Let me challenge you with a riddle. Three guys walk into a hotel to get a room they are going to share. The clerk charges them $300, so they each plunk down a $100 bill and go upstairs with the bellman. When the bellman comes back, the clerk says he made a mistake and that the room was only $270, so he gives the clerk a $50 bill and says go work it out. Well, the bellman knows they can’t split a $50, so he exchanges it for 5 10’s. He decides to pocket two of them for a tip knowing the men would never be the wiser, and then he gives one ten each to the three men. However, here’s the problem: It sounds fine, but the numbers don’t work. Each man put in $100, but with the returned $10, how much have they paid? $90. 90 x 3 is 270. The bellman has 20 which adds up to 290. Where’s the other 10?
It all seems logical. It ought to work. The money is all there, but in this case, the numbers don’t add up. The numbers don’t work. And that bothers us, doesn’t it? We don’t do well when the numbers don’t work. Right now, you are probably scratching your heads. It makes us feel insecure or unsure. We get reluctant to move or act if we don’t feel the numbers work, and that has everything to do with God’s call upon our lives to give and the reason we often don’t. We just can’t make the numbers work.
It is that same confusion I experience when reading Acts 20:32-38. It is Paul’s farewell speech to the Ephesian elders at Miletus. They are parting and, most likely, will never see each other again so you can imagine the poignancy of the moment. It is very emotional. They weep. They embrace. They kiss. It is a rare scene, indeed. However, in this final discourse, this moment when he is sharing the very last words he will ever speak with these leaders, he recalls the words of Jesus, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” He says, “My example among you was that I did not covet what you had -- I did not take from you – but instead I gave.” Why does Paul say that in such a moment? Why does Paul go there? Clearly, he says it because he knows it is one of the most critical things Jesus said, and in the Economy of God, that’s how the numbers work. It is more blessed to give than to receive.
The word there for “blessed” is a word commonly used in Scripture that means “blessed or happy.” In other words, you are going to feel better, have more, experience more contentment and satisfaction when you give than when you receive. That makes no sense. Why? It makes no sense because the numbers don’t work within the parameters of this world’s economy, which is typically the system we are operating in.
Normally, in our world, 1 – 1 = 0. If you have something and you give it away, you are left with nothing. However, in the Economy of God, it does not work that way. In God’s economy, Jesus says 1 -1 = >1. If we have something and we give it away, the result is NOT that we are left with nothing, but we will always have more than we had to begin with. We are blessed more by giving than receiving.
God reminds us of this constantly in Scripture. Psalm 112:5, “Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice.” Proverbs 19:17, “He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will reward him for what he has done.” Luke 6:35, “Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. THEN your reward will be great…” You do what God says – you give away what He has given to you in a faithful manner – and you get back more than that.
Now, does that mean you are going to get back more money? Not necessarily. However, you will get back MORE. Remember: the Economy of God forces you to define true wealth. When you live in God’s economy, you are going to receive things of far greater value than anything you could experience in this earthly realm.
So, what’s our problem? That sounds so good, why aren’t we doing this? Well, the reason is I’m not sure we actually believe it. We can’t launch out and live into this because in the back of our heads the numbers still don’t work. We are stuck at 1-1=0. So, how do we move forward? If this is where we are and we see the possibility but can’t get around the numbers, then what do we do?
First, in order to live into to this new Economy, you have to have the courage to attempt it. It is one of those things that is hard to believe until you experience it. There is an old axiom that goes, “Progress, without the benefit of prior experience, is, for the most part, unbelievable.” If I went over to the interior of Africa and found a young man who had never ventured outside his village and then showed him an airplane and said, “That huge thing is going to fly in the sky like a bird”, he would never believe me. Why? He has no experience that would point in that direction. He has no frame of reference, and when it comes to our economic understandings, neither do we. We have never actually given God’s economy a shot, so we dismiss it. We can’t make the numbers work, so we dismiss it.
Second, the numbers in the Economy of God work because our faithful use of God’s resources leads naturally to greater intimacy with Him. I know this may sound counterintuitive, but I often come across people who talk about feeling “distant” from God or that their walk with the Lord has stalled in some way. When I do, a question I always ask is, “How is your giving?” You will find that when you invest what God gives you in alignment with His will – in other words, when you ask the owner and do what He says – you start experiencing a oneness with God that is unique. When you partner with God in Kingdom things, there is an intimacy and a sweetness about it that deepens your faith and inspires your growth. When you put your treasure in Kingdom places, the world can’t take it away, which is why the numbers work. You never lost on that investment. However, by doing that, you are also putting your heart closer to the Lord. Your treasure is in heaven – that’s your focus – and that’s God’s dwelling place. It cannot help but create deeper intimacy and a more meaningful faith in God.
Third, the numbers work in the Economy of God because when you live accordingly, you develop Christ-like character. God has said to us that his desire for us is that we become more and more like Christ. How do you become like Christ? You become like Christ when you live as He did – sacrificially, selflessly and humbly. How do we do that? By giving. And if becoming like Christ is the great desire of our God – the reason for which He put us on this planet -- then that character development is more significant – more valuable – than any monetary thing we might gain for ourselves by living otherwise. Such choices do not make sense according to the numbers of the world, but the numbers work in the Economy of God.
Martin Luther once said that every believer goes through three stages of conversion: First is the heart. We feel in our heart the love of God and we respond. The head is generally second. The last part of our conversion is the will - or the wallet in this case. In other words, the last part of our conversion is allowing what we know in our head and our heart to actually change the self-centered will of our soul such that we begin to give - to be the generous, caring people that God desires for us to be.
One of my favorite stories is from a book called The Signature of Jesus. He tells of a group of businessmen who were running late to catch their train after a meeting in New York. They wanted to get home to their families and in their rush to get to the terminal, one of the men kicked over a slender table on which rested a basket of apples. A ten-year-old boy had been standing there selling apples to pay for his school books and clothes. The five made it to their train, but the one who had hit the table felt a twinge of compassion - and guilt - over the boy whose table he had turned over. With that, he told his friends to call his wife and tell her that he would be late. He got off the train and when he made it back to the spot, there was the boy, on hands and knees, feeling around for all the apples that had been spilled. The boy was blind. The man began to help the boy collect the apples and in doing so, noticed that some were now split or bruised. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a twenty dollar bill and said to the boy, “Here’s twenty dollars for the apples I damaged. I hope I didn’t ruin your day. God bless you.” As the salesman turned to get the next train, the blind boy called after him, saying, “Hey, Mister, are you Jesus?”
And the reality is, in the Kingdom of God, we are. The grace of Jesus has been given to us - and when we get the grander vision of that blessing - we have the privilege of being Jesus, incarnate, to others - to lift up His church - to take care of His kids - to reach out to the orphan and the widow and the alien - to be Jesus. And no, for all those who watch you do this, the numbers won’t work. But in the Economy of God, they always do. It’s a different kind of math. It’s more blessed to give than to receive.
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