Sermon
The Right Way To Be Generous
February 27-28, 1999
Pastor Donald Sheley

Let's take our Bibles. It's time for us to study God's word. We're in Matthew's Gospel chapter 6 today. For a number of months we've been studying the Sermon on the Mount. Some of the verses we took them individually and then we've taken subjects. Today, we come to chapter 6 verses 1 through 4.

Lord Jesus, I pray that in our Bible lesson today You will teach us divine truth because we didn't come just to fill time. We came that we might grow in the grace and in the knowledge of You; wonderful Jesus, so be our teacher now we pray. Amen.

"Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. "Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. "But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, "that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you. And the word 'openly' is not in the original manuscripts and the thought is, God in heaven will personally reward you. 

Now as we've studied the Sermon on the Mount we made this observation in chapter 5 that Jesus is outlining or defining for us the way that Christians ought to live within His kingdom. We ought to be peacemakers. We ought to have a hungry heart for righteousness. We ought to be the light of the world. We should be the salt of the earth. And Jesus is telling us of our responsibilities within the kingdom, then He came to verse 20 and He said, if your righteousness does not exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees you'll never make it to heaven. And we learned that those scribes and Pharisees were considered to be the most religious and spiritual people in Jesus' day. And what Jesus is saying, if you live like them you're not going to make it because they're not going to make it. 

And then Jesus took six issues of life where He wanted to show the difference of false righteousness and true righteousness. He said you may not murder, but if you have anger in your heart that is as equally sinful. And then He talked about adultery. He said you may not fulfill the act physically, but if your mind and your thoughts pursue that evil thought, you've sinned in your mind. And Jesus talked about this matter of inner righteousness. Because He said you may look right but you're totally wrong. You may not be classed as a murderer and gone to the courts and placed in the penitentiary, but if you carry anger in your heart your sinning. So we went through those and now we've come to a new division in His sermon. What Jesus is going to do is He's going to take some issues of righteousness, that is, doing things that are right and are godly, and He's going to talk to us about Christianity on display. And He's going to take some issues that if this display is done wrongly, it becomes ugly, but if done rightly and godly, it becomes beautiful.

So what He does is He takes three things that were considered as cardinal aspects of the religion of the Jews; that if you did these three things you'd pretty well qualify for heaven. Number one was alms giving. In fact, it was number one. In fact, some of the rabbis said if you'll be an alms giver, if you have a generous heart, you will be better than Moses. Now Moses held a very high position with Jewish people and yet he is saying; he said if you give alms you'll exceed him. 

Now prayer was another issue. We're going to talk about that in the next weeks to come, and then the issue of fasting. Alms giving, prayer, and fasting. And what Jesus is going to say is this, these can be beautiful. These can have marvelous benefits if done rightly if done godly, but if you do them wrong they turn ugly. And He is saying you don't want to be like the scribes and the Pharisees because when they start to give they do it in a way that is so ostentatious it's totally wrong it's totally ungodly. And they're not going to get a reward in heaven for their alms giving. 

The story is told of an eastern ascetic holy man who every morning he covered himself with ashes and he dressed up in all of his religious paraphernalia and he'd go down on the city's corner, the main corner of the street. And he sat there looking so disheveled and yet to those people he was supposed to be the most holy man in town. Visitors would come and tourists would come to him and ask him if they could take his picture, and he'd always say 'Let me rearrange my ashes'. He wanted to make sure that he appeared in the very worst fashion to look the most holy that he felt that he could, and so he always asked for time to rearrange his ashes. 

Observation; a great deal of religion amounts to nothing more than rearranging our spiritual ashes so that we appear before others in a way that at least looks good. It may not be us, but it may look good. You see built within all of us in our sinful nature is the desire to look well in the eyes of others even if we've got to rearrange some of our spiritual ashes. We don't want them really to see us as we are at times and thus our very nature is to take the role of being someone sometimes that we really aren't. 

Now Paul says in his writings that this matter of playing the part of a hypocrite, acting as someone we really aren't, he says that that's going to be with us forever. He says, but the spirit explicitly says, that in the latter times some will fall away from the faith paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons by means of the hypocrisy of liars whose conscience is seared. So Paul is saying until the concluding days of time hypocrisy, acting out something we really aren't, is part of the human expression. 

Now one of the things that God really became disturbed about was in Old Testament times the hypocritical, the false worship, of the nation of Israel. He had given them such a beautiful, he had the tabernacle and all the vestments and all the celebrations and the feasts days and such a beautiful way of worship, and yet they desecrated it and they defamed it and they shamed it and they participated without genuine heart and soul. And so God time and time again talks to them about this issue of hypocrisy in worship. In your Bible, it's Amos 5:21-24. And here is God saying something to Israel about their hypocrisy in worship.  "I hate, He says, I despise your feast days, and I do not savor your sacred assemblies. Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them, Nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings. Take away from Me the noise of your songs, For I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments. But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream. God said I don't listen to your songs because you're not sincere. I don't want to hear your music because it doesn't honor Me. You may worship Me with your lips but your heart is far from Me Jesus said.

Isaiah picks up the subject. It's Isaiah 1:10 and onwards. Listen to God talking to a nation where all their worship is hypocritical. He says, Hear the word of the Lord, You rulers of Sodom; Give ear to the law of our God, You people of Gomorrah. In other words, these folks had slipped so far spiritually God is categorizing them in the same position as the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that He destroyed. He said, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?" Says the Lord. "I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, Or of lambs or goats. "When you come to appear before Me, Who has required this from your hand, To trample My courts? Bring no more futile sacrifices; Incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies - I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting. Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; They are a trouble to Me, I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. "Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow. "Come now, and let us reason together," Says the Lord. "Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool. 

God is simply saying I don't want any more of your false worship. Don't bring your sacrifices. There is evil in your heart. Until you get that straight, don't waste your time coming to worship. Hypocrisy ultimately will receive God's judgment. He won't put up with it. Ultimately hypocrites are judged. As a little boy I sat in a classroom and I had a teacher who loved Aesop's fables. And frequently she'd get out the little book on top of her desk and she'd read one of those fables to us as kids. And one of them tells of a wolf who wanted to have a sheep for his dinner. He decided to disguise himself as a sheep and followed the flock into the fold, and while the wolf waited until the sheep went to sleep, the shepherd decided that he wanted mutton for his evening meal. So in the darkness he felt around the herd and he felt what he found was the fattest and the largest sheep and after he killed it, he found out it was the wolf. What the shepherd did inadvertently to the wolf in sheep's clothing, God does intentionally because hypocrites do come under the judgment of God. 

It's very interesting in the days of Christ, and we find this on occasions when He went to heal, He'd be confronted with these professional mourners. In those days you tried to impress people with how deeply your pain and your agony over the death of someone, and so they had people that you hired and these people were masters at wailing and crying and screaming and tearing their clothes. Their tears were false. Their weeping was false. They were hypocrites, but that was part of the funeral scene in the days of Christ. Hypocrites hiring hypocrites to cry false tears and falsely lament the passing of someone. You remember when Jesus went to heal the little girl, He met these mourners out in front and they mocked Him when He told them that she was only sleeping. 

You see, the word 'hypocrite' comes from the Greek language which means actor. If you were in Greece in those days and you wanted to refer to a person who was an actor, you'd call them a hypocrite because that's the Greek word for actor. It's one who performs in a setting or in a situation in a character that's totally different than himself. It's one who performs; acting out somebody else's character, that's a hypocrite. And when Jesus used figures of hypocrisy He referred to them as, He compared them as leaven and whitewashed tombs and concealed tombs and tares amidst the wheat and wolves in sheep's clothing. But Jesus never had anything kind to say about hypocrites. Nothing. 

Go with me to Matthew chapter 23. Look at how Jesus felt about hypocrites, and ladies and gentlemen that hasn't changed. Someone who acts out a character in life where they're not that in reality. Matthew 23:13 says, "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. In other words, you hypocrites stand at the entrance of the kingdom and because of your hypocrisy other people miss heaven. Haven't we heard it said, I don't go to church because it's too many hypocrites there. Hypocrites always hinder entrance to the kingdom. Look at the next verse. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation. You fake it all the way through, even with false prayers of pretense. You're going to receive a greater condemnation. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea and win one proselyte.

What's a proselyte? It's someone who is won from one faith to another, or changes faith. And when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. Now that's pretty straight. You hypocrites are nobody other than children of hell. That's what Jesus thought of hypocrites. Go with me to verse 25. The whole chapter is a denunciation of the hypocrites. He said look at, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. "Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. "Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

You see Jesus really didn't have much niceness to say about hypocrites. God's judgment has always been on them. Jesus on another occasion said, "Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: "This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. It's not what we talk. Words mean nothing. It's how we live. So Jesus in our text today, let's go back to our text. He said when it comes to the matter of acting out or giving to a need or in alms giving or a charitable deed, He doesn't say if you do it, He says when you give. So the implied is that a godly person always has a generous heart that gives. 

There's not such a thing as a selfish Christian. Can't be. Because we become Christians as the love of God is poured abroad in our hearts, is shed abroad in our hearts, by the work of the Holy Spirit; and if the love of God flows through us there is no way we can be selfish. Jesus said, then take heed that you do not your charitable deeds before men, to be seen; otherwise you have no reward in heaven. He said these Pharisees. Now here is something that is beautiful, the matter of giving to need. But here's what these scribes would do, and these Pharisees and these rabbis; when it came time that they wanted to hand out their coins they might get someone to go before them to broadcast their appearance. Then these rabbis would walk along the streets, take their coins and flip them over their shoulder because it was supposed to be something very, very, very spiritual of not knowing who you're giving to. And all of these poor people would be picking up the coins behind him, and here's someone maybe blasting away on a trumpet or announcing here comes the man with his money. And he's flipping the coins over his shoulders, and Jesus said that's a terrible sin. That's not the way you demonstrate godliness. You don't do it for the praise of men. You don't do it to be seen by men, because if you do, there's no heavenly reward. 

Do you notice that last phrase in verse 2, they have their reward. That's an interesting phrase in the Greek. It's a technical financial term. It means you've been receipted in full. You got your receipt. If what you did you did to be praised by men, you got paid in full. There's your receipt. Their adulation and their adoration and their words of praise. That's your receipt. That's all you're going to get. God in heaven hasn't got one ounce of obligation to give you one reward in heaven, you've already been paid in full with earthly praise. 

Verse 3, He said when you do, He said your charitable deeds, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Now I've always thought, now that's a little; I've got to disconnect. My brain tells my hands to do this and this. Does He mean disconnect the brain from your giving? No, that's not what He meant. It was an old Hebraism. It was a phrase that the Hebrews used. It was the only way they could say it. But it was this, when you do your alms giving, do it with such simplicity and with such secrecy that even yourself pays very little attention to it. In other words, here's an opportunity to do a kindness; you do it, you don't gloat over it, you don't brag. It's just something and it's past, and you go on in your life. You almost disconnect yourself from it. It's just something you do because you love, and the love flows through you and you don't take an account. You don't make an issue of it. You just almost as much as possible disconnect yourself from that gift. 

I was given a plague many years ago. It's still hanging in my office. Here's what it says, What care I who gets the credit only let the work be done. Christ alone will handle credits at the setting of the sun. That's what Jesus is saying isn't it. When you do something that could be really beautiful and blessed, don't make it ugly by getting yourself in the place of taking all the credit or any credit. Remember verse 16, Jesus said, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and not glorify you but glorify your Father which is in heaven. Now those four verses we can understand. What Jesus is simply saying, something so beautiful as being generous and giving, don't be ugly about it by making everybody praise you for what you've done. That just takes something beautiful and makes it ugly. Don't give your righteousness out that way. 

So in thinking through our lesson for today, I've decided what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through the Bible, and I'm going to find out principles of giving that when we do it the biblical way, it will never be hypocritical. Okay? So we say, how can I be generous? How can I give and be biblical and God will be honored, and it will be done right and it will have beauty to it? Let me give you some of the principles as we have time. I'm going to take number one; number one, you can write them down. Biblical principles for giving that will never allow you to be ever caught in the category of a hypocrite. 

Number one, giving from the heart is always an investment with God. Now when you can take giving and you can elevate it beyond the matter of writing a check or giving in an offering, or whatever it is, and you get it at the high standard where now you realize your life is tied intricately with almighty God and He's your partner; and now you're sharing with what you have in His great work in this world. Now He's your partner and our giving is an investment with God almighty in His work. Most people don't think of giving that way. 

Jesus said in Luke 6:38, "Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you." Here's what Jesus is saying, make your investment small and you get a small return. But I mean you turn your life into giving and make the investment big, and God will pour back into your lap beyond the capacities for you to control it or contain it. There's something about God in this whole matter of giving; He gives, I rejoice, I give to Him, I bless others, He gives, and it just goes. I mean there's a cycle of blessing that's described in the scriptures, and He says you give and I'll make sure the blessings that come back to you, you won't be able to handle them.

You say, just a minute Pastor, you're telling us that if I invest in God I get a great return? Are you preaching this prosperity gospel I hear on the television? I'm not. I don't believe that. I believe those people are most of them are telling you a lie. If you give to get, the motive is wrong. But if you give because you're involved with God who's doing something in our world, now I've got the motive at the very highest. 

Let me use an illustration. I was born in 1931 during the great depression. We lived in a little mountain community up in the Sierra Mountains in the little town of Sterling City. It had 280 people. My father didn't have a job. He was out of work for four years. He had four little children. We had to beg for food. I still remember begging for food and I remember going from house to house having breakfast at other people's house because we didn't have anything to eat. I remember that. I remember taking an empty bag to school and playing, sitting out beside a tree and playing like I had a lunch, but there was nothing in the lunch bag to eat. I went to school without shoes in the snow. I understand poverty. I understand that. 

One day my daddy and momma went to church. They had never been to church before and their day in church changed their lives. They became Christians. And after a period of time, God gave my daddy a job in the sawmill and he worked for 10 hours a day 6 days a week, and he got 50 cents an hour. That's 60 hours a week, and I still remember him bringing home his first check. I'm a little boy about 4 or 5 years of age. The cupboards are bare, there're no shoes on the children's feet, and my daddy is now a Christian; and I saw him take his tithe $3.00 out of that $30.00 pile of money. That was a lot of money in those days. He quickly took it down to the church and said this is what I want to give to God. You say he's a fool. He should have been out buying shoes. No, no. He's now investing with God. 

My daddy died, never owned a home. When he died all he had was one suit in the closet. He never owned a home, never rich, never had any money; but he raised 5 boys, grandchildren, many are in the ministry today and God rewarded him with a godly family. And when he died, he died a very rich man. He had his boys around him who loved his God, and today, as I say, many in that family now are ministers. You see, when I say we go into business with God, I'm not talking about financially. If it comes, wonderful; but when God becomes part of our life and we're now making Him the partner in all that we have. He's there when we write the checks because we're in partnership now with Him. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 9:6, But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. It's the same truth, isn't it? It's the same principle. So put in a few seeds and you're going to get a little tiny harvest. Make the investment big and God's going to give you a great harvest. That's His promise. You want to be selfish, you're not going to get much out of life. When God becomes involved, boy, things change. 

I'm going to tell you another story. His name was Crowell. It was back in the middle 1800's, and Mr. Crowell was a businessman in New York City. And he went to his doctor and the doctor said, sir you've got tuberculosis. You haven't got long to live. I suggest you go out and live it because you're going to die. I suggest you get out of town. So Mr. Crowell sold his little business, got himself a train ticket, and headed west. Going along in this little locomotive in the train and the engineer stops at one of these little farming communities out in the Midwest to put some water in the tanks of the locomotive. 

Mr. Crowell was sitting there in his seat and he looked out and he saw this granary. It was idle. Weeds were growing up all around it. It had been boarded up; hadn't been busy. All of a sudden, a dream. He got out of that train went around the little farming community, found out who owned the granary, and said I'm going to buy it; going to put it back to work. And then Mr. Crowell went to that granary, knelt down, and said God all my life I've left You out, but from now on we're going to be partners. It may not be for long, but from now on we're partners. Mr. Crowell was the founder of the Quaker Oats Company and that was the day, that company which till this day has functioned financially beautifully. And Mr. Crowell lived 40 years and God blessed him, and he gave millions to missions because he became involved as a partner with God. You see, sometimes God does bless, but that's my point; when we take giving and we make God the partner. I mean this puts it at a high plateau. And when He sees and He becomes a part of our financial decisions and we make sure He's honored, He'll always honor us. 

In the early 1900's there was a little blacksmith shop over in Oakland; across the top it said, R. G. LeTourneau. Mr. LeTourneau had become a Christian. He made God his partner. His business grew. He moved to Peoria Illinois and he was the founder of Caterpillar, LeTourneau Caterpillar Company. Godly man; always lived conservatively, but when he died in the last years of his living he was giving 90% to God and he was living on his 10%. That was millions. But here's my point, you see giving is more than just a function we do weekly. It's something that our generosity and that love that flows through our heart now becomes in tune with the God of creation, and we say God we want in all that we do to bring honor to Your name. Now that's the kind of giving that never gets hypocritical. Because you see, you've got God as a partner and He keeps the books. 

The second principle of giving that never becomes hypocritical and that is; giving to be true giving must be sacrificial. Now this is a heavy one folks so hang on. David wanted to build an altar and he was king, and he asked this man in 2 Samuel 24:24, I need some property I want to buy it from you because I want to build an altar because I want to worship God. And the man said, no, you're the king. I just want to give you the property. And David made a statement; I will not give God something that costs me nothing. I won't do it. Jesus in Mark chapter 12 stands at the treasury and He watches this little widow who's only got two half pennies; wouldn't even buy some bubble gum, but He watched her. He watched the wealthy people put in their great big amounts of money, and then He watched this little widow put in her two mites. And then Jesus called the disciples and said come here guys, I want to show you something. Watch these guys. They're giving out of their abundance, in other words, they'll walk away and it won't change their pattern of life at all because they're not going to miss what they give. They give out of their abundance; aren't going to miss it. But here's a little lady who took what she's going to spend for bread tomorrow. That's all she's got and she gave it. She's given more than those wealthy people because she gave of her livelihood. 

Here's the point, we've never given until it has cost us something and most of us have never given because all we do is give from the abundance. I wrote down something in my notes it says; the Lord takes notice not of what we give, but what we have left. We don't give from the top of our purse. We give from the bottom of our heart. 

A little boy sat in church one morning and he watched his mother fiddle through her purse and found a penny and she put the penny on the offering plate. He watched. So they're walking home and mother's complaining about a poor sermon; and he looked at his mother and said what do you expect for a penny? You see worship is of the heart.

A pig and a cow were talking one day, and the pig was lamenting his lack of popularity. He complained to the cow that people were always talking about the cow's gentleness and its kind eyes, and whereas his name was always used as an insult. Pig! And the pig admitted that the cow gave milk and cream, but he maintained that pigs give even more. He said why we give bacon and ham and bristles and people even pickle our feet. I don't see why you cows get more attention than us pigs. And the old cow thought for a while and said gently, maybe it's because we give while we're still living. Lot of thought there. 

You know, to have a heart that's generous and God is; we're in partnership with Him. There's tremendous joy in giving. And I'm going to give you one, ladies and gentleman, that after nearly 50 years of ministry, this is truth, and you may not like it; but I've learned that material giving correlates with spiritual blessing. To those who are not faithful with mundane things such as money and other possessions, the Lord will not entrust things that are of a far greater value. 

In Luke 16:11-12, Jesus says some very interesting things. He says, "Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mannon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? "And if you have not been faithful in what is another man's, who will give you what is your own? Here's Jesus' point; if we can't take something that is given to us. Now remember, everything we have is a gift to us. All things come to us. God gives us health. God gives us air to breath. God gives us a mind to think, the capacities to do our business to do our work, whatever it is. We have what we have because God has provisioned it for us and made it possible for us to have it. That's true. We are stewards of His blessings. 

And here's His point. Jesus said, listen; if you won't handle just simply the monetary things of life with respect and righteousness, you're surely not going to get any true riches. Here's what I've observed. People who are selfish and stingy in their giving never mature spiritually. There's a connection between the pocketbook and the heart. I've yet to try to figure out. But if God doesn't have your pocketbook, ladies and gentlemen, He does not have your heart. That's true. And what Jesus is saying is that true spirituality is correlated with the way I handle my finances. 

Do you know ladies and gentlemen that 50% of all preachers who finish seminary leave the ministry in the first 5 years, and you want to know why? Because they do not know how to handle their own finances and usually they run their own family finances into such dire straits. They don't know how to handle the finances of the church and they disqualify themselves because they've never learned to be accountable and wise in the handling of financial matters. Isn't that sad? Here's Jesus' point, if you as a godly person, you want to be righteous, you want to express love, and you want to be generous. You take God as your partner and you make sure that when you sit down to handle your finances, you know He's sitting right beside you. Now we're in partnership. And when you realize that just simply to give out of an abundance and it's not going to hurt your livelihood tomorrow or the next day, you really haven't given; you've got to do something that really does cost you something, and you want more than anything else to grow spiritually.

I've found that it's the generous people who are the happiest and who grow spiritually the fastest. That's true folks. So here's my point, Jesus said look at, giving is something we all should do. Selfishness should not be a part of our Christian witness, and when you do it don't do it to get the praise of men because you won't get any reward in heaven, but do it because God now is your partner. And you're doing things with genuine spiritual intent; and I'll tell you, you keep your giving on that level and nobody will ever be able to say, he's a hypocrite.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, You've been very, very clear. Giving is right. It's something we all should do, but You don't want it to be a show off. You want it to be done in such a beautiful way that You get all the glory. And so would You help us to express this aspect of our righteousness in a genuinely sincere and simple way that only You get the credit. Thank you for helping us dear Jesus. And everybody said, amen. God bless you.