S2S Sisters: “Intentional Finances –Using Our Resources for the Kingdom” by Lynelle Martin

Our prayer is that you will be filled with the knowledge of His will, strengthened with all might according to His glorious power. Welcome to Strength to Strength Sisters. It's so nice to have each one of you here today.

The vision of Strength to Strength Sisters is to encourage women to be catalysts in advancing the Kingdom through biblical teaching, testimonies of faithful women, and thought-provoking discussion.

Strength to Strength Sisters welcomes Lynelle Martin to share how we can cast our bread upon the waters, for we will find it after many days, and how this can relate to our finances.

I am honored to moderate today for Lynelle. She is a good friend of mine, and part of the reason that we're good friends is because our husbands have been good friends for many years, very good friends.

Lynelle and Bryant have a café in State College, Pennsylvania, and they have influenced our lives in many ways, and most recently by helping us start our own café here in Western Massachusetts. We are in a college town. Our café is in a college town near us here too, and Bryant and Lynelle have invested in our lives and in our business in incredible ways. And I just want to share here too that with Lynelle's topic today, as her friend and sister in Christ, I've seen this topic worked out in real ways in her life, and I'm so excited to hear what she has to say today.

So may we be challenged and inspired to use our resources wisely.

After the topic today, we will have a question and answer session, so be prepared with your questions and comments and the ways that this has stretched you.

All right, I will pray for Lynelle yet before we get started here and ask God to open our hearts and to pour out His grace on Lynelle. So let's pray.

Our dear Heavenly Father, thank You for being the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Thank You for the way You care for Your children. Truly, You have loved us with an everlasting love. Truly, You long for intimacy with us.

You deserve every thought and every action, Father, all the honor and glory that we could bring forth from our lives, Father. I'm asking for Your presence to be near each one on this call, each one that will listen to this talk after this afternoon.

Lord, I pray that You administer to us, and may Your Holy Spirit be poured out on Lynelle. Thank You for the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Thank You for Your living Word that teaches us how to be New Testament women.

Thank You for all You have done for us. In Jesus' name, amen.

All right, Lynelle, God bless you. Thank you, Doreen. Well, welcome to all of you here. I'm excited to be here with you today and look at this subject of intentional finances. And this is a subject that faces all of us. There's no one that can get away from how this impacts us.

And I was challenged as I studied for it, and I just want you to know that I'm learning along with the rest of you, and I'm looking forward to what we can learn together. I do not feel like we have it all figured out or that we have all the answers. We don't. I also want to acknowledge here at the beginning that there are different ways to look at a lot of these things.

Some would look at the topic of investing, for example, and someone could say, "Yes, it's a thing that we should do," and another person might say, "No, we shouldn't lay up treasures on this earth." So I want to acknowledge that there are different ways to look at these things, but I'm hoping that we can look at some principles and that we can talk about ways that we as Christians should handle money. And what I want you to leave with today is I want you to leave with the sense of beauty that surrounds this subject.

We can often tend to think of it in a negative way, and I want us to just be able to grasp God's heart for it and to, yeah, just dig into that, the beauty, embrace it. So let's look at this together and see what we can learn.

I'm going to play a video here, first of all, before we get into it, about generosity and God. So I will do that now for you.

Imagine you're a friend. It invites you to a party. You arrive, and there's lots of people, decorations, food, and drink. There's enough for everyone. When you're hosted by someone that generous, you don't have to worry about your needs. You can just enjoy yourself and focus on the people around you. Yeah, that's what a good host wants for her guests. And this is the picture of the world that we find in the Bible. Creation is an expression of God's generous love. He's the host, and humans are His guests in a world of opportunity and abundance. And we're called to keep the party going, to spread His goodness. This is a beautiful picture.

But it's not the way people experience the world. Rather, we find a world of scarcity and struggle, not abundance. And Jesus grew up in that kind of world, under military occupation, people losing their land, their families to debt and poverty. And yet, He would say things like this: "Look at the birds. They don't store up food for themselves, yet they have enough." Or consider the wildflowers. They're beautiful and abundant, and they don't stress about their existence. And you all should live that way too. But surely Jesus knew that things don't always work out. I mean, sometimes there really isn't enough. And Jesus did experience poverty firsthand, but He viewed the world through the story of the Hebrew Scriptures, which claimed that our scarcity problem isn't caused by a lack of resources.

Rather, the problem is our mindset that God can't be trusted. Maybe God's holding out on me. Maybe there isn't enough, and maybe I need to take matters into my own hands. And once we're deceived into that mindset of scarcity, we can justify the impulse to take care of me and mine before anyone else. And that leads to envy and anger, violence, and a world where it seems like there's not enough. The party's over. It's turned into a battle grid. But God wants humans to experience His generosity. And so He chooses one people, the family of Abraham, and He promises to give them the abundance that He wants for everybody else. God will provide what they need.

All they have to do is trust His generosity. And through them, the whole world will see how generous the host really is. But that's not what happens. Abraham's descendants, the Israelites, enter a land of abundance, and they promptly forget the host who gave it to them. They act like it's all theirs and like there's not enough, and it leads to war and Israel's self-destruction. If I were the host of this party, I think I'd just give up. But God doesn't give up. What He does is surprising. He gives another gift. Another gift. Yeah, but this gift is different. What God gives is Himself. All right, and Jesus, the host Himself, comes to join in on the spoil party.

And notice, Jesus lives with the conviction that there is enough and that our generous host can be trusted. His mindset of abundance allowed Him to live sacrificially and generously, even towards His enemies. And Jesus called His followers to trust in God's abundance like Him. And that's why He said things like, "Sell your possessions and give to the poor," or, "Don't worry about your life." He's inviting us to live by a different story, one that is built on trust in God's goodness and love. But living generously doesn't mean life is going to go well. I mean, look at Jesus. He was betrayed by His friends. He suffered. And this was no surprise to Jesus. He knew that people would take advantage of His generosity.

In fact, that was His plan, really. Yeah, think about it. Jesus knows that we're all hopelessly deceived by this lie that there's not enough. Yeah, that lie seems to be deceiving. And so that's what Jesus was doing when He gave us the gift of His life. Jesus' death was the ultimate expression of God's generous love. Yeah, God's love can turn death into life and scarcity back into abundance. Or as the Apostle Paul put it, "You know the gift of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, that even though He was rich, for your sake He became poor so that you through His poverty might become rich." And Jesus called His followers to live like the real party has begun.

Yes, He called it the Kingdom of God. And our invitation to this party is yet another gift, the personal presence of God's own Spirit that can teach us how to trust the generosity of the host, just like Jesus did. And when you believe there's enough, you start seeing opportunities for generosity everywhere with our time and money, our attention. Yes, one of the most important ways that we can experience the abundance of God's new creation is sharing with others because of our trust that God is the generous host.

So I want us to think a little bit here about God as our generous host. And I want to look at some verses that have to do—I just looked up the theme of gift. There could be many words that you would look up that would talk about the generosity of God. Words like compassion, generous, all the different forms of the verb give, gave, given.

But let's just read these couple. So Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Matthew 7:11, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him?"

Acts 2:38, "Then Peter said to them, 'Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'" James 1:17, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." 2 Timothy 1:7, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."

So what is our purpose for generosity? We are here to bring glory to God and to advance His kingdom. We are to be like God to humanity around us. We are to exercise trust in our generous Father.

We are supposed to be like this God of generosity that we just heard about in the video from the Bible Project. God is a generous God, and as believers, we are to be small Christs, little Christs. That's what the word Christian means: follower Christ, little Christ. And Jesus was God here on earth. And if we look at Jesus' life, we see very over and over again the spirit of generosity coming out in Jesus. And that's what we're supposed to be like. We're supposed to be like God, and we're supposed to show God to the world around us. And so that is why we are here.

There is a story that I want to look at from the Bible, and this story impacted me when I was studying, and I came across this through Bible Project, and I want us to look at it together. And this is out of Exodus chapter 16, and you can open your Bibles if you want to. I'm not going to read it necessarily, but we want to pull out some thoughts out of here. So the backdrop for this story is the entire Israelite community.

They're in the wilderness of sin. They had left Egypt, and they were short on food. And so they started complaining against Moses and against Aaron. And an interesting side note here is the community of Israel was focused on Moses and Aaron. But when they responded, they said, "Who are we? Your complaints aren't against us, but they're against the Lord." So sometimes, whenever we face opposition, may we think about it in that way. That's the meekest man in the world that we often think of Moses as that. And that's how he responded. He realized he didn't take it personal, but he realized that they were talking against the Lord. So what does God do?

God tells Moses two times that he's going to provide meat and bread for them, and then his cloud of glory appears to the congregation. He tells them how it's supposed to happen. They're supposed to go out and gather, but they're not supposed to gather more than what their family needs for one day. And so the next morning, they find the manna all over. They go gather it. They gather enough for their family. And in verse 18, it says, "When they measured it by quarts, the person who gathered a lot had no surplus, and the person who gathered a little had no shortage. Each gathered as much as he needed to eat."

So they all had gathered enough for their family. It sounds like some had gathered more, some had gathered less, but it all came out exactly like it was supposed to.

Then we come to Friday, the day before the Sabbath. And God had told them that he was going to take care of them, right? They're in a wilderness. They're at a place of desperation. Without God's supply, their lives wouldn't last long.

On Friday, they seem to be surprised as they go out to gather, and they realize that they've gathered twice as much as what they gathered previously. So they go to Moses and they say, "What are we supposed to do?" And Moses tells them that this is for the Sabbath. This is for them to be able to have a complete rest. This is their generous host giving them another gift. And then let's look at verse 29. Verse 29 says, "Understand that the Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore, on the sixth day, he will give you two days' worth of bread. Each of you are to stay where you are. No one is to leave his place on the seventh day."

This wasn't a punishment. This was a gift. It was a gift from God. So why do I bring this story up here?

One thing I didn't realize before studying for this is that Paul references this in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, and he views this as a paradigm that we can still apply today. So let's look at that. 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, verses 13 to 15 says, "For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but by an equality that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack, that their abundance may also supply your lack, that there may be equality.

As it is written, 'He who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.'" So we see here, we see God's generosity, and we see his desire for equality.

We, as Christians, should be looking for that equality with ourselves, with others. We should be willing to share, willing to live as if there's enough. The early Anabaptists were accused of being communists because of their care about equality and their care for each other.

When Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, it's right in the passage about giving. That's where he brings this manna story back in again. And in chapter 9, in verses 6 to 8, he says, "The person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the person who sows generously will also reap generously. Each person should do as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or out of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver."

And then in verse 8, we see the generous host again, and it says, "And God is able to make every grace overflow to you so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work."

So Tim Mackey says, "Even though we are living before the kingdom of God has fully come, we should be living as if the kingdom of God's abundance is here. We are called to the same spirit of generosity and trust, even if we don't have enough."

So what is a takeaway from this passage? The Israelites were to trust in the generous host, even in the middle of a desert. So we show trust in our Father when we share our resources.

Now let's go to the early church and look at some of the things that they had to say about wealth and possessions. And I'm just going to go through these rather quickly. So these two quotes are from Clement of Alexandria. "Riches are then to be partaken of rationally and given lovingly."

And secondly, in talking about the use of fancy items, "The Lord ate from a common bowl, and he made the disciples recline on the grass on the ground. Furthermore, he washed their feet girded with a linen towel. He, the lowly-minded God and Lord of the universe, he did not bring down a silver footbath from heaven."

Here is another quote, and this is from Lactantius. "It is not a virtue to be frugal. This word beguiles and deceives under the appearance of virtue. Frugality is a vice in this respect that it arises from the love of possessing.

In contrast, we should both abstain from pleasures and yet by no means withhold money. To use money sparingly, that is, moderately, is a type of weakness of the mind. It reveals someone fearing lest he will be in need."

Next is one from Archelaus in Maines. "Someone may now reason with us saying that it is not a good thing to give up riches. Well, I reply that it is a good thing for those who are capable of it. However, at the same time, to use riches for the work of righteousness and mercy is a thing as acceptable as giving up the whole of our riches at once."

And lastly, two more from Clement of Alexandria. "If no one had anything, what room would be left among men forgiving? Riches then, which benefit also our neighbors, are not to be thrown away. Let no man destroy wealth. Rather, let him destroy the passions of the soul, for these are incompatible with the better use of wealth. For becoming virtuous and good, he may be able to make good use of those riches."

So a takeaway from this is that we, as Christians, have the opportunity. We are afforded the opportunity to steward well the resources that we have been given. All of us, no matter where we are on the globe, have been given many resources that we can use for the kingdom of God.

And so let us not look at these resources negatively, but let's look at them in a positive way and how we, as sisters especially, can steward them for the kingdom.

And now we're going to move into sisters' roles.

And I want to read you this quote from Charlotte Coyle.

"Conventional wisdom labels it wasteful, foolish, senseless. But in God's economy, abundant, amazing grace is never wasteful. The women pour out their anointing with reckless abandon. They sanctify the moment with their lavish love. They honor Jesus with their bold extravagance.

It is the giving that creates the grace. It is the giving to which we are called. We don't control how the gift is received. We can't know how the gift will be used. We mustn't presume to judge worthiness. We are simply called to give, to offer grace and abundance as God does."

So what role do we as women play? And I'm going to look at three different aspects. First as wives, then as singles, and then as mothers. So let's look at the wives.

So when I think of myself as a wife, often in a marriage relationship, you will have one person that leans more towards the spender side, and you'll have someone that leans more towards the saver side. These are not bad. One is not worse than the other. One is not better than the other. They both are a gift to work together.

In our marriage, Bryant tends more towards the spender, and I tend more towards the savior. But he has taught me so much about giving.

So the list that I put together here, remember that your husband is your head in Christ. So we, as women, are to come alongside. We're to come alongside them. I saw someone one time give the illustration of two hands together. The one pulled slightly back. Letting your husband lead, but yet supporting, being right there, helping him along.

So remember that your husband is your head in Christ. Communicate about finances. Talk about it. Show interest in the subject. Ask for feedback. How am I doing? Is there something that you wish I would do differently? Decide together who does what in regards to finances.

Does it come easier for one of you than the other? In our home, Bryant does not enjoy books and numbers and spreadsheets or anything like that. So that is something I take care of. It can be a challenge because I want to, as a wife, follow along behind him and let him make some of the decisions. And when I take care of doing the books, I can tend to want to take the responsibility on myself. And I need to remind myself, no, that is his job and it's his responsibility, and therefore he's the one that's accountable for it. And so I'm going to follow his lead.

So be intentional with it. Let him make the final call without nagging. There's going to be times when the two of you come at it from a different angle, and you're going to see a certain issue from two different sides. It's okay.

Let him make the final call. It's his responsibility before God to give account for how he has invested your resources.

Dream together. Remember that having resources is an opportunity to dream. Dream about laying up treasures in heaven. Dream about how you can impact the kingdom with your resources.

Okay, let's move into singles.

So as singles, you have both opportunities and challenges that those of us as married women do not have. So recognize the opportunity that you have, the opportunity that you've been given. Look for ways to give and contribute to your community, not just money, but your time and your talents.

And believe me, you have gifts and things that we as married women need. We need you as singles. And so look for ways to give in that niche. Also, be accountable with finances to a trusted individual and ask for input.

Another one is have communication with your church leaders on ways you can contribute, as well as how they want to see you preparing for your older years. As a single, you're going to have to intentionally try to talk about money, where for a married couple, they have to by default sometimes. But you might have to look for that and talk about it. And we as ladies often process through talking. And so find that trusted person that you can talk about it with. Be intentional about it.

And now moving to mothers.

So we've been, as mothers, entrusted with treasures in our children. Let's steward them well. And one of the ways that we can do that is by teaching them to lay up treasures in heaven.

So the first one I have here is show respect for your husband and his way of managing money. Again, like I talked about, there's different ways to look at it, and you may be opposite of your husband. Make sure that you show your children that you respect your husband's decision. And I know that this has been an area that I need a lot of growth in, that I, yeah, it's convicting to me because I want my children to know that I respect Bryant, even if I don't see spending on a certain item the exact same way that he does.

Teach your children how to use money. And this might be as simple as helping your teenagers set up their checking account or teaching them how to save. But I also want that, and this is, I have it down on point number four, teach them self-denial.

It's so easy in a culture where we have resources, we have the ability to go get whatever we need, or we get bombarded with ads or whatever it is. This is going to be very hard for us as parents to teach our children. And we will do them a favor by teaching that to them and not letting them just indulge their selfish desires.

The third one, going back up to the third one, instill in them the joy of serving. So our resources are not only monetary. There's also your time and your talent and many other gifts. We'll look a little bit later about some of those, but teach them to enjoy serving others.

Train them to get joy from a job well done.

Help them to do jobs well, thoroughly, completely, and praise them for it. Teach them what it's like to have that feeling of accomplishment.

Also help them or let them look for ways to increase your economic impact as a family on the kingdom of God. Maybe it's going to be, no, we're not going to do this certain thing because we want to use that money for a specific purpose in the kingdom. Help them to buy into that, to look for ways to teach them to invest in the kingdom of God.

Okay, now moving on to some practical applications.

So first, we're going to look at earning.

So earning, we can kind of, if we look at money with a negative perspective, we will also look at earning with a negative perspective. And I don't want us to do that because hard work is what we've been designed for. Without it, we will shrivel up and die. There are studies that show that we need to be industriously entertained. We need to work hard.

We, as sisters in the home, caring for a home is a lot of work. And that is good, and it is right. So I want us to see beauty in hard work. So maybe for us as wives, maybe it's our husband's desire that we care for the home and take care of it. And that is good, and that is right. And the Bible says that we are to be keepers at home. This is honorable.

Sometimes we, as wives, will help with income earning, whether it's a family business or a farm or produce or whatever. There's different times when we, as women, will actually be involved in the income-generating side of the family.

So that's why I have in here, communicate with your authorities, whether you're single, whether you're married, wherever you are, with the ones that you're responsible to. What do they want to see you investing your time into? Your kingdom contribution may be time instead of earning money. Maybe your husband wants you to just focus on your home and being there for your children. You are investing in the kingdom. Look for ways to use your time to invest in kingdom endeavors.

Okay, on the third one, work with your husband if possible. This I have enjoyed very much ever since we have gotten married. My husband was involved in a family business when we first got married, and I would go along with him to work. And we really enjoyed working together. And so if you can do that, I really encourage that.

Sometimes you may be more gifted at a certain area than he is. Support him. Again, come alongside him. Whatever he wants you to be, follow him.

Business is a way of kingdom expansion. And I know my husband is very passionate about this subject. And so it's often viewed as the men's side. But sometimes this is our responsibility as women as well. Whether it's sewing or midwifery or whatever it is, selling something from your home, I don't want us to look at that as a necessary evil, but as a great opportunity.

My grandpa, I was asking him some about this talk, and he said, "Time plus talent equals money or finances." And it's where the juncture of what the time that I have and the gifts that I have come together, and that's where you make money. That's where you would pay someone that's bringing their time and their talent together. So what is that as Christian women? How are we bringing our time and our talent and our money and giving it all to God and letting him use it for his kingdom?

So homemaking is saving money too. In our culture today, homemaking is looked down on. It's not honorable to necessarily be at home all the time. What do you do with all your time? But homemaking is very, very important. Raising children, caring for your home, making your home a haven for your family, using your home, stewarding your home to reach out to others is very important. And a lot of these things end up saving money too, since we're talking about finances.

Okay, let's move on to spending.

And spending, the idea of how can I best use God's resources? So God has given us these resources. We all need to spend in some way or another. And so how can we best do that? And it's going to look different for different people.

So the first one that I have listed there is quality versus expense. My husband would be more on the side of, "Let's get something that lasts us a while, and I'll be the one scrolling through trying to find the cheapest option."

Organic fruits and vegetables versus standard.

People are going to come out on different sides on that. Do we spend more money on the organic, or do we? You could do both for the kingdom of God.

You could have a reason for both of them.

The second point there is enjoy spending. And what do I mean when I say that? Because that sounds like an oxymoron. Well, we have a big family, and we host a lot. And it takes a lot of groceries. And a lot of groceries means a lot of money. So should I just be sad that we spend so much in groceries, or should I just embrace it with joy and be glad that God has given us these resources and that we have these needs that I should be spending on?

The next one that I have is limit yourself, even if it's not necessary.

So I think we all can find little ways that we can not splurge on ourselves, not be selfish. So what does that look like for you?

Look for free resources in your community.

Sometimes my husband will say, "This area of saving, I'm the one that will go try to find the deals," right? So he'll say, "No, this is actually not saving you anything. So we're not going to do that." So yeah, again, there's tension and a balance there.

Buy consciously. Think about where you can save. For you, is it shopping deals, or is it going to just one store? Is it doing coupons, or is it sticking to the store brand instead of name brand things?

So be conscious of what you're buying and why you're buying it. Then don't buy things just because it's a good deal. And this one is pointing at me because when you are a saver and you see something that's a good deal, you can tend to forget if you really need it or not.

Okay, let's move on to needs versus wants.

So one thing I want to say here right at the beginning of this one, in talking to my grandpa, I asked him, I said, "What do you feel like is the biggest thing that faces the church today in regards to money?" And he said, "I think it's covetousness."

It is so easy for us to make judgment calls by looking at the ones around us. We say, "Well, my friend has this," or, "That person over there did it, and it was fine." And we make our determinations based on the people around us, which can be covetousness.

So in thinking of needs versus wants, I want us to realize that we're all affected by this. We're all affected by the world around us. And this is why it's good for us to think about these things and to think about which category these things fall into for you.

Is it selfish, or does it have a purpose?

And we also need to recognize that there's different ways to look at this. Some things will fall in different categories for different people. Some people may look at something like having internet in the home as a necessity. We need to have it. Others may look at it and say, "No, that's an extra."

Also, depending on where you live, it's going to vary as well. In some places of the world, you can get around just fine with public transportation. And in other areas, you need a private way to be transported. You might need a car.

You might have different dietary needs. And so you might spend more than the next person. So there are things that are efficiency for one and luxury for another. So it's not all black and white decisions. But as we go through this list, I just want you to ask yourself the question, "Is this a need, or is this a want?"

So which category would you put these items? Name brand items versus off-brand. Do we need to have things like Tupperware, or is rubber made okay? Do we need to have a specific brand of healthcare products? What about skincare products? Should we be trying to keep ourselves looking young and beautiful and nice and anti-aging?

Or is that in a category of a want?

I'm not necessarily talking about hygiene there, but I just want you to think about it.

What about educational activities? We can, as parents, especially those of us that homeschool, can, "Oh yes, this would be a great educational activity for our family." Well, how much should we as Christians prioritize that? Sometimes we're going to choose to go to the zoo or whatever.

But how much are we doing that? And does it become a want versus a need?

What about fancy food and drink? Do we need to be spending a lot of money here? And I know we're a coffee shop owner. So there's going to be times that we choose to spend money in places that other people may not. Just think about it for yourself.

What about items that can be borrowed? Can you borrow that book instead of buying it? Recreation. There's a time and a place for recreation. Sports. Our boys like to play disc golf. How much money should we be putting into that? How much time should we be investing in it? Are we being lavish with it?

Home decor. Are we showing a pampering of ourselves or a simplicity? Yes, I think God has given us a love of beauty, and I think that we can carry that into our homes. But are we being lavish with it?

So these are just some categories that I thought of that I want each of us as individuals to think about and to be intentional with. Okay, and then moving on to saving.

So Jesus said to not lay up treasures on earth. And we'll look at some quotes later about that. But how do we actually do this? How do we not lay up treasures on earth? What does that mean as far as saving?

Stewarding well sometimes means saving. There's going to be things in your life that you need to purchase, and you need to save in order to be able to do that. So there's times for that. We need to steward well, and sometimes we'll save.

We should also save for specific purposes. When the Bible talks about the parable of the rich man laying up treasures, he was just getting wealth for himself, and he didn't have a purpose. Have a purpose for your resources.

Be accountable to those around you. And also recognize that there are different views and different ways to look at things. Some may say you shouldn't invest in real estate. Others would say real estate is a good investment. There's different ways to look at it. But I think the bottom line for all of it is that we need to be intentional with what we're doing.

Okay, next, let's look at tithing. So tithing, we tend to think of as it's a necessity for a Christian. But I would like to give you a couple of quotes here from Irenaeus, an early church father. He says, "Instead of the law commanding the giving of tithes, he taught us to share all our possessions with the poor."

And secondly, "The Jews had indeed the tithes of their goods consecrated to him. In contrast, those who have received liberty set aside all their possessions for the Lord's purposes, bestowing joyfully and freely not the less valuable portions of their property since they have the hope of better things."

So tithing is not mentioned in the New Testament. And I would like to propose to you that just like the Sermon on the Mount expanded the Ten Commandments to a wider understanding, that tithing also falls into that category of being expanded. No longer can we be content with only giving 10%.

We need to be giving all of our resources to the kingdom. Does that mean that you're going to spend money on yourselves? Of course, because you are a part of God's kingdom. But we need to be stewards of what we've been given. And that means that we have been given everything. And so therefore, we are stewards of everything.

Okay, and now moving on to giving.

So how do we give? The Bible says that we should give cheerfully, not out of obligation. This isn't hard if everything is surrendered anyhow. And it should look irrational to the world around us, showing that we don't take care of me first in our society around us. That is the mantra that is portrayed to us all the time. Me first. Take care of yourself first. And then if you have any leftover, then you take care of other people around you. No, this should actually look irrational to the world.

So one precedent that we see in the early church is that the care, our resources should reach out first to the community of believers. So I had mentioned the early Anabaptists as being accused of being communists because of their care for each other. They were known by their love. And the Bible says that too. Jesus says, "You will know that you love me." People will know that by seeing your love for each other. And so we are to care for those around us, for our community of believers.

The poor. We're commanded many times in scripture to take care of the poor. Jesus cared for the poor when he was here.

There's been much time spent on the topic of dependency and how giving can hurt. And I think those things are all very good for us to think about. And I would recommend that you would look at some books by Gary Miller, like The Other Side of the Wall. He has some good books on how to think about giving to the poor.

And there's times when we're going to help, and then there's also times that we're going to stop helping. Maybe our help has turned into more of a hindrance. And there's a story that I think of that one of our church families here had invested very deeply into a lady that was homeless. And eventually, they realized that it was just time for her to move on, that they weren't helping her come to a solution. So there's times to help and then a time to stop helping.

Giving to global needs. I think one area that there's a couple of areas that I think we can feel comfortable with giving to. One would be for emergency aid for people that have been affected by maybe a hurricane or some other natural disaster. Bible translation is another one that we should be very free to give to, to help people that don't have the Bible in their language to receive that.

Another way we can give is lending personal items. And I want us to think about how people around you perceive you. Do they look at you as a person that lives with an abundance mindset, or do they look at you as a person that lives with a scarcity mindset?

Can your neighbor know that he can come borrow anything of yours at any time without asking? Sometimes you're not going to get it back. There's one specific thing that we loaned out to someone, and it was not someone in our church. And we never got it back again. And our children know that. And they know that we're okay with that. Our stuff belongs to God, and it's alright.

So push yourself towards an abundance mindset.

Okay, let's look at some other resources that we have. We've been given many, but some of us don't have a lot of money. So what are some other resources that we can steward? And even if you do have the blessing of having money to steward, you still have these as well. So you have your time. You may choose to spend money on a certain area to free you up to serve in another way.

Maybe you're going to choose to spend money on disposable plates so that you can spend more time visiting with your guests. There are times when you are going to choose that in order to steward your time better.

Your children, you can steward them. Use them to help the family, to help the church, and to help your local community around you.

Your words are another thing that you can steward. And this is the battle to steward these well, isn't it? We have the power of life and death in our tongue, and let's use it as a tool for the kingdom and a tool for encouragement.

You can steward your table. Share your table with others. There's so much connection that happens around your table. Steward it for the kingdom. Talent. Use the talents to serve others around you. Maybe you have the gift of deep conversation, of asking good questions. Maybe you have a talent of doing something with your hands.

Steward that well for the kingdom.

Okay, and then as we wrap up here, thinking about stewarding well, I want to give you a story that's attributed to Charles Spurgeon, and it goes like this. A gardener presents his king with the greatest carrot he has ever grown. The king is touched and responds by giving the gardener a large plot of land. A nobleman who witnesses this event decides it would be advantageous for him to present the king with his finest horse. He does so, and the king merely thanked him for the horse.

The nobleman is confused. And so the king explains to him, "The gardener was giving me the carrot, but you were giving yourself the horse."

So as we look at these things, how can we give to God with a glad heart, just out of thankfulness and joy to our generous host?

I want to think about treasure here a little bit. And this comes from Anabaptist perspectives, has a couple of episodes on economics that are good, and I would recommend them. And these quotes come from Anabaptist perspective.

So John D. Martin says, "Our heart is conditioned by the way we handle our things. And so we constantly need to live with that understanding that what we do with our stuff is affecting our heart."

And then Kevin Breckville says, "Move your treasure, and your heart will follow."

So as we think about laying up treasures in heaven, and Jesus told us that we're supposed to do that. And how do we do that? It's by using the resources that God has given us today, the resources you have in your hand, and giving that to God. And that is treasure in heaven.

What about your needs? And this is what Tim Mackey says about that. He says, "Your needs are provided for precisely when you stop stressing out about them as your goal. So sell your stuff. And paradoxically, your money belt won't wear out because you're participating in the new creation, which is unfailing treasure in heaven."

So let's give up everything to God. There's a story that I'm sure many of you are familiar with called The Pineapple Story by Otto Koenig. And you can look it up on YouTube or online to read it. But his pineapples kept on getting stolen. And he was in Papua New Guinea, I think it was. And he was frustrated by this. And eventually, it frustrated him so bad, he decided, "I'm just going to give it to God." So he gave it to God.