Sunday was a such great time to worship together. Speaking personally, I am so blessed to serve a congregation like Concord and to witness what God does through members of this community.

On Sunday afternoon while driving to my pastor’s retreat this week, I realized that I did not get the change to offer up practical sermon illustrations regarding money. This is important for us to think about each day as we focus on God’s love, instead of worldly riches. I figured that I would write about them for the blog this week.

Practice thankfulness each time you pray

Paul writes in Philippians 4:4-5: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.” We often think that prayers to God only include asking for stuff. While it is obviously important to petition God, it is important to also remember to thank God for what he has given us. Many of our woes concerning greed and loving money really have to do with having a twisted perception. We focus on our discontentment in life rather than abundance. We often forget the countless blessings God has given us. Remembering to thank God allows us to keep these blessings in mind and be filled with appreciation and gratitude.

Be honest

Money is often the source of great stress among relationships. Marriages can easily fall apart without openness and transparency regarding finances. Our bible story from Acts 5 on Sunday also drove home this point, too. We are called to be honest and avoid deception when dealing with money and other personal property. When we are dishonest, we run the risk of thinking we don’t truly need God in our lives.

Set goals for generosity–whether that be 1% or 10%

A common Christian goal and practice in our world is to give a tithe of what you make–commonly assumed to be 10% of your income. The 10% number is generally based off of several Old and New Testament passages, particularly in the book of Numbers about giving away one-tenth of what you earn as a sacrifice to God.

As we all know, budgeting can practically benefit us as we get our finances in order. It helps us track where our money goes. From a biblical perspective, however, we must remember that we are entrusted with God’s resources to manage. In other words, we could view money-handling as an opportunity to be stewards of God’s blessings. God calls us to share what we have with those in need, from feeding the hungry to using our time to practice outreach. Likewise, it’s important to set specific goals for living a life of charity.

I encourage everyone to financially support at least one Christian ministry, whether that be Concord or a nonprofit. When you set these kinds of stewardship goals, it is important to start out small–maybe commit to tithing 1% of your income–and then build from there. Maybe after a year of fulfilling your goals of generosity, increase that steadily. Realize that setting even a small goal like this can help you become more invested in the ministries of God’s kingdom.

There used to be an ABC television show called What Would You Do? where hidden cameras would catch challenging public situations and how people respond. For instance, a camera might be set up in a restaurant and two actors stage a fight between a rude customer and a helpless employee. Afterwards, the hosts would interview people about what they thought about everything. What Would You Do? would even interview psychologists and other professionals about the various social issues explored by the show. For example, it is much easier to stay quiet than to stick up for what is right, especially when you might be the only one in a crowd of passive people.

To some extent, viewers of the show were also part of it. As you watched the scenes play out and interviews after, you could not help but ask yourself about the ethical dilemmas. If someone were to insult an immigrant, would you stand up for him or her? If you witnessed a group of people belittling a disabled person in a wheelchair, would you stay silent or speak up? If you saw someone being picked on for a speech impediment, what would you do?

Parables, in many ways, are a lot like that television show. Throughout the gospels, Jesus laid out many scenarios and essentially asked the disciples, “what would you do in this situation?”

You see a helpless person on the side of the road. Do you keep on going along your way, or do you stop and render aid? That’s the parable of the Good Samaritan.

You see someone receive grace after they fell short. Do you get jealous and critical, or do you rejoice with them that God can make anyone new? That’s the parable of the prodigal son.

You notice someone who is completely lost and lonely. Are you going seek them out and show them God’s love, or will you ignore that one lost person? That’s the parable of the one lost sheep and the shepherd who left the 99 behind to find it.

In all these instances, Jesus challenged his disciples, and by extension, us today, the timeless question: what would you do?

So what would you do with the parable of the dishonest manager?

As we talked about on Sunday, we explored this challenging teaching of Jesus and how deep down, this odd teaching was about how we use the resources God has given us in life. We are called to heed Jesus’ famous teaching of not loving both God and money.

Leaders in the church throughout the years have offered up one particularly interesting interpretation of this bible passage. God is the master, with endless resources of grace and love. Israel, throughout the Old Testament, could have been the dishonest manager. Only instead of spreading God’s goodness to all people (as in Genesis 12:3–all the families of the earth would be blessed through Abraham), they kept it to themselves.

The manager in the story offered up a critique of Israel. Instead of hoarding God’s resources for themselves, God hoped that they would share recklessly, as did the shrewd manager.

When considering this parable, Jesus asks us that ageless question: what would you do?

What would you do? God has given each one of us abundant life. God has given us new life and hope–more than we could ever imagine. Are we going to be like the shrewd manager and share this with other people, eventually making friends for eternal homes? Or will we just keep the good news to ourselves?

D.T. Niles was a Methodist pastor and missionary to what is now known as Sri Lanka. He had such an inspiring outlook on what Christianity itself means. He is quoted to have said that “Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread.”

We’ve been offered up the eternal bread of life. Let’s always remember to share it and push the boundaries of God’s kingdom no matter what.

As I briefly mentioned in Sunday, civic holidays can be tricky for the church to celebrate. We all obviously know that being an American is not a requirement for being a Christian. And truth be told, Christianity is spreading rapidly all over the world, so the average Christian likely looks very different from what we might expect! With that said, here are some thoughts on how to live out a Christ-centered holiday this week:

1. Be thankful, but make sure God is the only thing you worship. I preached on this last year before the election in how we should never pray to the American flag. Instead, we honor it. God alone must be the only thing we should ever worship in life. So yes, have deep gratitude for the freedoms we experience today in America, but never forget that we worship only God. God is the source of our hope and salvation, not any human made object or institution.
2. Christians believe in different meanings of words like independence and freedom. It is absolutely fantastic that we enjoy countless freedoms as a culture–the right to voice our opinion, meet to worship, own property, and so on. But as Christians, we should never forget that we are always dependent upon God. We run a big risk when we think we can live independently of him. We depend on God alone for our faith. The same goes for the word freedom. Jesus gives us a freedom much greater than any country could provide–namely the freedom from sin and death and the ability to lead a life grounded in God’s kingdom. With that said, I usually advise people that it is perfectly fine to celebrate the founding of our country, but take words like independence and freedom with a grain of salt when thinking about our identity as Christians.
3. Remember that holidays aren’t always the happiest time for many people. Our culture usually assumes that national holidays are only happy times (namely with time off of work!). But this is not the case for everyone. Veterans often continue to suffer the effects of violence and war, so July 4th can be a mix of conflicting emotions for them. Remember to pray for folks dealing with tough situations like that. The same is also true for any loss we’ve experienced. If you’ve ever lost a loved one, gatherings and parties for holidays can be a challenge, especially if that person died within the past year. Perhaps before they passed away, everyone would meet up at grandma’s or grandpa’s house for July 4th. Likewise, holidays like Independence Day can be a whirlwinds of emotions. Be sure to pray for all who might experience grief even during a supposedly joyous holiday. And if you’ve lost someone, know that we at Concord are always praying for you!