The Bible has a lot of useful advice about finances and there are a lot of “foundational” things I could discuss that would likely be helpful in these days, but I want to focus on one foundational revelation that has been very effective in my family’s life, especially because it’s the one that appears to be the most counter-intuitive: being a giver.

I’m not talking about “giving your way into prosperity” (if I was I’d probably try and sell it to you in a book) but a way of looking at life and how we interact with others, especially when times are challenging. Sure it’s easy to be generous when times are good, but in tough economic times don’t you want to hold on to what you’ve got? Yes, that sounds logical — but so did buying houses “knowing” that the prices would only keep going up and you’d be able to re-sell the home in a short time for a nice profit, or using the equity in your home to finance vacations or goods that don’t hold their value.

Maybe “logic” itself isn’t the key, or at least a certain type of logic. Proverbs 11:24 says, “One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.”

We have seen this demonstrated over and over in our lives. Over the years my wife and I have trained ourselves to keep our eyes, ears and hearts open to the needs in the lives of people we come in contact with, and our daughters have followed our example. I’m not being boastful, and I won’t go down through a laundry list of things we’ve done, but we know we have been blessed many times over as a result of what we’ve given to others, especially when it didn’t look like a good time to give. Some of the most amazing things have happened when I’ve given the last few dollars in my pocket to someone with a greater need than I. (Another important key is that I gave because I wanted to, not because I “ought” to or because someone made me or took my money so they could give it to someone else.) And it’s not just money; we frequently give time and goods, or make room in our lives and even our home for others as the need arises. We’ve given in many different ways, and likewise “received” in many different ways. (Okay, one story: we once took a couple of bags of groceries over to a young man we had just met who really needed some food. Somehow or another that young man will now soon be marrying my daughter!)

We’ve learned and experienced a lot in this area and I could expound for quite awhile about it but all I want to do right now is simply remind you of this principle and exhort you that — whether you have a little or a lot — these days are not the time to hunker down and try to get by, but a terrific time for reaching out to others. It’s important to have faith and to wish others well and to pray, but it’s also as James says:

“Suppose you see a brother or sister who needs food or clothing, and you say, ‘Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat well’–but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?” (James 2:15, 16 NLT)

Something we’ve long included in the grace we say before our meals is that God is able to give us everything we need to live life in abundance and to give into every good work. The point is not just to have the abundance, but knowing what to do with that abundance. That scripture is part of a little bit longer passage in 2 Corinthians:

Remember this–a farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop. But the one who plants generously will get a generous crop. You must each make up your own mind as to how much you should give. Don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. For God loves the person who gives cheerfully. And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. As the Scriptures say, “Godly people give generously to the poor. Their good deeds will never be forgotten.” For God is the one who gives seed to the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will give you many opportunities to do good, and he will produce a great harvest of generosity in you. (2 Corinthians 9:6-10 NLT)

What this has helped us to do is to see that everything we receive is either bread for food (something to meet immediate needs we have) or seed (something that can be sown for a future return). In December I taught a message on giving to our Inside Outfitters men’s group. In particular I emphasized learning how to identify whether something is bread or seed when it comes into your life. The group included about 75 men from the Minnesota Teen Challenge Program, a faith-based residency program for overcoming drug and alcohol addictions. It’s a very effective program, but the guys don’t often get a lot of treats to eat. They also don’t have a lot of money while they’re in the program. In fact, they’ve basically got nothing (which is basically what many of them had before they entered the program).

I had asked the women of our church, however, if they would bake Christmas cookies for the guys coming to the meeting, and the ladies responded with 100 dozen which we bagged up. When the meeting was over each Teen Challenge guy received a dozen cookies to take back to their dorms. When the group got back together last weekend for our January meeting I heard a couple of interesting stories. Many of the guys had eaten their cookies before they even got back to Teen Challenge. One man, however, saved his because those unexpected cookies were the only thing he had to give his wife for Christmas. He gave them to her that afternoon and she was flabbergasted at his thoughtfulness and his self-control to hold onto the cookies for her. She said it was the nicest present he could have given her.

Another man, in the van going back to the program, asked the fellow sitting next to him if he could have one of his cookies. The second guy said, “Why don’t you eat your own?” The first man replied, “Because I want to give them to my son for Christmas.” Another man in the back of the van heard this and said to the first man, “But I know you have two sons. Here, you can give the other one my cookies.” Now that got me misty just hearing about that, but what’s really neat is that the two sons are living with two younger half-siblings. When they received the cookies from their father they, in turn, gave the cookies to the little ones!

At least three of the men who heard the message that day looked at the cookies they had unexpectedly received and asked themselves if those cookies were bread or seed, and when they got their answer these little cookies made a big difference and became a story that will live on in these families for some time. Similarly, the opportunities are all around us if we are alert and willing to take advantage of them when they come. Even the seemingly smallest things can make a difference. Don’t let tough times blind you to the opportunities that are around you.

A couple of definitions: perspicacity means “acute mental vision or discernment; keen.” A perspicacious person is a clear thinker, simultaneously sharp of mind and able to see, or discern, important details, literally and figuratively. As for the definition of hope, I went to the Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, the book Noah Webster spent 20 years writing and perhaps the most descriptive and illuminating volume of its kind. Webster considered “education useless without the Bible” and used scriptures and Bible references to illustrate definitions. His extensive entry for the word “hope” includes the following (emphasis mine):

1. A desire of some good, accompanied with at least a slight expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable. Hope differs from wish and desire in this, that it implies some expectation of obtaining the good desired, or the possibility of possessing it. Hope therefore always gives pleasure or joy; whereas wish and desire may produce or be accompanied with pain and anxiety. The hypocrite’s hope shall perish. Job.8.

2. Confidence in a future event; the highest degree of well founded expectation of good; as a hope founded on God’s gracious promises; a scriptural sense. A well founded scriptural hope is, in our religion, the source of ineffable happiness.

3. That which gives hope; he or that which furnishes ground of expectation, or promises desired good. The hope of Israel is the Messiah. The Lord will be the hope of his people. Joel 3.

4. An opinion or belief not amounting to certainty, but grounded on substantial evidence. The Christian indulges a hope, that his sins are pardoned.

The key here is that hoping and wishing aren’t the same things at all, though many might consider them to be. Hope has the expectation that it’s object is obtainable. Hope inspires action in pursuit of the obtainable objective, while mere wishing usually doesn’t inspire any action at all; quite the opposite, in fact.

I’d already been thinking about the nature of hope when I recently heard a teaching where the preacher referenced Luke 22:31-32 where Jesus warns Peter of the trial he is about to face. When I heard it, I saw a clear description of the power of hope, and the destruction implicit in hopelessness:

And the Lord said, [fn] “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift [you] as wheat.

“But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to [Me,] strengthen your brethren.”

What is faith? Hebrews 11:1 says “faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen.” How was Peter sifted? He was sifted in the things he hoped for. And how do you sift something? You shake it and shake it to see what comes out, and what remains.

1 John 3:2 — Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He (Christ) is pure.

Remember, hope is earnest expectation; to desire with expectation of good. Hope is the opposite of hopelessness. Even Peter — a man who had been with Jesus for three years, heard his teaching, seen the miracles, had the perspicacity to realize who Jesus was — Peter became hopeless for a time when he let himself be overwhelmed by the things he was seeing, by the fear and uncertainty that was sweeping over him.

You must realize that an enemy always tries to destroy your hope so that you see no benefit in continuing the fight. If he can defeat you mentally and spiritually, then you are defeated physically. Propaganda, “psy ops”, terrorism, totalitarianism — ultimately all seek to destroy hope. In World War II the documented Nazi strategy in Poland was to use localized but overwhelming brutality to foster a sense of hopelessness in the people. In the movie The Shawshank Redemption, the prison administration and guards did everything it could to discourage the men and destroy their hope because men without hope are already half-dead and either become compliant or become that much easier to make them all the way dead.

Teen Challenge, on the other hand, while it may feel like jail, is designed to give you hope. You’ve heard the phrase, “abandon all hope, all ye who enter here”? The meaning of that is that you might as well resign yourself to dying. I would submit to you that the fact that you are here today means there is hope inside you, that you could have chosen to die but instead chose life, as desperate as that choice might have been.

Hopelessness isn’t a problem just because it takes away your initiative and your faith. Hopelessness also removes moral restraint. If you don’t see any hope, or have any faith for the future, then why not do what you please or whatever is most expedient in the present moment? Peter’s moral restraint abandoned him and he lied. A hope for something in the future – not a wish or a desire – gives you something to aim at, or to align yourself with. If you believe something is attainable, you will take the steps to obtain it.

Those with little or no hope can be manipulated by those offering a false one – perhaps even claiming the false one is the only hope. Beware of anyone who comes to you saying that “this is your only hope” if that hope isn’t in God – even if they appear to be godly people.

In the latest financial crisis our leaders were saying the only hope for the system was to bail out the very system and people that created the problem. Doesn’t the Bible say that we must choose to serve either God or Mammon? (Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13) Those who have chosen Mammon can’t be too happy with their God right now. It reminds me of the story of Elijah and the 450 prophets of Baal described in 1 Kings 18; despite their rituals and incantations they were left with the carcass of their supposed sacrifice. The Wall Street bailout was nothing but an attempt to pay the piper with counterfeit Monopoly money.

Romans 15:4 — For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.

Faith is what gives you the patience to wait for the delivery of the promise. There is a song we sing in church that has the words:

God will make a way, where there seems to be no way
…
By a roadway in the wilderness he leads me,
And rivers in the desert will I see
Heaven and earth will fade,
But your word will still remain

I used to get two things out of that song. The first is that when there there seems to be no way it really means that there seems to be no way to me; God always sees the way. The second thing is that if I can’t see the way it is generally because I’m standing in it. Recently I got a third revelation from that song.

You understand that songs and scripture can help us have faith by painting a picture in our minds of what God’s word will bring. God putting a roadway in the wilderness or a river in the desert is Him making a way where there seems to be no way. Ok, good picture, but it’s the next line that brought the revelation to me: “Heaven and earth will fade, but your word will still remain…”

Heaven and earth will fade; the road and the wilderness, and the river and the desert, will fade but God’s word still remains. That’s because it is His word that is the roadbed and the riverbed…picture everything melting away and His word as the golden skeleton of all that was created, perhaps even floating in space…scripture tells us that God created the world with His words, it is His word that is the foundation for everything.

Let’s go back to Peter. Peter knew that God’s word is the foundation that you walk on, because that’s what he did when he told Jesus that, if he would call to Peter, he would be able to walk across the water to him. What was he walking on? Peter overcame his fear of the waves and the storm, but when he was faced with the possibility of not having Jesus, when he put his faith in what his eyes and ears were telling him about the present situation (forgetting what his eyes and ears had already seen and heard), he lost hope, and to some extent he lost moral restraint, becoming a liar and a coward.

Psa 119:49 – Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope.

Psa 119:81 – My soul fainteth for thy salvation: [but] I hope in thy word.

Psa 119:116 – Uphold me according unto thy word, that I may live: and let me not be ashamed of my hope.

Eph 2:12 -14 – that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation,

The world places it’s hope on what it can see, but remember that “Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” Let me paint a last picture for you to help you see how to be not conformed to worldly thinking. Imagine you’re in the crowd, watching your favorite football team. When the team does something good, everybody cheers. When it does something bad, everyone boos. Their reaction is based on what they see.

There is a time, however, when everyone cheers regardless of any play on the field. That time is when the team comes running out of the tunnel. Everyone is cheering then because of the hope and the expectation they have of what the team will do, because of the faith they have in that team. How silly is it, then, that they can be booing so soon thereafter? When things don’t go the way the world expects, they boo and start to blame the quarterback or the other players or the coach, never themselves. Isn’t it funny how people will go about doing whatever it is they want to do, in the way they want to do it, and when it all falls apart God is the one they blame?

Thank God, we wouldn’t do something like that. Not us. If something happened to us that we didn’t like or expect, we wouldn’t start to blame the other guys, or the coach or the team owner would we? Of course not! We are men of perspicacity — men of acute mental vision and keenness! We know how the game ends! We win! Be not dismayed by a fumble or a sack or the cheap hit someone just laid on you…just think about how you’ll be able to point to the scoreboard when it’s all over! We have the desire for some good, accompanied with the expectation of obtaining it, that it is obtainable. We know where our true hope lies, and it’s not in the ways of man or of governments.

Our hope, therefore, brings joy.