you give away 15 or 20%. And maybe instead you start with I am going to give away X amount this year in the coming year.
Speaker 1:And you do that and it might cost you something and it's a bit hard to get it started, but when you do that what you'll find is generosity now starts to become part of who you are. You do it first and then it becomes who you are. It bleeds into the way you react with your time. It bleeds into the way that you react with your kindness. It bleeds into the way that you think about other people who are in need.
Speaker 1:That's what Christ is talking about. It's not what's the measure where God is going to be pleased with you. It's are you becoming a more and more generous person and are you doing that in all areas of your life? And you unfortunately can't be generous unless that impacts your finances. That's just part of being human.
Speaker 1:But the goal is not to give x percent away and therefore God is pleased. The goal is to be a generous person because God is generous. That's the challenge Christ is inviting us into.