Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Generosity in Scarcity

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

How do you face economic scarcity? The little book of Habakkuk talks about how to handle evil times, and in particular, it describes an economic disaster. Habakkuk’s answer for dealing with economic scarcity is fuller than you might think because he alludes to the Old Testament principle of the firstfruits, where you were supposed to give the firstfruits of your harvest to God. But here, Habakkuk brings up the possibility of having no harvest at all.  We’re going to learn three things about financial giving: 1) you should give sacrificially, not just out of surplus, 2) you should give joyfully, not just out of duty, and 3) you should give graciously. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on May 31, 2009. Series: Living by Faith in Troubled Times. Scripture: Habakkuk 3. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel and Life. The Bible isn't a series of disconnected stories, each one a little moral for how to live. On the contrary, it's actually primarily a single story, an account of how the world was made and ruined, how it was rescued through Jesus Christ, and how someday it's going to be remade into a new heavens and new earth. Today on Gospel and Life, Tim Keller is teaching on this central storyline of the Bible, and what that means for our lives today. Tonight's scripture reading comes from the book of a backic, chapter 3, verses 17 through 19,

and Deuteronomy, chapter 26, verses 1 through 11. Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails, and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, and I will be joyful in God my Savior. The sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer. He enables me to go on the heights.

When you have entered the land, the Lord your God is giving you. As an inheritance and have taken possession of it and settled in it, take some of the first fruits of all that you produce from the soil of the land, the Lord your God is giving you, and put them in a basket. Then go to the place the Lord your God will choose

as a dwelling for his name, and say to the priest in office at the time, I declare today the Lord your God that I have come to the land the Lord swore to our forefathers to give us. The priest shall take the basket from your hands and set it down front of the altar of the Lord your God. Then you shall declare before the Lord your God, my father was a wondering araman, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation,

powerful and numerous. But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, putting us to hard labor. Then we cried out to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice, and saw our misery, toil, and oppression. So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders.

He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now, I bring the first fruits of the soil that you, O Lord, have given me. Place the basket before the Lord your God and bow down before him, and you, and the Levites, and the aliens among you shall rejoice in all the good things the Lord your God has given to you and your household.

This is God's Word. We're looking at the book of Habakkuk because it's a little book in the Old Testament talks about how to handle evil times. Evil times are not times in which things are getting better and better for each generation, but times in which there are getting better and better for each generation, but times in which there's wars and pestilence and disease and economic disaster.

The first half of the 20th century were evil times. Second half of the 20th century were good times. And it's certainly too early to say we're going back into evil times, but it's certainly not even to think that we couldn't or that we're not. And so it doesn't matter because Habakkuk tells you how to deal with evil times, whether they're society-wide or just your own personal evil times and everybody goes through those. Now we've been looking at this each week and now we get to the end of the book, because in verses 17 to 19,

which we just had read, you get to a beautiful, lyrical ending, and in which Habakkuk says, essentially this, it's possible to have a life of sustained joy even when everything is going wrong in your life. And all of your prayers, your main prayers, are going unanswered. See? Though the fig tree is not budding, no grapes, no olives, feels produce no food, no sheep

in the pen, no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. And we're going to look at that two weeks in a row. We're going to look at this section because there's a general and a specific application, generally, which we'll look at next week. Habakkuk is laying down here how you can rejoice in tribulation, how you can be joyful in the face of very bad

circumstances. But in particular, he is describing an economic disaster because see, figs, grapes, olives, and grain were the fourth ways in which the land produced fruit. So you could eat, and it was also the way in which you produced wealth. Sheep and cattle, see, these were, this is a portfolio here. You did, they had currency back in those days, but that's not where you had your main investments.

Your investments were in your livestock, your investments were in your land. And therefore, what's being described here with these six things, see no figs, no grapes, no olives, no field, no grain, no sheep, no cattle, is a complete economic disaster. It means your portfolio is wiped out. There's no, your investments are gone, it's all gone. And what Habakkuk is saying is, how do you face that? And you know, we're in the middle of the big recession, so that's a pretty German question. How do you face economic scarcity? Now his answer is more full than you might think, because by talking about a time in which

there's no harvest, he is alluding to the principle of the first fruits. Because in the Old Testament you were supposed to give the first fruits to God of your harvest. That's where your charitable giving came from. And he's bringing up the possibility of no harvest at all. So if we're going to understand what a backer gets saying about facing economic scarcity, I want to take a look at what he says with a background of Deuteronomy 26, which is one of the places where the principles of the first fruit is put down, and we will have a comprehensive strategy for dealing with economic times of economic scarcity.

And when we look at, did around me 26, and then come back to back at 3, 17 to 19, we're gonna learn three things about giving. Three things about financial giving, giving your money away, to ministry your charity. The three things are, you should give sacrificially, you should give joyfully, and you should give graciously. You should give sacrificially,

not just out of the surplus, you should give joyfully, not just out of duty, and you should give graciously. Now let's start in Deuteronomy 26 and see, first of all, the first principle about how you should look at your income, you look at your money, is you should give graciously, pardon me, sacrificially, running to the third point too quickly. Sacrificially, in June around the 26th, verse two, we see the principle of first fruit.

See, it says, take some of the first fruits of all you produce from the soil of the land that your Lord, your God, is giving you, and put them in a basket. land that your Lord your God has given you and put them in a basket. If you were a farmer, all of your income basically came during the harvest season. You planted, you watered, you sowed, you did everything, but then the harvest came in. It was a couple of weeks or several weeks and you brought all of your harvest in. When all of the harvest was in, then you knew how much you'd made for the year. Now, though probably from the looks of you,

most of you are not farmers. Nevertheless, an awful lot of us actually also get our income this way. Many of us look out and we don't know how much we're gonna make in the next year because there's investments we don't have. They're gonna do. There's bonuses we don't know how they're gonna be to make in the next year because there's investments we don't have. They're going to do.

There's bonuses we don't know how they're going to be. There's contracts you're hoping to get. There's business you're hoping to get. There's gigs if you're, you know, if you're a musician. You don't know how many you're going to get. And therefore you don't know how much you're actually going to make. Like the farmer. The farmer at the end of his harvest, finally knew what he was going to make.

Now, how does that affect charitable giving? If you're not sure what you're going to make, it's very simple. You wait till all of the harvest is in, right? It's all you know exactly how much you've made. And if you made this much this year, then you say, well, I can afford to give this much away to the ministry and to the poor. Or if you made this much, well, you feel like

then I can afford to give this much away. But that's not what God says to do. That's not the principle. That's the natural way we would think, right? You wait until you have it all in, then you decide what to give. No, not according to God. Here's what God says, I want you to give your first fruits. Now what that means is, you go out the first couple of days and you'd

bring in the first part of your harvest and you didn't know how big the harvest was going to be. You really weren't sure of what the yield would be. It didn't matter. You gave the first part. You gave before you knew how much you were actually going to be making. You went and you laid that at the altar. Now what's that principle? Here's the principle. If you wait until everything is in, then what you end up giving God is the surplus.

And you know what the surplus is? The surplus is that part of what you can afford to give without it actually cutting into the way in which you live. The surplus is what you can afford to give and still do all the things you want to do by all the things you want to buy, where all the kind of clothes you want to go. The surplus is the part of your income you can afford to give without a change in the way in which you live. That says, no, I don't want you to give your leftovers. I don't want

you to give your first overs. New word. I don't want you to give your leftovers. I want you to give your first overs. New word. I don't want you to give your leftovers. I want you to give the surplus. I want you to give out of the heart of your income. I want you to give past the place that you can afford to give and still not change the way in which you live. I want you to give until it hurts. I want you to give until it hurts.

I want you to give sacrificially. I want you to give to the place where it changes the way in which you live. Otherwise you're not giving the way you want to give. Now do you see why this is relevant to evil times? See in good times there's a surplus. In good times you're making enough money so you can give money away to the church, the poor, you can give your money away, and still live the way you want to live.

But in bad times, in evil times, you can't. But you see, if you have to learn to give like this all the time, then evil times don't change that. See, if you learn to give out of the surplus, then when evil times come, you don't give anything, because there ain't no surplus. But that's not the way in which God calls you to give. God says you should always be cutting into how you live.

You should always be giving more than you could afford to give and live just the way you want to live. You've got to give past the way to place, where you can live just as you want. You're giving needs to affect the way in which you eat, affect the way, the effect where you live, affect the kind of clothes you wear, you have to give so much that it changed the way

in which you live. That's the first principle. And how do you like the sermon so far? What do you think of the first point? You say, well, this is a grim sermon. You know, I better read the fine print about what these subjects are before I decide to go to church on this Sunday. It's not grim because there's point two.

The first point is you should give Sac officially, not out of the surplus. You should give to the place where it changes your life. But the second point is you should give joyfully, not just out of duty. And that also comes out of this middle part of Deuteronomy 26, which I love, because you notice, in fact, I'm gonna have to make all of you do this. You notice you're not allowed in the Old Testament to come and bring your gifts and just stick it in the plate.

Oh no. See, in verse four it says, you go to the place, the Lord your God will choose. Verse four, the priest shall take the basket, that's your offering, your first fruits from your hands, and set it down the front of the altar, the Lord your God, and then you shall declare before the Lord your God. And then what comes after that? You know what comes after that? A testimony about the grace of God and the gospel. Because this little testimony is talking about this.

Because this little testimony is talking about this. This testimony is saying, yes, I have worked very hard, and this is my first fruits. But the only reason I was able to get anything from my labor is because this land that I'm in is a gift. We were in Egypt. We were slaves. And we could never have gotten out of slavery in our own strength. But God came in and he intervened with miraculous deeds and he saved us. And we were saved not by our works, not because of what we have done, but because of what God has done.

And therefore, we're saved not by our works, but by God's works. We are saved by grace. And therefore, the land that I've got is all just a gift of grace. Now, you see what's happening? You're never allowed to just give. You must give and connect that giving to the gospel. Before the Lord you've got to drill into your heart everything you've got as a gift and maybe somebody out there saying, well I'm not an Israelite and I work very hard and I'm not a farmer. How does that relate to me? Of course it relates to you. The things that you have are not really yours. You say, but I've worked hard to earn them.

Okay, with what? My talents, but who gave you your talents? My health, well, who gave you your health? Well, I've just worked very hard, okay, yeah, but you know what, let me just suggest something to you. If instead of being born wherever you were born, you were born on a mountain in Adderbongolia. I don't care how hard you would have worked,

you'd still be poor. It's very easy to say, I pulled myself up, nobody pulls themselves up by their bootstraps. There's all kinds of ways in which God opens doors for you. By where you were, if you're born on a mountain to bet in the 13th century, you'd be poor. I don't care how hard you work. You never would have gotten into the schools you wanted

to get into. They don't take people from Tibet. They didn't have schools. They didn't have schools. I mean, look, everything you've got is a gift. And if you drill that into your heart And if you drill that into your heart, if you drill it into your heart,

which is what the Israelite was supposed to do, to the place where you say, ah, I only have what I have because of the unstinting generosity of God, the grace of God, and therefore I give radically this gift to him. So you're supposed to connect the grace of God and therefore I give radically this gift to him. So you're supposed to connect the grace of God to the gift

so that you want to give. And do you not see them? Even though when I said you must give until it hurts, we're talking about hurts, your budget, hurts your lifestyle, but it shouldn't be hurting on the inside. It shouldn't be a teeth gritting okay I've got to do this. Looking for a new way to deepen your faith and understanding of Christianity this summer? If you are, we'd like you to consider the new city Catechism devotional. Based on the

historic Catechisms of the Christian Church, this devotional offers 52 weeks of thought provoking questions and answers that explore the foundational beliefs of the faith. Each week includes a scripture passage, a prayer, and a brief meditation that will challenge and inspire you. Commentaries are written by contemporary pastors such as John Piper, Timothy Keller, and Kevin DeYoung, as well as historical figures such as Augustine, John Calvin, and Martin Luther. The new City Catechism devotional is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the hope of Christ's love with people all over the world. So request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give.

That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. Jesus puts it like this, Matthew chapter six. He says, do not 6. He says, Do not stir up for yourselves treasures on earth. We're mothin' rust destroy, and we're thieves breakin' in steel. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.

We're mothin' rustin' not destroy, and we're thieves do not break in in steel. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Now, what does Jesus say in the midst of talking about giving? Well, your treasure is there will your heart be also. He is saying, whatever your heart most treasures will be where your money goes most effortlessly. You will always most joyfully spend money on the thing which your

heart most treasures. For example, let's just say you don't like baseball at all. You don't like it at all, but maybe you're a parent and your children love baseball. So every so often you've got to take them to a Yankees game. And when you see what the Yankees tickets are like this year, it's like a stab in the heart. Because I got to take my kids the Yankees game so you go and you can't believe it and you go and then you call your... I can't believe how much money I'm spending. Your heart's not in it. So it's... You know, you greet your teeth and you do it. But what if you are a great Yankees fan? What if you're passionate for the Yankees?

What if you follow their every move? What if you're so excited they're finally in first place after that terrible start? Who cares how much it costs? Who cares? Here, pass the potgogs. Because what, where your treasure is, it doesn't even feel like spending, does it?

Wherever you most love, whatever your heart most rests in, you actually have to be careful to not spend too much, right? And therefore, here's how, this is the second point, but maybe come to think of it, it isn't all that comforting. It's just as bad as the first point, okay? I admit it.

Here's how you know where your heart really rests. This is how you know whether your relationship with God is just an impersonal abstract. Yes, I believe in God. I've got to give my money to the ministry and the poor, okay, where do I write the check? Or whether you've actually experienced this grace, whether you actually know that without him, you'd be lost. If you've actually experienced this grace, if you know his love, if you don't on him,

if your heart rests in his grace, you will love to give. You have no problem with it. Giving sacrificial will be a joy. Giving past where you can afford to give and still live the way you would ordinarily live will be a joy. Give to the place where it changes the way in which you live will be a joy. Won't be a problem. And that's how you know.

Whether you've actually know God personally or whether God's relationship with God is very impersonal. So you must give sacrificaly and you must give joyfully. And if you're not able to give joyfully and sacrificaly, that tells you that you're something wrong with your heart and you're relationship with God. Now, as challenging as all this is, and I know it has been challenging, when you get to Habakkuk, when you get now to chapter 3, verse 17 and 19, he's actually moving everything up to a whole other level. You know why?

Because he is saying, what if there are no first fruits? Because there's no harvest. What if there was a situation in which God was not providing any food at all and we're about to starve? What if there was a situation in which God is not providing any protection because the invaders and marauders have come and we're being about to be trampled under foot of armies. He said, well, how would God allow that to happen? Well, we've been talking about that for several weeks in the back.

It does happen. There's a lot of evil in this world and God's sometimes what's that happen? it does happen. There's a lot of evil in this world and God sometimes what's that happen? And it does happen. He works through disaster. That's another sermon or a sermon we've already dealt with. But the point is that there are millions of people, good people, believers in the Lord who have faced the situation, not just economic scarcity, not even just bankruptcy, but starvation. See, and persecution. And Habakkuk says, I want you to know that it's possible that even in those situations to make God your treasure, to rest your heart and God and rejoice in Him.

How? Look carefully. You rejoice not in the circumstances, because there's no circumstances to rejoice in. Be rejoicing, God, my Savior. Look, in the past, my salvation is my sins have been forgiven. There's no condemnation for me. And in the future, my salvation is I'm going to get a new body, I'm going to be resurrected and I'm going to live in a new heavens I'm going to be resurrected and I'm going to

live in a new heavens and a new earth. And that's enough, Cicabacca. It is possible to say, look, everything else is going wrong, but if I have that and that, if I have my salvation, that's all I need. I can maintain, poise, I can maintain peace and joy. Even when everything else is going wrong, I can still give God my heart. Even in the worst situations. Now, at this point, I think most people,

I think most rational people would say, have back what you're saying is right, but I don't see how I can do it. Have back I go, right, but I don't see how I can do it. Yes, I know I should rejoice in my salvation even when everything is going wrong, but I try and I can't. And here's the reason why you can't, and here's the reason why you actually can. You can't because we have a tendency to not be able to look past this passage.

See, hebacchak in chapter 3, 17, 18, 19, has been a really good example. Well, you have as a great prophet, hebacchak, who says, I can rejoice even when God has taken everything away from me. I can still rejoice. I can still trust him and rejoice in him when God's taking everything away. And we look at that. And are you inspired by that example? Let me speak for probably a lot of you. I'm not inspired by that example. I'm crushed by it. It's too high. I can't attain to it. And when I just see Habakkuk living this life, trusting and rejoicing in God, even when everything has been taken away from him, that example crushes me. I discourage

him. I can never be like that. And I can't. And you can't either. If you just try to be like Habakkuk. But if you look to the one to whom a backer points, that will change your heart. Now who's the one to whom a backer points? You remember Jesus said in Luke chapter 24 to his disciples on the road to Emmaus and to his disciples. After he was raised with that, he says, you know, one of your big problems, and they had a lot of problems. But one of your big problems is you don't know how to read the Old Testament. It's all about me. And so when I see him back, extending there, rejoicing,

and trusting in God when everything's been taken away from him, as an example, it crushes me. But when I look to the one to whom he points, the one who had everything taken away from him. When he got to the end of his life, Jesus Christ had only one possession, his robe, and that was taken away. And on the cross, he was stripped naked and he was put on the cross, and even his father's love was taken away. Do you know what we have when Jesus Christ hears somebody who had no bank account, who was wiped out,

who had nothing in his pocket, he didn't even have pockets. Everything was taken away from him, and yet on the cross he says, my God, my God. That's the language of the covenant. That's the language, you know, the covenant is, you shall be my people and I will be your God. That's intimate language. On the cross, Jesus is not saying, I'm not getting anything out of this relationship,

I'm out of here. On the cross, He is rejoicing and trusting in God though everything is being taken away from Him. And why did he do it? He did it for you and me. And this is the secret. This is why we can live like a backer is suggesting we live. And this is the reason why we can move to a new level, even a greater level than what

we have in Deuteronomy 26. Because in the Old Testament, the Old Testament saints were supposed to remind themselves that God had saved them from Egypt. And it was free grace. They didn't deserve it. They couldn't have attained it themselves. It was free and merit-ed grace. But what they didn't know is that it was costly grace.

What you and I know, but what they didn't know, it was costly. Why costly? Do you remember the Passover? The night before the children of Israel were taken out of Egypt. The angel of death had been sent into the Egypt and every single family in Egypt was going to pay for their sins. That's what the angel of death meant. God sent out His justice into Egypt and everyone was going to pay for their sins.

Every family was going to pay for their sins through the death of their first born. Remember that? That was the last and the final plague. Well, what about Israel? Their sinners? How would they escape? And God says, here's how you escape, you kill a lamb in every family, in every home you kill a lamb, and you take shoulder under the blood of that lamp. Well the Israelites did that and they escaped and out they came. But surely on the way out they were saying, how did that save us? How did the blood of those sweet little woolly quadrupeds save us?

How did that happen? And the answer is it was pretty mysterious, but John the Baptist knew, because centuries later, he said, looking at Jesus Christ, he said, behold the Lamb of God, who take it the way this sin of the world. Those little lambs are pointing to Jesus. On the cross, Jesus Christ had everything taken away from him to pay for our sins, to save us.

And here's the thing that the Israelites didn't understand. When they were taken out, God's grace to them was unmerited, but they didn't know it was costly. In other words, they didn't know that the only reason they could be saved was because God gave. Because God gave His only Son, because Jesus Christ gave His blood. Now, remember what we said about sacrificial giving? We said God says, I want you to give not just a surplus, I don't want you to give just what you can afford without changing your life. I want you to give past the place where it changes your life. Did God give, did Jesus Christ give past the place where it changes your life. Did God give, did Jesus Christ give past the place where it changes life?

Jesus Christ did not just give to the point where it changes life, Jesus Christ gave to the point where He lost His life. And He lost His life for you. And when you see that, when you see His grace was costly, when you see that he died for you, he did all that for you. That will take your heart and it will make him your treasure. And when he becomes your treasure, it won't be a problem to give, you know why? You're gonna say, if you gave to the place

where you lost your life, and I can certainly give to the place where it costs me, it changes my life. If you gave to the place where you lost your life for me, I can give to the place where I changed my life for you. And that's the reason why, whenever I see somebody who grasps the grace of God, the cost of grace of God in Jesus Christ, it changes your heart so that you can give sacrificial joyfully and you can give under any circumstances, any circumstances at all. There's always something to give. There's always the widow's might, remember?

There's always something you can give and you'll want to give. Christians who understand the grace of God, go to the mat, even in tough times. And you know, if you went on past in Judeuromy 26, you go on a little bit further, it tells you about tithing. Judeuromy 26 verse 12 and following says, that that was the guideline. That God said, I want you to give 10% of your income away to the Levite and to the alien. The Levite were the ministers, the people who ministered in the altar. The aliens were the poor, the immigrants and the refugees and the widows and the orphans.

I want you to give to the ministry and I want you to give to the poor 10%. But when you experience the grace of God, you always want to push past that 10%. You know, in Luke 19, when Zacchaeus grasped that Jesus Christ has saved him by grace, he says, look, Lord, I'm going to give 50% of my money away. Did Jesus say, oh, no, no, no, no, Zach, yes, you only need 10%. You don't need to get 50. You know he said, great. Why? Because listen, if because you understand the grace of God, Jesus becomes your treasure, you're going to always want to go past.

See anything that you really, really love, you always have to stop yourself from spending. You don't see how much do I have to spend on it you say how much can I have spent? And therefore anybody who really grasped the grace of God Give sacrificial joyfully tries to push past that 10% and as a result the Levites and the aliens rejoice I love verse 11, where it says, and you and the Levites and the Aliens among you will rejoice. You know what that means? If you are shaped by the grace of Christ so much that you give radically and joyfully, then your money becomes a form of grace.

Because your money keeps ministries going, which liberates people spiritually, and your money helps the poor and the aliens and the widows, which liberates people physically. So weirdly enough, when God's grace liberates you so that you're able to give, then your money becomes a form of God's grace. Your money starts to become a vehicle through which God is liberating people spiritually and physically, huh? And when you realize the grace of God to the place

that you start to give sacrificially and joyfully, that will then turn your money into something way more than money. It'll become a vehicle for God's grace that leaveites and the aliens will rejoice. And all that God has given you. Look at what Jesus Christ did by giving himself away. Look at the lives he changed through his radical giving. Now you go and do the same. Let's pray.

Thank you, Father, for giving us a costly salvation, which changes our lives and our hearts. But in particular, it changes the way in which we look at our money. Father, make us a generous congregation, make us generous people, make us people who know how to give and love it, who are able to give in times of economic scarcity, as well as economic prosperity. And we ask, Lord, that You would then take us and make us vehicles of Your grace because we've given our hearts to You. Thank You for this time.

Thank You for this word. Thank You for speaking to us. Make it true through Your Holy Spirit. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to today's teaching. We recognize that many of you will want to respond to the news of Tim's passing. If you would like to know more about how to share your condolences, or to share a story of how Tim's writing or teaching helped you, or if you just want to know how you can pray, please visit gospelunlife.com slash remembering.

This month's sermons were recorded in 1996 and 2009. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.