Why We Struggle

This chapter 35. Just open them and just leave them there. We'll be reading there in a little while. Okay? So we won't have to search for it later on.

Exodus chapter 35. You know, last week, if you I think most of us were here last week for worship. Some may have been out of town or ill or for one reason or other, but most who are here today were here last week. Right after our worship service, normally, we have family time. 1 of our elders comes up, leads prayers for various requests.

And after that, one of our elders, one of our other elders, Mike Reese, came up here to remind and to reprove to remind and to reprove those who insist on smoking or using tobacco products around the church building. He reminded them and he reproved them, which is his right and duty to do. And it was a little kind of, you know, we had finished worship, we had sung, we had everything was kind of winding down, the prayers were done. He came up and that was kind of, snapped your head back when he, when he said this. Now, he did this because we believe that the use of such products is harmful.

We believe that the use of such products is wrong and unchristian as well as a very poor witness, not only for our youth, but also for each other and for visitors who come here. The sight of several people hanging around the door smoking is not a very inviting sight for a visitor coming to worship. I mean, that's a no brainer right there. You know, some who insist on using tobacco may disagree with my teaching, my personal teaching. And I've taught on this.

You know where I stand on this deal. And some of us may disagree with what the elders are asking us to do. But we do ask everyone to respect the God given role of leadership that the elders have in this congregation. So when they get up and remind and reprove, it would do us well to listen. Now I say this because even after the announcement, I saw people still smoking out in the parking lot.

And if I remember correctly, his admonition was quite crisp and quite clear. He said, if I remember, in many other places, they have a designated smoking area, companies and manufacturers. But here on our 5 acres of land, there is no designated smoking area. That was pretty clear, I thought. You know, it's a sad commentary that after all of the teaching and articles that I've written on the subject, after the exhortation we receive from our leaders that we receive on the subject, there are still some who insist on continuing to use tobacco and continue to refuse to submit to the elders in their use of this stuff on church property.

I would remind you of Solomon's warning in Proverbs 29 verse 1, where Solomon says, a man who hardens his neck after much reproof will suddenly be broken without remedy. I would remind you to take heed to what Solomon says. Please, brothers and sisters, realize that when you do this, you do it in open defiance of this pulpit and in open defiance of our eldership and in open defiance of the will of our congregation. Now, this is not the subject of my sermon. Good for you, This was just an addition to what Brother Reese said about the problem.

Now my sermon is about the other thing that Mike Reese talked about that day. My sermon is based on about 2 minutes of what Mike Rees said last Sunday. Now he didn't really, Mike is a man of few words, he really didn't say much about it, except to say, on this other subject, all he did was he pointed to the board over there and said, Brothers and sisters, we're about $20,000 behind in our giving. Enough said. And then he kind of sat down.

This is the subject that I'd like to comment on this morning by comparing our approach and our attitude towards giving to that of the Israelites in their early years of serving the Lord. And then I'd like to review a few reasons why I think that we struggle continually in this particular area of ministry. Now, I offer my apologies to those of you who may be visiting today, because a lot of times visitors say, oh man, some of this preacher, all he does is talk about money.' You just ask one of our regular members and you will see that that's not usually the subject of my lesson. But sometimes we need to talk about it. And this Sunday is one of those times, so we ask our visitors to bear with us on this particular day.

I suppose if we want a classic model for successful giving, we wouldn't, or rather we couldn't do any better than study the giving and the attitude of the Jews as they prepare to build the tabernacle in the desert. Now the tabernacle or tent, if you wish, was an elaborate and portable temple that was created and built in the desert for the people to offer sacrifice and worship during their 40 years of wandering. God gave Moses a detailed plan for its construction and Moses afterwards went to the people in order to collect the money and the resources in order to complete the project. And so if we go in Exodus chapter 35, it's a rather long passage. I've kind of broken it down to just 2 or 3 short passages that tell the story.

So just read along with me. Exodus 35, beginning in verse 4. It says, And Moses spoke to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, saying, this is the thing which the Lord has commanded, saying, 'Take from among you a contribution to the Whoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it as the Lord's contribution, gold, silver, and bronze, and blue, and purple, and scarlet material, fine linen, goat's hair, and rams' skins dyed red, and porpoise skins, and acacia wood, and oil for lighting, and spices for the anointing oil, and for the fragrant incense, and onyx stones, and setting stones for the ephod, and for the breastpiece. Then a little further on, the story continues in verse 20. Read with me there.

35 verse 20. It says, then all the congregation of the sons of Israel departed from Moses' presence and everyone whose heart stirred him and everyone whose spirit moved him came and brought the Lord's contribution for the work of the tent of meeting, that was the tabernacle they called the tent of meeting, and for all its service and for the holy garments. And then go down to chapter 36 beginning in verse 2. Chapter 36 beginning in verse 2. It says, Then Moses called Bezalel and Aho liab, and every skillful person in whom the Lord had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him to come to the work to perform it.

And they received from Moses all the contributions which the sons of Israel had brought to perform the work, in the construction of the sanctuary. And they still continued bringing to him freewill offerings every morning and all the skillful men who were performing all the work of the sanctuary came each from the work which he was performing. And they said to Moses, the people are bringing much more than enough for the construction work which the Lord commanded us to perform. So Moses issued a command and a proclamation was circulated throughout the camp saying, let neither man nor woman any longer perform work for the contributions of the sanctuary. Thus, the people were restrained from bringing any more for the material they had was sufficient and more than enough for all the work to perform it.

Now, in this, brief account, we see that the people, gave from the heart. They were stirred. They gave generously. And they gave more than enough to do the job. As a matter of fact, they had to be restrained from giving.

I always liked that idea. Somebody had to get up in the pulpit and say, Okay, stop. We've got too much money. When was the last time you heard me say that? We have too much.

No. Look, you deacons and you ministry leaders take the plates this morning and give the money back. That's what they were saying here. Now you know, to give from the heart and to be enthusiastic and to give generously and to give more than enough, these are the points that we make when we teach this lesson out of Exodus. And I've taught this lesson out of Exodus.

But I want you to note another important feature demonstrated by this giving episode. Their giving was motivated by great faith. Their giving was a tremendous act of faith for a certain reason. You know why? Because these people had no commerce.

In other words, they had no business. They had no farm. They had no income producing activity because they were wandering in the desert. Did you ever think about that? They had no way to make money.

They had no idea how their giving would affect their standard of living once they reached their destination. They had a certain amount and they took a chunk of that and they gave it, but they had no incoming money. They had no way to replace that. In other words, they had no assurances that what they gave would ever be replaced. They gave from the only fund of material goods that they had and still, and still they gave more than enough.

They even gave beyond what was needed. You know, we read a little later on that the tabernacle was completed and completed in all of its beauty and glory. No corners were cut. They did exactly as the Lord had commanded because they gave everything that was needed. They didn't have to say, Well, we're gonna have You know, we wanted to put the blue, you know, the blue curtain.

Yeah, we were just gonna have to go with linen on that one. We have to go with just sheets. We'll put up sheets there. We'll just cut up sheets because we don't have enough money. And you know, the gold that we're putting there, the gold on top of the ark of the covenant, we can't put the gold.

It'll just have to be gold plated because, you know, we're short. We're short 10, 20 percent on the budget. No. They had more than enough. And so they completed the task exactly as God had detailed it to them.

Of course, we live in different times. We do. But there are some basic similarities between these people that we read about in Exodus and ourselves today. For example, they were God's people. Well, aren't we God's people?

They depended on God for all of their needs. Well, don't we depend on God for all of our needs? They had to live and give by faith. Well, what has changed? Don't we live and give by faith?

They were on their way to the promised land. Well, we're on our way to the promised land too. They had a job given to them by God to do. Well, don't we have a job given to us by God to do? They built a place to worship the Lord.

Well, haven't we built a place to worship the Lord? Now, this is where the similarity ends, however. See, they gave more than enough to do the Lord's work and we're behind by 11, 12 percent? I mean, the hard numbers are if we continue at this pace, it means that we will have probably a $40,000 shortfall by the end of the year. Now the question I wish to address this morning is why do we struggle with this issue, this issue of budget?

It's a struggle for us. I mean, it really is. We struggle with this all the time. I've been to elders' meetings and planning committees and all kinds of, you know, church things. And when this subject comes up, it's always, Yeah, well we can do that if we make it's always if we make the budget.

It's always a struggle. And you know that I have preached on this topic in the past. I've shown you in the past, the giving patterns of most of the congregations in this area. Remember I had an overhead here and I showed you Ridgecrest, Eastside, all the churches in our area here. Congregations that have the same economic and social and educational background as us.

People at Eastside, they work at Tinker. They're teachers. They work at GM. Just like we work at Tinker. We work at GM.

We're teachers. We're doctors. You know, they have the same mix of people. And I have shown you with the overheads, case after case after case, where all of these other congregations that are in our area are 10 to 30% over their budget consistently, while we are 10 to 15% under budget consistently. I have shown you congregations in places that have the same type of people as us but only half the number.

I've shown you places that have 200 people that I'll give us by 50%. And yet, we struggle just to make budget. Why? Well, unlike the Jews in Exodus who had a limited amount of resources but gave more than enough, we have a renewed and expandable resource base. But we continually struggle to make it in the money department.

Are we friendly? Of course we're friendly. Do we have activities? Tons of activities. Do we like to eat?

Man, where do they eat in this church west of the Mississippi? I don't know. North, whatever. I'm Canadian still. A lot of part of me here.

For the geography anyway. Why? Why do we struggle? Well, let let me give you my opinion. Okay?

As your minister. And I think perhaps my opinion may have some light, some credibility because I've been watching us and ministering to us now for many years. Some of the reasons why I think we struggle. Okay? Number 1, we struggle because we love our stuff way too much.

We love our stuff way too much. We will only give to the point that it will not threaten our lifestyle in any way or threaten our security. Now, the Jews in the desert became proportionately poorer on account of their giving because they had no way of renewing their wealth in the desert. Once they gave their gifts, they couldn't earn money to replace what they lost. You see, we either serve the Lord or we serve mammon.

Mammon is the world. And to the degree we hang on to our stuff determines who we love more. We struggle because we're not willing to sacrifice personal loss in order that the church and her work be fully supported. That's why we love our stuff too much. Another reason another reason why we struggle, We know our lord too little.

We love our stuff too much, but we know our lord way too little. You know the single most motivating factor in Christianity is the knowledge of and a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Hands down. Single most motivating thing is the knowledge of the Lord. When we know the Lord and are sensitive to his will, we can do great things in his name.

I mean, he's promised us this in John chapter 14 verse 12. He said to us, greater works than these you will do. I believe that we struggle because we don't know him very well. He's not close to our hearts many times. You know, there are a lot of reasons why we know him too little.

But basically, it's because we spend more time you know, we know him too little because we spend more time knowing or learning how to throw a ball. Or we spend more time learning how to use a computer. Or we spend more time learning how to make money. Or we spend more time, figuring out how to entertain ourselves. Or we spend more time on how to beautify ourselves or our possessions.

We spend more time and energy on these things than we do on knowing the Lord. I mean, it's easy to spot this problem as true. You know how easy it is? Just look at this board over here. Why do you think we have these two boards are simply a mirror of ourselves.

Why do we put them up here and not back there? Because we want us to look at us every week. It doesn't matter if we're singing, oh praise God. And oh I love Jesus. Yeah.

Oh let's 5. I love It doesn't matter if we do that. Because this mirror and this mirror is always looking back at us. You know what this board says over here? Only 15 percent of the congregation read their Bibles a minimum of 3 times a week.

You can't that's a number that's like a spike in the heart right there. Only 15 percent of 500 people read their Bibles a minimum of minimum 3 times a week. We spend more time on grass than we do in the Bible. More time behind our lawnmowers. I mean, we got to do that.

Obviously, it's raining in June. But over this, you know, the course of the year, let's say, we spend more time behind the lawnmower than we do behind our Bible. Only 40% of the congregation is here for Wednesday services. Only 40%. Only 50% for bible class on Sunday morning.

That's a mirror. That's us, folks. All of these activities are ways that the church provides its members an opportunity to know the Lord by learning and sharing His word. Now, there are all kinds of reasons and excuses people give for not making budget. But the very bottom line reason is because they know and consequently love the Lord too little.

I didn't say you don't love the Lord. I just said, We love him too little. You know, I remember the words of Opal Gibson. Remember Opal Gibson? Dear Opal Gibson, she passed away recently.

She was one of the charter members here. Never missed the service. And, we had our funeral of places packed with people, brothers, sisters, family, admirers of this wonderful woman. And I remember her daughter, Jo Francis, gave the eulogy. And as she spoke at her mother's funeral, she spoke of her mother's devotion as a Christian woman.

And she would tell what would happen. You know, she reminisced about her life with Opal, when she was a little girl. And she would say, Saturday was a special day for our family because on Saturday, we get together and we go to the church building and clean the building. Get it to get it ready for Sunday. We didn't have a custodian those days.

She says, then we would go back and we clean up our house and then we clean up the kids. She said, I remember mom would get us all ready, all the clothes laid out, everything was ready. That was Saturday. And then in the evening, we would study our bible lessons, she said, so we would be ready for bible class. And then in addition to that, she said, they would prepare food, casserole, whatever.

So they could invite back visitors who came to services. So they could invite them back home to eat with them on Sunday dinner. And the question is, well, how did she do this? I mean, how did this woman do this? And why?

What was her motivation? Did she not have other things? Didn't she have grass to cut? Didn't she have other commitments? Was she less busy than we are today?

Well the answer to this question and all these questions is, well no, of course not. What makes us think that back in the forties fifties, people were not busy? She was just as busy as we are. She was raising 3 children. She was caring for a home.

She was caring for a husband. She was caring for their property. No. The difference was that she knew the Lord and that knowledge and intimacy with him moved her to sacrifice. Reading the bible for Opal was not a statistic.

It was the way of life. It was part of her life. You know, her bible was right there. We'd go visit her and her bible was right there. Her big rocking chair was there and the lamp was there and she had some of her meds there that she had to take and her bible was right there.

You know, we see new church buildings going up all around us. Don't we? I hear people say, Man, she's out there building the next story. You know, the Christian community church across the street building the building and the Midwest City Christian Church building a church meeting house just a couple miles down the road here. And the evangelical church along Choctaw Road, has just purchased the old orbit plant across from their building and they're renovating it into a community center.

From which they will launch outreach programs this summer. And so we see this and sometimes we get a little nervous thinking, boy we need to get more programs going. We need to get more things happening. So we can get a share of the thousands of people that will be moving into this part of the county within the next 2 years. And then we'll make budget.

Well, I don't believe that God's people have to compete with anybody or anything in order to serve God and win souls. If we devote ourselves to knowing God and His Son, Jesus Christ, if we minister according to His word, the Bible says, He will add to our number beyond our dreams. Let me tell you something, when 80% instead of 15% are reading regularly God's Word, we will have a congregation on fire with the knowledge and the love of Christ. And there will be no shortage of money, and there will be no shortage of resources, and there will be no shortage of willingness to serve the Lord. People will come here because we know the Lord and they'll want us to teach and share him with them because they will want to have what we so obviously have.

And so why do we struggle? We struggle, first of all, because we love our stuff, whatever it is, way too much. And secondly, we know our Lord way too little. And thirdly, we fear change. We're afraid of change.

You know, fearing change is a natural human trait. We read several times in Exodus that the Israelites, they wanted to go back to Egypt, they wanted to go back to bondage rather than to go forward to the new land God had promised them. They were afraid of change. They'd rather go back to being slaves than rip change. You know, we fear change even if it's just for the best.

We fear change even if it's for improvement sometimes. Yeah, I remember when we started this building project and, you know, and and the church started to grow here quite rapidly a couple of years ago, there were families that left here to go worship with other churches that they said were stable. What they meant was they were small and they were not growing. And the reason they went was because they didn't like the change that growth created. Some people will inevitably react with suspicion and negative spirits whenever something new is presented.

And you know what? Many times I think that this is where we're at in Choctaw at the moment. You know, the building is finished. Do you remember we said this would happen? I told you this would happen.

The elders said that this would happen. The building's finished. We're settled in. We're slowing down. We're carving out our little territories and we're getting comfy.

That's what's happening. We are unwittingly slowing down our own progress in order to avoid the change that growth and progress bring. It's only natural. And we do this in a variety of ways. For example, I've seen the Demus Syndrome take place here.

You know, the Demus Syndrome? Named after Demus 2nd Timothy 4:10. Demus was the young man who abandoned Paul and his ministry to return to the pleasures and the activities of the world. A lot of us are abandoning our work and service to the Lord and going back to the world and his ways. We do this because spiritual growth brings about change and change is painful.

And going back to the world is not as painful, it's much more comforting. Then there's the Miriam mistake. I've seen people make the Miriam mistake. This one is named after Miriam who grumbled and complained and tried to turn people against Moses and his leadership in the book of Numbers. You see, Miriam didn't like the way things were done.

And she felt that her opinion should have more weight so she created public conflict. And God punished her for her rebellion and her evil tongue in charging God's leaders. Now this method of stopping progress continues on today by both men and women right here. Members who continually pour sand into the gears of progress, always creating conflict, never pulling in the right direction. They slow us down because they they won't move themselves and they'll criticize any effort made to move.

That's the Miriam mistake. Then there's the Thomas crisis. I've seen people in the Thomas crisis. John chapter 20. Thomas, you know, Jesus's apostle, we call him doubting Thomas.

What happened? He refused to move because of a faith crisis. He simply pulled the plug on everything because he had doubt. You know, we have these 2. We have people who pull the plug because they doubt.

Because they don't want things to change. They figure, well I won't give. That'll slow things down. Or I won't come to church. Or their service to the church depends on how they feel.

If they feel low, they disappear for a while. If they feel high, they're all over the place. Instead of persevering one day at a time, these folks either burn up all the resources when they feel good or they let things go to pot when they're not in the mood. They slow things down by their inconsistency. And then finally, there are the Judas disciples.

These members follow Judas' example for discipleship. Like Judas, who was with Jesus from the beginning until the very last moment when he was revealed by Jesus to be a traitor. We have those people too who are always with us, but they're not really with him. You know, Jesus will reveal them on the last day. But in the meantime, they're like a silent and unseen disease that attack us from within.

All these ways and more that people put a drag on the church because they fear or reject change. This is why we struggle. And then one more. One more. One last reason.

We struggle, and that's because too many of us lack spiritual ambition. You know, I know that there are quite a few brothers and sisters in this congregation who worked very hard in their various areas of ministry. And they might be thinking right now, man, it's raining. I made an effort to come here. I didn't feel like getting beat up.

Here I am working hard. And what does the preacher do? He beats me up on Sunday morning. Could've stayed home to get that. Oh, I guess it's true for some people then.

Obviously, you know, this lesson is not directed at those who are healthy, who are growing, who are moving. I know you're out there and I ask you to bear with me as I exhort our other brothers and sisters to follow your lead. We need this lesson because there are just too many people who lack the ambition to grow in Christ. And their stagnancy in spiritual life is starting to affect the rest of us. That's my point.

If you're actually wondering if you are lacking spiritual ambition, I ask you to ask yourself these questions. First of all, am I a Christian? And if not, why not? What's holding you back? Secondly, do I have a ministry in the church?

And what is it? Remember I told you coming to church is not a ministry. Number 3, am I carrying out my ministry? We have a lot of people with titles here but having a title doesn't mean that you're carrying out your ministry. Number 4, am I training someone else for ministry?

Am I discipling someone? Number 5, when was the last time I learned or was trained for a new or an additional ministry? Some people, you know, they lock into one thing, they can do it blindfolded, no effort anymore. Next one, am I or do I or can I teach a class? Can I teach a non christian?

Can I preach a diva or a sermon? Can you bring someone to Christ if you had to? I mean, if you had to, could you bring them to Christ? Could you do you know what to say to help someone save their soul? Do I desire or am I preparing myself to serve as a deacon or an elder or a preacher or a missionary?

I've been here 7 years. We never sent out a missionary. We never sent out a missionary. It's not. Don't we care?

For 500 people, we could take 50 of us and go plant a church somewhere. Why don't we do that? And do I yearn to give more of myself to Christ? You know, I don't have to fill out the questionnaires or tabulate the answers to these questions. I kinda know the answers.

I could go through the I could go through the directory. You kinda know. Now the reason I'm preaching this sermon is because too many have said no to too many of these questions for too long. And that's why we're struggling. And so and so to conclude, my observation, my opinion of us at this point of our congregational lives is that we're struggling.

We're not dead. We're just we're struggling. And from what I can tell, we're struggling because we are over committed to the things that are in the world and we're under committed to the things that belong to the kingdom of God. And when I say this, I mean we're under committed to the knowledge of God's word. We're under committed to the personal spiritual growth that God's word calls us to.

We're under committed to that. And the symptoms are very evident. We struggle to read God's word. We struggle to attend worship and study. We struggle to obey our elders in matters that that should be no brainers.

We struggle in giving and finding volunteers. You know, we wouldn't repeat a 100 times a month that we need volunteers if we got the volunteers. If you're tired of hearing those announcements, then just volunteer and we'll stop making them. We struggle in motivating those in leadership roles to do their jobs. We struggle in recruiting deacons or those who serve as elders.

There's nobody stepping up to the plate. We struggle to keep members faithful. Brothers and sisters, when we are struggling in all these areas at the same time, the conclusion is that we're struggling as a congregation. And so what's the answer to our dilemma? It's the same answer that God has called on his people to do from the very beginning.

You know, Peter in his lesson known as the second sermon or a few days after Pentecost, called on the people to repent. That's what we need to do. We need to repent. We know the first sermon, Acts chapter 2, but there's a second sermon that Peter says in Acts chapter 3 where he says, Repent therefore and return that your sins may be wiped away in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. We, as a church, have worked hard.

There's no doubt about it. We have suffered many setbacks and now we find ourselves struggling to move forward. We are in need of a period of refreshment from the Lord, a time of strengthening and grace from his spirit. That's what we mean. Don't ever think that, oh, I'll feel refreshed spiritually if I just stop coming to church for a while.

Can't believe people think like that sometimes. I'm I'm tired, you know. So I think I'll really feel stronger spiritually if I just stop coming to church and serving for a month or 2 and then I'll feel a lot better. No, you won't. Let us seek him first and foremost by changing those things that have brought the struggle upon us.

Repent and begin to make bible reading a regular, even daily activity. Repent and put Jesus and his church back as a time and resource priority in your life. Repent and submit to the leadership and direction that has been charted for this congregation. Repent and ask God to show you what the next step in your spiritual development needs to be. And then take that step today.

And if that step brings you up here for baptism or for prayer to be restored or for a recommitment to your ministry or to place membership, whatever it is. Now if someone says to you, what's the preacher? What did the preacher preach about today in his extra long sermon? You can tell them, the preacher told the church to repent today. And what y'all have to figure out now is how do you repent?

You need to come up here? Do you need to change something around? How do you repent? We won't get out of this struggle that we're in unless we repent.