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Most of us navigate life by a quiet, practical question: what’s the minimum I need to get by with my time and my money? In Matthew 2, the wise men travel months across dangerous roads and then open their best treasures before the child—and the gap between what they did and what they could have gotten away with is exactly where this passage challenges us.
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This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.
So, the last few weeks, we’ve been thinking about going boldly. What does that look like? What does it look like to watch the example of the Wise Men, and live a bold faith? And we’ve started to put that together. We saw how it required studying God’s word, because not in God’s word, if we’re not understanding what it is that he wants us to do, if we’re not understanding who he is. How can we be bold about him if we don’t understand that? And so we looked at that. And then we looked at not only being bold to study his word, but being bold to encounter him as we study his word, so that we’re not stopping with, okay, I know a lot of stuff about God. A lot of people that know a lot of stuff about God, but never actually encounter him. So boldly encountering him, then boldly going and doing what he’s called us to do. And we thought about that over the 12 days of Christmas and how God brings the fruit of the spirit out in our lives. How he sent us out there to boldly be those who show his love to the world. So that’s where we’ve been so far.
And as we continue with the wise men, As we continue with those magi, we come to what they did when they encountered Jesus. They worship him, and we’re going to look at verse 11 where they worship him once again tonight. And they gave him gifts. That’s the part we’re going to think about tonight. Now, I don’t usually have disclaimers before I start a sermon. I can’t really remember the last time I did have a disclaimer. I’m going to have a disclaimer tonight. And that’s this. If you’re tuning in for the 1st time maybe you did scroll through Facebook and you’re here tonight. Well, we’re going to talk about the Wise Men giving gifts to God, and we’re going to think somewhat in what that looks like as far as how we give as well and how we live lives as those who respond generously. And I realize a lot of us have heard sermons in the church about giving and money. And the fact that I’m even giving this disclaimer, Your blood pressure is rising. And you’re thinking, why wasn’t I sick today? Why didn’t I turn off the computer? Well, 1st off, I want to say that’s not our normal practice here at Little Hills talk about this a lot. We don’t talk about money all the time. In fact, I have never preached a stewardship sermon at Little Hills before. We maybe mentioned it in passing when a verse requires it, but our budget committee said, you know, you really should talk about giving at some point. And what I like to do, as you notice. I think this is a good practice. We just go through text. And when we arrive at what God has to say in the text, we address it. And that’s what we’re going to do tonight. And some of that’s going to deal with that subject. But I just wanted to say that up front. So that if you haven’t been with us before, you’re not thinking, oh, that’s all they talk about. I knew that’s all Christians talk about. And I hope also, here’s the 2nd part though. I hope that we talk about it a little differently. Because what we’re thinking about here is how do we holistically in our lives live boldly as those following God? And this is a part of that. But it’s a part of it, and that’s why we’re fitting it into the overall picture of how the wise men respond to God.
We’re actually going to talk about more than money tonight, that we’re also going to talk about time. And as I thought about time and money Neither of us have none of us have enough of either, right? People will always remark on that. And I was thinking about, a few years ago those of you that know me know that I’m a geek. I love technology and something I’d wanted to try for a very long time was what was called a raspberry pie. Anyone know who a raspberry pie is here? Uh, want too? Yeah. Not the fruit pie. Uh, yeah, two. Okay. A raspberry pie is a little computer board. Oh, single board computer. They can run all kinds of different things, and you build your own itty bitty miniature computer out of it. And I’ve been wanting for years to try one of these because, well, it’s way less powerful than probably most of our computers. That’s not the point. But you can do interesting things with it put in this little case, you can just put some weird computer software on it and make it. Do whatever you might want to do. You could put old games on it, you could make it run, automate your home, you can do all kinds of stuff. I just wanted to play with it. And so I thought about buying one, but I always looked at, well, okay, so you need the little board and those are actually relatively cheap. There’s a shortage right now, so they’re not cheap, but it was relatively cheap, 35 bucks. But then you need the power supply and you need the fan and you need the case and I thought, I don’t want to spend the money on that. And finally, I think it was. I’d been given some money at Christmas and birthdays and I’d set aside and I thought, you know what? I’m going to buy something that I have no practical need for. I’m going to buy a raspberry pie. And so I ordered it. And I got a, I mentioned a few weeks ago how I was, with a Sega fan growing up and they had a little bitty, it looked like a Sega Genesis from the 1990s that was a case. And so I got in that little case, I was so excited about it. The problem was when I finally received it, I had the money to spend on it. Now I didn’t have the time to actually set it up. And so it sat there, I just sat there. I sat there, and then when I finally had time, I don’t know what happened to it somehow it got misplaced, I’ve been looking for it now, I can’t find it’s me computer, it’s tiny. I can’t find the thing. So 1st I didn’t have the money, then I didn’t have the time, and now I haven’t gotten to enjoy the raspberry pie. I kind of wish, though, when I’d 1st gotten it, I didn’t have a lot of time and I kept waiting for that ideal moment that I had time to enjoy it, I just said I’m going to go ahead and enjoy this theme, because then I actually would have gotten to. But trying to cling to the money 1st and then the time second, I ended up not getting to really enjoy either on this raspberry pie.
I ran into that a lot in life. And I think one of the things that we ask ourselves in life is what’s the minimum I need to do to get by? What’s the minimum I need to spend on things? What’s the minimum I need to devote time to? to get by because we’re short on both. Life is short and resources are short. And we often live by that question. It’s not always a bad question, but when we’re thinking about living boldly, we need to move beyond that question. That’s what we’re going to think about tonight, because we see the wise men do something more than what you would do if you ask the question, what do I need to do to get by? Let’s pray that in our own lives God would help us to think about that too. Let’s pray.
Father, we come before you as those who are given life by you. We’re given our our income, our food, our shelter, our church, everything by you. And yet we know we have to be wise with it. We also get scared. We also get confused. We also just don’t know where things are going. Or would you help us to have wisdom? But to live confidently as well in the places that you’re calling us to. And in all that to remember that it’s because you were with us, that you love us. pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
So the wise men. I’m sure they had a lot to do. Back in the office, back in Persia where we think they likely were from. They had all kinds of things. They had an inbox full of wisdom texts from around the world to read and to translate. They were busy. And as they see the star in the sky, as they start to think something’s happening they could have asked, well, what’s the minimum? We can do to get by. Maybe we could send that intern in our office. We’ll send him over to that backwater place known as Palestine, and he can check out this newborn king. See what’s going on. Give our greetings so it looks like we care. And we can get back to what we really need to do. But that’s not what they did. No, what did they do? They get up. They travel. They encounter Jesus, and they rejoice. And that starts with that, they give their time. And that’s where it starts for us too. We give our time. If you’re here tonight, if you’re listening online tonight, that’s a matter of giving time, right? There’s probably a 1000000 things all of us can do, would like to do, should do. How do we decide what we’re going to do? But the 1st thing is they give their time. Take a look at verse one of Matthew chapter 2 once again. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, of Judea, and the days of Herod the king behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem.
Say, Tim, okay. We looked at that a few weeks ago. Why are we looking at it again? Let’s just think for a moment. They came from the east. Came from most likely Persia. There’s some debate. Some people think they came from the Arabian desert, but more than likely they came from Persia. So then I asked the question, well, I know that that’s a fair distance, but what did it actually look like for them to go that distance. Well, depending on how you traveled and the conditions and the weather and so on it could take months and months to travel that distance, 4 months or more. And we’re going to take a look at Ezra in a second. And when we do, we’ll see that it took him and his group 4 months to travel. It could take even longer than that depended on how many people were traveling, if you had horses or donkeys. They probably didn’t use camels, that wasn’t going to be common if you were coming from Persia, horses were more likely. But it was a challenge. And it was a challenge because you need to make sure you gathered a good group of people before you traveled. There was a road that went over from east to west, part of the silk road, and you could travel on that, but guess who else knew that people traveled on that? Because if you were traveling out, you probably had something of interest. Maybe you were bringing back spices and silks from the Far East. Maybe you were an affluent traveler. Whatever the case might be, you might have something that could be valuable to be resold. And so robbers would go and hide along the road, and they’d wait for someone to come with a small enough group that they could overpower that person or persons and take the stuff from them. So the 1st thing, if you’re in Persia, you want to travel to Jerusalem, you have to wait until you can gather enough people to go. So that means they either had to pull a bunch of people off their jobs or they had to wait until a group was already traveling there. So you couldn’t necessarily just leave tomorrow. They had to book their flight, so to speak. And wait. And then the bigger the group was, the more complex it made it to actually move you had to set up camp and break camp and make sure everyone at their different speeds of ability to travel could keep up with the group. It’s sort of like we talk about in American history, the Oregon Trail, if you think about that. you traveled in groups. And yes, it may be possible for someone to get across the United States faster than the average wagon train did. But because of the dangers and the challenges, you slowed down and you went to the group. So they were doing that.
Second, if we look at a map and we look at the modern Middle East, we’re thinking we’re wired to think in terms of airfare. So we look at him, we think, oh, well, you just fly from here to there, that’s not that far, but you couldn’t just go from as the crow flies. You had to go up and over because that’s where the road was. People didn’t typically travel across the desert. And so this was an indirect route, a dangerous route. And it simply was complicated. So when we read that the Wiseman arrived in Jerusalem, the 1st thing that we need to hear from that is they took a lot of time to do it. They didn’t just study God’s word and learn enough of it so that when they saw something happening in the sky, they could say, oh, God’s word is being fulfilled, once they did, then they were willing to take the time and say, and we’re going to encounter God, and we’re going to go travel there. And we’re willing to put a significant portion of our lives into this. Lower life expectancy, dangers along the road that might shorten your life. I mean, this was a major commitment. They were committing their time and their lives to do this.
I mentioned Ezra earlier, take a look at his journey. He’s in a similar area, not even as far east as the Wiseman likely word, and it says Ezra came to Jerusalem in the 5th month, which was in the 7th year of the king. For on the 1st day of the 1st month, he began to go up from Babylonia, and on the 1st day of the 5th month, he came to Jerusalem. So we actually I’m an accountant here tonight, but even if you aren’t an accountant, we can just take a look here. And we can see if we start at 1st month 1st day, 1st day, the 5th month. How long is that? Four months. It took 4 months. So it doesn’t look that far. But it took a long time. Came out to Jerusalem for the good hand of God was on him. Notice that. They travel for 4 months and that’s said to be good because God’s favor was upon him. So we’re talking a major journey. Doesn’t sound worth it, does it? If you’re just thinking you’re traveling to go see some king born. They understood it was more than that. And I think that’s the critical thing. It wasn’t just they were going to go see a baby. They were going to go see a very, very special baby. They were going to see God in the flesh and I think in some at some level, they understood that. I think that made the difference. These wise men, if they traveled every time a baby that might be important somewhere in the world was born, they never would have gotten anything else done. It wasn’t like they had their laptop with them and they stored all their sacred texts from different places in the world on their laptop and as they’re traveling they’re studying still, right? Today, we can be anywhere in the world and we can keep working on stuff. They left that all behind. All their work that they normally did, all the wisdom they were learning. That was all left behind. Because I realized it was important enough to set that all aside and go and travel and encounter God.
Paul says in Colossians 323. Whatever you do, work heartily, ask for the Lord, not for men, knowing that from the Lord, you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. I really think that that’s what they understood. They may not have understood it as clearly as we do. We can look back and see what exactly it was they were doing, but they understood something significant in encountering God was happening and they didn’t want to miss out and they said, it doesn’t matter if we set aside everything that’s normally important to us. We’re going to do that for the sake of encountering God. That’s living boldly. And I think about myself. And all the times that there are probably opportunities that God puts right in front of me to minister to someone to encourage someone. And I can’t motivate myself to do it because I think, well, that is not really anything going on over here over there. Anyone else ever have that problem? It just seems like, oh, you know, I’m exhausted. I already have a full schedule. I have lots of important things to do. I had lots of important things to do, but they put them aside. I think that’s a challenge for all of us to be more attuned this year to what God’s saying we should do. And to hear those times, the important things that we’re doing are as important as the things he wants us to devote our time to. Because here’s the simple truth. All of us are going to have more important things to do than we have time left in our lives. And for some of us, it’s easier to imagine that than for others, depending on where we are in life, we might think wow, you know, time does fly so much, or maybe you’re thinking time doesn’t fly fast enough. I wanna just graduate and get out of school, I can… All of us are short on time. And so we can’t do every important thing that we would like to do. The question is, where is God calling us boldly to use our time?
Wise men read God’s word, they studied it they encountered him, they worshiped him and then they were prepared to actually say God. We want you to have our time. We’re going to go do this. And because they were well equipped because they were knowledgeable, because they talked to people who traveled, they weren’t surprised by the amount of time they had to devote. May they, maybe ultimately it took longer than they thought. We’ll get in a, next week too, when they have to travel back a different way to avoid Herod, and that may have added on to the journey, but the overall journey it’s, it’s, it’s, extreme length is, it’s difficulty, it’s challenges, they would have known all these things before they went on it. They weren’t just going off into the wilderness. People did this. But it was a serious commitment, and they do it. Where’s God calling us to commit our time this year? Where’s God calling you to commit your time this year? Where’s God calling me to commit my time this year?
I was reading about a man by the name of Rob Kenny, fascinating man. He was abandoned by his father when he was 14. And then he grew up and went about life and he’s now, well, actually now 59. He was 57 in the interview I read. But he went about life. about a relatively normal life, as I understand it. But something happened as the pandemic hit. And he was sitting there in his house. It struck him that he had time to record things. And, you know, we did that here at Little Hills too. So, and lots of other people did too. Everyone had a podcast, right, at the beginning of the pandemic. And so he had time to record things and he thought, well, you know, I’m going to record some videos on how to do basic practical things. And his basic idea, he didn’t think anyone would really be interested, but he thought, things that he wished his dad had taught him, that maybe if nothing else, his kids could pass down to their kids. His kids were grown, but he thought, well maybe they’d have this and even if they could learn it from their own parents they’d be able to look back and see their grandfather teaching them and it might have some kind of meaning. But he went ahead and put them up on YouTube. It’s called, he started a channel he called Dad, How Do I? And he imagined all the things that if his dad had been around as he was growing up, he wished he had learned. He ended up with 1000000s of followers on YouTube. Because what happened was that there were all these people who had grown up whose dads hadn’t taken the time, who hadn’t been there and spoken into their lives who went online and found this man that they didn’t know personally, but had taken the time to record this and they said, wow. And so they started recording more things not just how tos, but sometimes they just record something about how they was proud of the people listening or encouraging them to try something. and so on and so forth. It turned into a book, it’s turned into all these videos that get 1000000s of views. And all he does is he turns on a smartphone camera and points it at himself and records a little message. Dad, how do I? And it struck me. just the way that he approached this and you could kind of read it just hearing about what he was doing, but then in this interview, he put it into words so beautifully, he said, I’m 57 now. Again, I was 14 when my dad left. Then I was 18, then I was 29. Now I’m 57. Time goes by. And he said, as he thought about how time goes and it goes faster and faster, he thought about the question, what did God want him to use his time for? And he thought about all these things that he had learned, that he appreciated how hard it was to obtain them because his dad hadn’t taught them to him. And he decided to go ahead and try to help others. This was something that God had equipped him to do. And sure enough, it has been that. But he didn’t start because he thought well, I’m going to get 1000000s of followers. He just thought, well, maybe a few people would be encouraged by it. And that’s where we should start. Bold doesn’t mean you need to acquire 8 or 9 or 10000000 followers on YouTube. Doesn’t mean you need to write a book. The initial point for him was, I’ve learned these things the hard way because someone didn’t teach them to me. How could I offer them just to somebody who desperately needs it? And that’s where it went from. And I think the fact that that was his motive. It wasn’t to become famous. It wasn’t to be important means that as people watch the videos even today, what they’re hearing is someone who isn’t trying to be important. He’s just realizing what he missed and wanting to give it to somebody else.
We all have the opportunity to do that in different ways. It may not be that. You may be like me and on a lot of things it would be really better if someone else worked on it and it would really be better if they got their advice from somebody else. If you want to know about car repair don’t ask me. At least if you want the card to still run afterwards, I really wouldn’t recommend it. We all have different gifts, we all have different skills. The question is, do we see that clock ticking as he did, and do we say, how can I take what God has equipped me with and live boldly to show God’s love to other people? How can I live boldly to encounter God in this time that he’s given me? And that’s what really struck him. He realized that every moment he was alive as a gift from God, and he wanted to give it to other people. Am I willing to prioritize God’s work whatever that might be for each of you? And here’s the thing, every single one of us has something that God has called us to do. What is it for you? You may know very clearly, and it’s just a matter of clearing more time to do it? You may not know clearly. But every single one of us does. So just start with something simple. Rob Kenny didn’t start with running a massive YouTube chain. We start with recording a few videos. Maybe it’s taking time to help a neighbor out that you know is struggling. Maybe it’s taking one of those blankets. And taking it to a place where you sometimes see someone who’s homeless and you know that, yeah, it’s going to take a few minutes out of your day, but you can go to that bench, you can set it down, you can pray for that person. Maybe it’s the ways that you serve in the church because the ministry of the gospel that we do here doesn’t happen unless people serve. And the beautiful thing about this church is how much everyone here does serve. Maybe just thinking, well, God, this year how would you like me to stretch into something that maybe I don’t normally do and serve? There’s all kinds of different ways. And sometimes we see very clearly how they impact, sometimes we don’t. Did the wise men fully understand the impact of their bold devotion to God to set that time aside? Not necessarily. We don’t know fully what they understood. We may not, even in this lifetime understand fully what God’s doing with the ways that we serve, but the thing he calls us to do is simply to serve, simply to go and do his work. We don’t always get that instant gratification of a bunch of people writing in and saying, I watched your video and I was in tears as you taught me how to do this. We don’t all get that. But every single person here has something that you can impact someone else with and show God’s love with. Something I love about these blankets. Like we mentioned, they don’t have Little Hill’s name because the point isn’t to get us famous, the point is to point to Jesus. And if you look at those blankets, what you’ll see is it mentions to the person that they’ve been prayed for and that Jesus loves them. That’s what we’re called to do. So as we think about bold living, that’s something that we see the wise men do.
The 2nd thing we do see is they do give offerings as well, verse 11. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold, and frankincense and myrrh. Here’s what’s interesting about those items. We think about them today, and if you hear gold, frankincense, and myrrh, what do you think of? You think of the wise men. Here, wise men, you think golden frankincense and murder. That’s what our association with them is. But here’s the thing that we know about them. They were likely the items that were the best things that were coming through in the trade in their region. Most of them came from the Arabian desert. That’s why I mentioned some people think they might have actually come from Arabia. But Persia was a center of trade. And so they would have seen the very best things of the world going through. And what it really looks like is they went and they took the very best they had access to. They took their resources, purchased these things, and they brought them because they wanted to worship God. And so they gave of the best that they could. That’s what God calls us to do. When we think about giving. And again, I know this can become a very uncomfortable subject for all of us. And if it makes you feeling better, I get nervous, just talking about it because it is a touchy subject, but here’s the thing. We turn it into something that’s not, it’s about responding to God in the ways that he is working in our lives. These magi had resources, worldly resources. And so what do they do? They use those worldly resources to worship God. Now now all of us can go and buy gold and frankincense and myrrh or the equivalent today. Not all of us have tons of money. This church is not a wealthy church. It doesn’t need to be. The key thing is they took the best of what they had.
If you were with me on Monday night, as we were studying together, Genesis chapter 4, we’re going through the story of Canaan Abel and the spiraling out of sin that comes from that, we looked at Canaan Abel and their sacrifices that they gave to the Lord. And people have done a lot of wrangling as I mentioned the other night, on what was it that Cain gave that God didn’t accept it, and what did Abel give that God accepted it? And it really seems to come down to not the thing. It seems like more than likely Cain gave a perfectly good sacrifice of his crop. It could have been the first fruits. It could have been the very best that he harvested. The problem was his attitude. And we see that demonstrated in the after effects of it. We see that elsewhere in scripture. For example, Acts 5, there’s a fascinating story about a couple that sells a piece of land. And they decide they don’t have to. They decide they want to donate it to the church, the proceeds. But they want people to really, really like them. So what do they do? They don’t just say, we’re going to give some proceeds of this land sale. They say, we’re going to give all of it to the church without any intent to actually do that. And they mask the price that they get for the land and they give part of it. Why? Well, it wasn’t because they wanted to give God their very best. It was because they wanted people to think that they were extravagant givers. They wanted to receive the praise of human beings. And so what we see here, what does Cain want? He wants to be viewed as someone who gives important gifts, and he’s mad that Abel’s gift is accepted by God and his isn’t. It’s not going to write the thing. Cain wants to be praised. What do we see on Ananias and Sapphira in Acts five? They want to be praised? So What we find with God is what he really values is our heart as we give. How are we coming to him? God isn’t exclusive to people with extravagant means. Can he use people with extravagant means yes, but that’s not how he normally works. He’s not counting on every church to operate, that someone comes in with a huge checkbook and pours money out. What does he want? He wants all of us to give him what he provides to us as he provides it to us. That’s the key thing. I don’t know that Ananias and Sapphire could afford to give the entire proceeds of the land. They probably should have held some of it back. They probably need to hold some of it back. And God would have been okay with them holding some of it back. The problem was their attitude. And I think maybe they fell into this trap that we often, we hear and we hear people preach this way. when it comes to giving. You need to give so much more than clearly the preacher’s giving. You need to give so much more than anyone that’s going to live in the next year could give without getting themselves into financial ruin. You need to give and give and give, and that’s how you’re going to get God’s favor. And the problem is then it becomes, I’m going to buy God’s favor. That is not what God calls us to do. You’re not going to buy God’s favor. And I think that’s what Abel understood that Cain didn’t. Abel as he gave, wanted to give because he was thankful to God. And so he gave what he could. Cain wanted praise. He wanted to feel important. I think that’s a profound difference.
Luke chapter 21, verse one. Look, Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box and he saw a poor widow put in 2 small copper coins. He said, truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on. This Jesus doesn’t say, Look at those wealthy people. They’re making the temple run. You should name a new facility at the temple after them. What do they do? He praises the poor widow, why? Why do we know today the term widow’s might? Why is that embedded in our heads? It’s because God took note of this woman who didn’t have a lot. Who could have been sour about the fact that she didn’t have a lot, but what did she do? She came before God, took what she little she had, and she gave it because she loves her God, and she wanted to serve. And so she lived boldly. And that’s the key thing. How are we approaching it? Are we thinking about God like membership levels at Costco? You know, you go in and you sign up for a membership at Warehouse Club, Costco or Sam’s, and they have the different membership levels, right? You can be, well, you can be a non-member and then you can go online, you can buy certain things at a surcharge. You can have a regular membership. And then you can go in, you can get everything in the store whenever you want to, or you can get the plus membership or I think it’s the gold membership at Costco. And you can get that membership and then you get cash back. And you get the fancy card. And you get the fancy welcome bag. And you know when you check out the store and you hand that gold card to the cashier, you’re saying, yeah, I’m one of the important members here at Costco. I’m getting my cash back. I’m committed. And I think sometimes that’s how we feel like God is, that I need to get up to a certain tier. It’s like public television, right? I can see the different packages I can get, and I need to get up to the package that’s going to make me important, that I get acknowledged on the website or in the brochure. God’s acknowledged every single person he’s ever made fully. You’re not going to be more important to him. What does he want? He wants our hearts. That’s what we see with Abel. Abel comes before his God and he worships. The wise men come before their God and worship. And it’s not that Abel is less important because he only could offer one single animal and the wise men are bringing the wealth of the Orient. No, it’s not that. It’s not that you have a ton of property you can donate or you have a single penny to give. Question is, do you want to give to our God? Do you say God? All I have, I know, is from you and I want to worship you. I want to thank you. The real issue is attitude. And if it’s, But grudging that we give then what we should do is not say, well okay, I’m just going to clench my teeth. I’m going to give, we should stop and say God, give me a heart where I want to give. Give me a heart where I understand how this is working. Give me a heart where what I am recognizing about how you are working in my life is so extraordinary. I want to give. Do we give out a joy? we give out worship. Friends, this is why we mention giving during our services. It’s not because we want to pound you over the head with it. You may wonder, why do they always announce giving during the service? And especially if you notice, most people don’t use the box, we’re primarily a church that uses electronic giving. So why do we even need to mention it in service anymore? Isn’t that antiquated? Why do we do it? Because whether you’re giving online whether you have it pre-scheduled, whether you’re putting it in the box, whether you however you might do it. The point is that we’re worshiping God with it. And so as we mentioned that, if you’ve already given one thing that you can do it just stop for a moment and use that moment that we’re talking about that, all that information you already have, use it as a moment to focus on God. God, thank you for what you’ve given me. And I’m rejoicing the fact that I got to give something back. Make it an act of worship. That’s the point. And whether you give electronically or in person. It doesn’t matter whether you use actual cash or a check, whether. However you might do it, it’s still the same. And the same when we were talking at time. Use it as an act of worship. Don’t think, I know I could take some time this weekend, I could serve God, and I really don’t want to, but… My report card’s going to look bad with God if I don’t, I better do it. Make an act of worship.
We see that example from the earliest times in the church. 1 Corinthians chapter 16, verse one. Now, Paul writes, concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the 1st day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. Now what’s Paul talking about there? Paul was taking up a collection for the believers in Jerusalem. It seems like for various reasons, we don’t necessarily know all the details but we know that they were impoverished in Jerusalem. And so Paul was going around to the different churches and taking a collection that he was going to then take back to them. And what does he encourage them to do? Well, the temptation might be to say, well well, we’ll be thinking about it. And when Paul shows up, we’ll see what we have to give and we’ll pull that out and we’ll write Paul a check at 1st Bank of Corinth. And Paul can take that check and he can take it to Jerusalem. And he says, well, instead of that, on the 1st day of the week when you gather. So Paul is already indicating that Christians are gathering on Sunday. This is one of those places when people say, well, why do we meet on Sundays? This is a place that indicates something’s happening there. It says, when you gather together, make that a part of your practice, take something and give it to the church to set aside so that when I come, there’s not as panicked. Oh, Paul’s here, and we’re going to be embarrassed if we don’t have anything to give to them, we better collect something. Just start saving up so that when I come I’ll take what you’ve saved and I’ll take it and help the other believers. And he sets a very core precedent there for what we do if we’re doing it right as the church today. What do we do with the funds that come in this church? Well, it does pay for the lights. It pays for the various needs of the church inside, but one of the things that we wanted to do from the get go. is to start giving to missionaries. And so as soon as we started meeting in person, we started giving part of what came in at least 10% to missionaries. And that’s not so we can brag and pat ourselves on the back. It’s because that’s the bare minimum. We don’t want to be a church that’s taking in money so that we can sit on a pile of money or so we can have nice things. The point is that we go and we serve and so we need to start. Even when the money coming in wasn’t enough to really even meet the budget. We needed to start thinking in terms of how do we have that mindset of gratitude to God that he’s providing for us. How do we focus on being a church of gratitude? Because if we do that as a church, then we can do that as individuals. We as a body need to be modeling what each of us need to be doing. And so that’s what we’ve done. And again, it’s not to pat us on the back it’s to simply say, this is something that’s really, really good to be thinking about, how do we do it as a matter of gratitude? And you know, the thing is, sometimes when we send those are really missionary checks, and even today, we’re still not there. We don’t have a full budget yet. It can feel kind of weird when suddenly you see the account go down, and yet I think about how, against all odds, we’re here. And you talk to church planning experts and a lot of them would say, Little Hill should not be making it right now with the way that everything has gone to establish this church. In fact, some of them said Little Hills would never get start at all. Well, how are we here then? Right? Because God’s established this here. God’s enabled us to be here. So we can respond with gratitude because we know the one who’s pulling us together. Now, The key thing then, what we see that we see in our practice, but we’re trying to follow what scripture calls us to do is that we are intentional, but we’re intentional with gratitude. that’s what should power us.
Now the question then is, is this the tithe? And so, like, tithe is 10%. That’s what that means. There’s a lot of debate on how exactly we handle that in the New Testament. It’s not mandated for the New Testament church and the way it is for the Old Testament. But what we do see is that there’s a sense, and I believe that when God was talking about that, what he was encouraging was to be thinking in terms of be intentional. Be intentional with what God gives you. Be ready to give. And what we see in the New Testament churches, more than likely they were giving vastly more. They were giving until it hurt because they wanted to serve the poor, they wanted to serve the needy. They wanted to get the gospel out. They were doing those things. And so it comes back again to attitude. We’re going to give our time and our money to something. That’s the thing that we see. The wise men chose that they wanted to give it to God. And so they did.
I read a fascinating story the other week. Did anyone hear that after, what, 30 something years at someone, finally won Tetris? I think this is fascinating, that for years it was thought that you couldn’t get past level 29 on the Nintendo Entertainment system, the original NES Tetris, that it was simply impossible for a human being to move fast enough to get past level 29. And then a few years ago, someone discovered that you could do this hypertapping where you could hit the old NES controller just right and you could get further than that. But it still had its limits. And if the little Tetris bits are dropping down on the screen, you still would get to the point where you couldn’t move them fast enough. And so it seemed to still have an end. Then someone wrote an AI that could complete it faster than a human being. And they thought, well, there’s a whole bunch more levels that human beings can’t get to. Well, someone came up with the idea that if you hold down the button, and then you put a glove on your hand so you can stand the friction, and then you start rotating your thumb on the back of the controller you could move faster than the human finger can normally reflex, and you could get into the level 100 and beyond on Tetris. And so there’s these people that spend dozens of hours every week trying to complete Tetris. And in fact, someone, a young man by the name of Willis Gibson, completed Tetris. He actually got to level 157 a few weeks ago. It’s believed to be the official victory in Tetris because at that point the game crashes. It was never coded to go that far. And so he’s acknowledged that by all kinds of authorities, including the company responsible for Tetris, that he is one Tetris. The other experts in Tetris that we’re trying to race him to it. They’ve acknowledged that he’s the 1st person to do this. Well, now he’s going to try to go further because it’s not, well, maybe you could somehow edge it further. And the mythical full completion of Tetris would be to get to level 255. Because at that point it would reset to zero. And something hit me when I read that that was his hope, that somehow he could replicate what he did and push it even further. Somehow figure out a way to keep it from crashing and get all the way to level 255. He says to zero. I thought, here’s all this time he’s dedicating. Here’s all this effort. And ultimately, if he succeeds what’s going to happen, he’s going to start back at a blank slate again at zero. And isn’t that a picture of our lives? We will reset to zero. Whatever we accumulate, whatever we dedicate our time to, our resources to everything that we have to, we will reset to 0 and the question is, what was useful that we did in the process? I don’t mean to denigrate Willis’s accomplishment at all. He accomplished something. He showed determination. He devoted his time to this. There’s lots of things we devote our time to wonderful things, interesting things fascinating things, entertaining things. What am I going to dedicate myself to? So go into 2024, what am I going to dedicate myself to? That’s really the challenge that we see from the wise men. We know that we have limited time. We have limited money. We have limited every sort of resource. But I’m going to eventually reset to zero. What am I going to go boldly and do? And I think that when we talk about how it comes down to our attitude and how we understand God, what it really comes down to is that bold giving, bold dedication where does it come from? It comes from understanding God’s bold gifts for us. That’s where it starts. That’s where it ends.
And my prayer for us tonight would be that we would understand God’s bold love for us. That is where we are. That’s what we’re about here at Little Hills. We’re not about having a nice building or having a good budget or having enough time to do it, all kinds of things we’re here. Because God loves us and we want to tell other people that. And my prayer for all of you, if you don’t know that already, is that you would come to know that. And if you’re online and you’ve been listening and you thought, well, okay I’ll go ahead and listen to the sermon on giving. I hope the thing that you take away isn’t a bunch of stuff I’m giving. I’m the one who’s given to you, because that is what it’s really about. Let’s pray tonight that we would truly understand that.
Father, would you help us to understand the boldness of what you give to us? But yes, you do call us to respond with our time. With our talents, with our treasures, all those things that we like to put together and talk about. What we’re really talking about is the boldness of the love that you show us. And we pray that you would take that love and that as we respond, we wouldn’t respond out of obligation, it’s not to earn your favor, it’s not to reach a certain membership level. It’s not any of the things that we normally measure against, to get people’s praise, to even earn your favor. because we want to respond out of love to you. But Lord, we know that starts with your love. And if there’s someone listening tonight who doesn’t yet know you, we pray 1st and foremost that that person would come to know you. We come to know that you see him or her of infinite value. that you have given of yourself. That Father, you sent the son to die for each of us, including whomever it might be that has tuned in for the 1st time tonight. Lord, would you help us as we hear the boldness of your love? To want to be used by you, but most of all to be empowered by a yearable, love. We pray.
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