Calvary Chapel Staten Island

Guest (Female): Hello, and welcome to God in our City: the Daily Edition. Your host and Bible teacher is Pastor Dave Watson. Pastor Dave has been the pastor of Calvary Chapel on Staten Island for 35 years. In addition, he is the co-founder and president of the New York Institute for Biblical Studies. To receive a special downloadable gift from Pastor Dave, please go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. That's calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. Now here is Pastor Dave and our show.

Pastor Dave Watson: Good afternoon, good evening, good night, depending on where you're listening to God in our City: the Daily Edition. I guess you could be listening in the morning if you're somewhere else in the world. Thank you for joining us today. We are so privileged to be with you, teaching and sharing with you the truths of God's Word. That's what God in our City is all about.

We usually are taking a book of the Bible and studying it with some depth. We've been doing that with the Book of Proverbs now since the first days of February. We took one week off for Holy Week to focus on the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. And now, we are bringing our Proverbs study to a close. We have today and tomorrow, and that's it for Proverbs.

We have a bunch of stuff up, a bunch of resources up for you to use, to have, to be part of your library. We have all our study guides for all 12 lessons. If you want to listen to any of the broadcasts that you've missed, they're at oneplace.com, they're on Spotify, and they're on WMCA 570's website under podcasts. They're all there for you. You can catch up, but please, these study guides are only going to be available for another couple of days, today and tomorrow.

Beyond that, we also have these free resources of the Book of Proverbs and our scripture memory packet. You just need to tell us where to send it. We're paying the postage and handling. We want you to have these. Today and tomorrow are the last days for that. We'll be taking down the 31-day Proverbs study at the end of this week as well. Please take advantage of that; it will be a huge, huge blessing to you.

So all new stuff coming up in the coming weeks as we begin a new study on the Sermon on the Mount. That will start, God willing, on Monday. We pause at this moment to ask you to consider making a donation to God in our City. We're on the air because of the generous donations of people, because of the sponsorship of Calvary Chapel on Staten Island. We would love to have you support us as well.

We want to be listener-supported as well as a local church-sponsored broadcast. You can go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. There's a donate button there. Just hit the donate button; it'll give you the option to make a donation one time or to make it recurring. However God is leading you, please go ahead and make a donation. We don't want to take money from your local church or from a missionary you're supporting, but we think the work we're doing is very important and we would love to have you be a part of it.

Let's get into our memory verse for the week. One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered. What an amazing verse. And then our scripture reading for the week has been Proverbs 23:4-5, which says, "Do not toil to acquire wealth; be discerning enough to desist. When your eyes light on it, it is gone, for suddenly it sprouts wings, flying like an eagle toward heaven."

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, during our time together today, please be our teacher and our guide through the ministry of Your Holy Spirit. Lord, we want to be faithful. We want to be faithful with unrighteous mammon. We want to be faithful with it, Lord, so that You can give us the true riches. Help us to be faithful with money, with what You have given us. Help us to be good stewards.

It's required of a steward that a man be found faithful. Help us, Lord, to learn generosity, for You have been generous with us. Freely we have been given; freely let us give. As we continue our study today, please touch each of our hearts. Please make us more like Christ. Give us, Lord, Your heart for the world, for the lost, for the needy, for our brothers and sisters in Christ. We pray for Your help in all this. In Jesus' name, Amen.

When I talk about giving, oftentimes when we hear about giving, we automatically think about our giving to our church. I do not want to minimize that. You ought to be giving to a local church. You've got to be part of a local church, and you ought to be giving to it. If there are extended circumstances where that can't be the case, certainly that is understandable. But for most of us, giving to our local church should be part of what we do.

But there are other times when we give just to those who have need. In the Book of First John, the third chapter, it talks to us about real love. Most Christians know John 3:16; not many of us know First John 3:16. It says, "By this we know love, that He (Jesus) laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers." We ought to have a sacrificial love for our brothers and sisters in Christ.

And then it says this: "But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth." When it comes to giving, talk is cheap. It really is. It doesn't cost you anything. But he's telling us here that we have an obligation.

If I have and I see my brother or sister in need, and I can meet that need and I don't do it, there's something wrong with my heart. Now let me also be clear about something. It's talking about my brother or sister here in Christ. It doesn't mean that every time I walk by someone asking for money on the street that I'm obligated to give it to them. But it does mean if I see a fellow Christian struggling, that I do my best to help them if I have the ability to do so.

Note that this is not something the government imposes upon us. This is something we choose to do because the love of God dwells in us. So as we think about giving, we need to think about giving to those who are hurting as well as the giving to our local church. And certainly, we should be discerning. I have been part of meetings where people have taken advantage of church people to the utmost degree, telling them a story, acting like they were whatever, and we frequently get calls at our church for people wanting money.

They need money. "Could you give me this much money? Could you help me with this? Could you do this?" And my response to them is, first of all, I'm sorry you're in the circumstance you're in. Secondly, I question them about the circumstance. But I almost always say the following: We have a congregation here, and our obligation is to first and foremost take care of that congregation.

We've got to make sure that the needs of the widows here are met, the needs of those who don't have much money or are struggling to pay their rent, struggling to do it—we need to first of all take care of those people. Those are our brothers and sisters. And I will often say to the person on the other end of the line, "I don't know you. How do I know if your need is real? I don't know you. Why should I help you? You don't come to this church. You're not part of this church here."

"You told me you found the number in the book and you've called a lot of churches and just didn't get an answer. Why am I obligated to help you? I am not." And I am obligated, though, within our congregation, to help those in need. And within your church, you're obligated the same way if you can. If you can. That's the big question. It shouldn't be done because someone made you do it, but it should be done because the love of God is in your heart and you cannot help but to do it.

Well, let's continue talking about giving and continue to talk about it from the scriptural basis that we have been going forward with. We want to just continue to walk through that. So, we ended up yesterday with just some principles we're trying to make sure we understand regarding giving. For instance, we talked about the fact that wealth and riches shouldn't be boasted of because they don't add worth in the eyes of the Lord.

And then we said that wealth and riches shouldn't be lived for because they're temporary in nature. There are only three things that are eternal: God, His Word, and the souls of men. And that wealth and riches shouldn't be trusted in because, in reality, they provide absolutely no security. They don't give us the security we think we're going to get from them. And wealth and riches shouldn't be envied because they can be fraudulent.

And then wealth and riches shouldn't be prioritized because they can bring trouble. In fact, they tend to bring trouble. And then wealth and riches shouldn't be highly prized because there's so much more to life than wealth and riches. And even beyond that, wealth and riches shouldn't be longed for because they can cause us to dishonor God. They can cause us to dishonor God. We ought to pray, "God, give me just enough."

Having talked here for a little bit of length this week about principles regarding giving and perspective behind giving, I want us to talk now about the prescriptions for giving and money. Number one, we give to the Lord. We give to our Lord. That's who we give our money to. You are giving to the Lord through your local church. You are giving to the Lord through maybe a missions organization that you are helping with.

You're giving to the Lord, God willing, to God in our City, but you're giving to who? The Lord. That's the most important thing. Proverbs 3:9-10 says, "Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine." The mandate here is to honor the Lord. The Hebrew *kabed*, glorify the Lord. And the word "Lord" here is Yahweh. Glorify the covenant-making God. That's the mandate.

The method is with your wealth, with your riches, however much it is. Use your wealth, use your riches for God. And then it says, with the first fruits of your produce, that which comes first and thus is dedicated to God. Let me just tell you that the smartest thing you can do financially is to put God first in your giving. And how does that play out? The first check that's written, the first person, if you will, that's paid is God.

You honor Him with your wealth, and He's the first place His work, His kingdom, is the first place money goes. Let me just say two other things about this. You say, "Pastor, I don't have wealth." Let me just talk to you about one percenters. Who do you think the one percenters are in the world? Let me just say this. If you live in America, you're part of the one percenters. You're in that realm of people who make up the richest people in the world.

You say, "Pastor, no, you don't understand. I'm on government assistance. I live in special housing." You're still in the one percent of people. You're considered wealthy by almost all of the rest of the world. And use that position for the glory of God, and do it by putting God first in this whole area of giving. It is a problematic thing that we have. So, here's how we think: "God, if I have money left over, I'm going to give it to You."

And that is the worst way to approach this. What I'm saying, let's say that you give God a tithe of your money. What you're saying is, you made $400 this week, and that first $40.00 you're giving to the Lord. What you're saying is, "I am going to live; God's going to enable me to live on the other 90 percent." The world has to have the 100 percent. I can live on the 90 because God's going to miraculously take care of me.

So I give Him my first fruits. He gets it first. The motive is obviously here as well. It says following, putting God first, "your barns will be full." Be full, in essence, they'll have a quantity of space filled with a mass or collection, and your vats will be bursting with wine. Now, we don't live in an agrarian society anymore. We're not trying to fill our barns with feed or with corn husks or anything like that. We're not trying to fill our vats with wine.

But what he's saying is our bank accounts, our financial status, will be in a good spot because I put God first in this area of money and giving. So the first thought here is I'm giving to our God. There's a mandate: honor Him with your wealth and the first fruits of your produce. There is a methodology there: it's the first fruits. There's a motive: God's going to take care of me if I put Him first. It's just a principle in scripture.

Let me stop for a second and have you look at a passage that's oftentimes misconstrued. It is a beautiful passage in the scripture. It's the Book of Philippians, the fourth chapter. And we often land on Philippians 4:19-20. It says, "And my God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen."

You say, "See, God promises to supply all my need." Well, I think it's true that God promises to supply all your and my need, but there's a caveat. First of all, let's be clear: it's all my need, not all my greed. God promises to take care of all my need, and He'll do it in accord with His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. That means He'll take care of us in a way that best represents who He is.

God is going to take care of us, but like I said, there's a caveat. Here in these verses, these amazing verses, the Apostle Paul has been commending the Philippian believers because they sent once and again when he did ministry in Thessalonica. Now remember, the Apostle Paul at this stage is in prison. He's in jail, but he's talking about what's going on in his life. And in Philippians chapter four, he talks about the fact that he's learned, whether to be abased and abound.

He's learned that in every situation he can be content. And then he says in verse 13, "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." And then he talks about the Philippian missionary giving. How they sent once and again after he left and went to Thessalonica. They gave multiple times to the ministry in Thessalonica. He said, "I don't seek the gift," verse 17 of chapter four, "but I seek the fruit and the increase to your credit."

He says he's gotten everything he possibly could from Epaphroditus, the gifts they sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. So after they had given sacrificially, after they had given for the Kingdom of God, for the cause of Christ, he says, "My God will supply all your need according to His riches in glory." My dear friend, if you have no stake in the Kingdom of God, if you've given nothing to the Kingdom of God, that's not a promise you can claim.

You can pray, "God, please be merciful to me. Be merciful to me." And we have a merciful God. But don't claim the promise having not given to the Kingdom, having not put the Kingdom first. Remember the words of Matthew 6:33: "But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." He's just gone through all the worries that we have in this life in Matthew chapter six.

And he says, "Hey, put that all aside. Put first the Kingdom of God and He will take care of you." God's not foolish. We can't say, "God, I know I don't give anything. I'm irresponsible. I've got credit cards debts way over what I can pay. Sorry about that. Could You pay my debts for me?" God's not foolish. God's not silly. God's not going to be mocked. God is not mocked. Whatever you sow, that you also reap.

If you and I will put God first in every area of our life, including this area of giving, He will take care of all of our needs. Not all of our greeds, all of our what? Needs. Wow, we've talked a lot about some important things. But just a reminder that if I'll put Him first, giving Him of my first fruits, He promises to make sure that my barns are filled, my vats bursting. In other words, He promises to take care of me because I've put Him in His rightful place.

Let's pray together. Father in heaven, thank You for Your goodness to us, Your love for us, Your help to us. Lord, help us to take these principles today to heart. Help us to apply them to our lives every single day. In this area of giving, may we excel just like we have in other areas. Help us to put You first, give You the glory, and allow You, Lord, to do a great work in us.

Help us to try You in the sense that we test whether or not You're going to take care of us because we put You first. Lord, help that to be the case in our hearts and lives. Thank You for this study. Please, Lord, give each of our listeners a great day today, a wonderful Friday. Help us to serve You with everything we have. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you for listening. Please take advantage of all the free stuff we're offering. Go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. Calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. There, get the study guides. There, ask for the Book of Proverbs and the memory verses. There, download the Proverbs 31-day study. And there, consider making a donation to God in our City. Thank you for listening. God bless you. Hope to see you again tomorrow on another edition of the Daily Edition of God in our City.

Guest (Female): Thanks for listening to God in our City with your host, Pastor Dave Watson. We hope the show was a blessing to you. Again, to receive a downloadable gift from Pastor Dave, go to calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. That's calvarychapelsi.org/gioc. Please check out Pastor Dave's blog at nycshepherd.com. That's nycshepherd.com. Please invite a friend and join us every weekday for another edition of God in our City.