Well, as we've already reflected in many, many different ways in our service so far this morning, this is Epiphany, the day on which we remember the coming of the Magi to worship the infant Christ. We know that account that they saw the star in the east, they examined the prophecies that they were given, they took a long, lengthy journey that went over a period of time. They finally arrived in Bethlehem. Jesus and his parents are now in a house, no longer in the manger, but in a house. And it tells us in Matthew 2, verse 11, that in going into the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. The Magi open their treasures and offer gifts to Jesus. This is an act of true worship. It's true worship, first of all, because it's costly worship. These gifts and the effort it takes to bring them to Jesus is costly. It requires time, travel, and treasure. These are some of the most valuable commodities in the known world at this time. And after their lengthy journey, the Magi arrive in Bethlehem. They're led by the star to that house where Jesus and his parents are now residing. And as they open and as they present their gifts, the Magi bring true worship to Jesus, not just because of the costly gifts. Their offering is true worship because of the attitude with which their gifts are offered. The Magi's gifts come from the overflow of adoring, grateful hearts. Notice how Matthew describes it in the text. He says they fell down and worshipped him. This posture, their posture in worship, is one of the extraordinary and extreme examples of the attitude of reverence in worship. The word that Matthew chooses to use here becomes the New Testament's primary word for worship, which literally means to fall down on one's face and to kiss someone's feet. That becomes the dynamic, the picture of worship that will now pervade the entire New Testament. The magi, this posture of humility and submission, this posture of worship. There is a posture that graphically acknowledges their understanding and their belief that they are in the presence of someone who is so much greater than they are. The attitude reflected by their posture in worship is something we all should take a clue from, really, in both our private worship and in our shared worship as we gather here from week to week. To come here together, to bow down before Jesus, literally to kiss his feet. and to offer him an expression of praise and worship and adoration. You see, the Magi's gifts come from their hearts, and their gifts are not something that gets sort of added on to their worship. No, their gifts are really the centerpiece of their worship. They're not just tacked on. It's not just like, oh, oh, by the way, I brought you a little something, or here's a little hostess gift for you, you know? No, no, no. The gifts that they bring are really the climax of their worship. The gifts they have are the ultimate expression of their hearts before Jesus. The Magi's gifts reflect the realization that the one whom they worship is a king, a ruler, a monarch, gold, Frankincense and myrrh, they are among the most valuable gifts in the known world at this time. Even more, of course, than the costly gifts that they are, they're royal gifts. These are gifts you bring to a king. Gold in itself is an indication of royalty. They know they are in the presence of an infant king. Frankincense is also a very highly valuable, rare commodity. It is an incense which, throughout the Old Testament, God commands His priests to mix into a number of the sacrifices that He commands from them. And the frankincense that's brought to Jesus represents His sinless purity. And then there's the myrrh. It's an anointing spice. It's like a perfume. Myrrh's most common use, and we sang about it in the song at the beginning of the service, is to be used in preparing a body for burial. Myrrh was placed on the grave clothes that were used to wrap a dead body and thus overpower the smell of decay. There's some foreshadowing here, obviously, some foreshadowing. This is kind of like bringing a coffin to a baby shower. You know, it's a reminder that even in Jesus' infancy, this baby is born to die. He has come to die. The Magi's worship involves sacrifice. It's not only the investment in the gifts themselves, as we said, but it's also the sacrifice of time and of travel and ultimately their diligence to do the one thing that all men in every generation most dread doing, which is stopping to ask for directions. The Magi, they sacrifice in bringing their gifts. The gifts come from their hearts. It's not an addition. It's not a tack-on. It's the centerpiece of worship. And it is meant to declare. It is meant to give an expression of proclamation. This is an infant king. Now ultimately, I want you to think with me, where do these gifts come from? Not just that they came from the East, but consider this, in offering these gifts to Jesus, the Magi are not actually giving Jesus anything that he doesn't already own. Jesus created these gifts. Jesus already owns these gifts. And yet, Jesus chooses to entrust these men with these gifts, so that they will have the joy of offering themselves back to Christ. From a human standpoint, yes, of course, the sacrifices of time and travel and treasure are indeed sacrificial, but they don't actually add anything to Christ. These gifts do not provide Jesus with something that He is lacking. These gifts do not offer Jesus any assistance. These gifts do not meet Jesus' needs. These gifts do not complete anything in Christ that is incomplete. Though as some speculate, the gifts may have been used by Mary and Joseph to finance their upcoming and unexpected trip with their infant son to Egypt, the gifts in and of themselves do not add anything to Christ. As John Piper puts it in such a brief way, he says, it's not as if these foreign visitors come with care packages. What is it about these gifts? What is it that we should be seeking to imitate from their giving? Because I believe what's true about the Magi's gifts should also be true of our giving as well. Whether you give of your time, Your talent, your treasure, your giving must be seen not as an add-on, not as something that gets tacked on to your worship. No, giving is the centerpiece of our worship. When we give Jesus the worship that He is due, when we offer ourselves to Him, when we bring Him our gifts, we are showcasing and we're shouting out to the world the authority and the dignity and the majesty that already belong to Jesus Christ. Our giving doesn't add. anything to Jesus. Our giving doesn't enlarge Jesus. In giving, we don't make up for anything that is incomplete in Jesus. No, Acts 17, 25 tells us so well, God is not served by human hands as though He needed anything. In fact, when we stop and we think about it and we look back into the Bible and we see what the Bible has to say to us about giving, we find that offering God any expression of our love and our worship, it's a matter of the action and the attitude of our heart, but that actually comes to us from the heart of God. The heart of God has to move in us so that our hearts will move and turn to give to Him. And so we see that giving to God in any form is first and foremost, it is an act of God's grace. Giving to God and giving to God's work is something that God has to equip and to empower us for. 2 Corinthians 9, verses 6 through 8 tell us, each one must give as he has decided in his heart. not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that, having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work." You see, right in the center of that, it says, God is able to make all grace abound to you so that you can give. Giving is an act of grace. So why? Why does God give us that grace? What's the point of all that? Why does God give us that kind of grace so that we have something driving us inside to give back to Him? Well, God gives us the grace So that we can mirror, again, what the Magi show us. They come and express their worship through giving, which is a reflection of the joy they have. Our giving is a reflection of the joy we have in partnering with God. The joy we have in bringing God glory. The joy we have in engaging in Kingdom work. The joy we have in manifesting Kingdom priorities. Giving to God in any form is a way of intensifying our joy by actually increasing our desire for Christ himself. Do you want true, lasting joy in your life? Do you want it? Oh, I just see a lot of frowns now. Hey, let me try this again. Do you want true, lasting joy in your life? Oh, good. If not, we could just stop right there. All right, yeah, well, if you do, learn to give. Learn to give. Seek the gift of giving. Because when we learn to give God's way, we're telling Him, God, You are my true joy. My true joy does not come from a hope or a desire to get rich with the things that You give me. No, my true joy is You, Yourself. By giving myself to You, by offering up things that I may hold dear, I intensify and I demonstrate my hope. and my desire to enjoy you even more. I give to you because I want to gain more of you. You are my true treasure, God, not the things that you give me. I bring tangible treasures. I bring material goods to you, Jesus, as simply as a means of offering my full self to you. So let's begin in this new year by thinking about this gift of giving. Since God has so uniquely wired us to experience His joy and to offer Him ourselves through the gifts of our time, our talent, and treasure, we want to look at what does this kind of giving actually look like? What does this kind of giving imply? What does this kind of giving require of us? As we've already done here this morning, as we do on every Lord's Day, we come to a certain point in our worship service and we indicate that we're going to continue to express our worship and our adoration and our thanks to God by receiving an offering. And we say that we're going to continue in worship by doing that. Our gifts and our giving, our offering, collecting them together and then presenting them to the Lord, it's not, first of all, a mechanical action on our part. Our giving is not some kind of an interruption or an intermission within our service. It's not a distraction that takes place somewhere in the middle of the service. Receiving an offering, it's not an excuse for someone to sing or play a beautiful song, although it's wonderful that we can continue to worship God both through that music and through the giving. Receiving a gift, sometimes I'm afraid we may think is something we have to just sit through and endure so the church can gather the funds it needs in order to pay its bills. Perhaps we might think, kind of a necessary evil. It's a piece of business that we just have to get through so we can get back to our regularly scheduled worship service. But no, no, no, nothing could be further from the truth. Giving our gifts is an act of worship that is every bit as vital as singing and praying and listening to and responding to the Word of God. It is a vital, vital part of our worship. So what is the attitude and what is the spirit with which we are called to present our gifts to God? And in asking that question, the question is not if we should give, but how we should give. What is our attitude toward giving? Giving is a normal part of the Christian life. We must begin to see it that way. Giving is something that we should do with great joy, rather than being rote or mechanical or programmed and predictable, the way that you give your gifts and the heart attitude with which you present them to the Lord really should mirror the same devotion and humility and adoration that the magi express as they bow before the infant Christ. The New Testament has so much to say about how we give, and the attitude that prompts such giving. And I know this may be very unfamiliar territory for many of you, but the New Testament has a great deal to tell us about giving. And it gives us sort of an overarching picture or a pattern of what we are to do and how we are to proceed when it comes to giving. And I want to just lay out here that these are not my own ideas. They're not things I've cooked up. These are things that come right from scripture. And if you want to follow through with this in the notes, I give you the references so you can look at it in a little more detail later on your own at home. But we should just understand there is a New Testament picture and pattern to the way that we are to give to the Lord and give to His work. First of all, when we give, we give to God. Maybe that seems a little too obvious, but it's important to state that right up front. All of our giving should be towards the Lord. Everything we give should be directed toward God. Philippians 4.18 Paul writes, I have received full payment and more. I'm well supplied having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God." So the Philippians knew Paul had some needs. They knew that he needed money to not only survive and keep going in his ministry, but he needed some money in the local situation. They took an offering, they sent it to Paul. Paul was very grateful for the offering, but above all that he says, I know this is a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. You gave this gift to God. And yes, our giving is a way to support a budget that covers our operating expenses, it pays staff, it partners with missionaries, it funds outreach efforts, but ultimately everything we give, we give to God. Our giving is to God. Secondly, give liberally. Well now there's a word to take home. I'm telling you to be liberal. No. No, give liberally. Don't get this wrong now. We could have a lot of controversy. Give liberally. And the Macedonian believers in 2 Corinthians, they are such an amazing, a fantastic example of what this means to give liberally. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8, verse 2, that even though these Corinthians were in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. They are in extreme poverty, and yet Paul is commending them because they have overflowed with generosity. Even though they are described as being so extremely poor, the Macedonians' gift, their giving was liberal, their wealth of generosity is once again due to the grace of God that's unleashed inside of them. No matter what your situation is, no matter where you are, you're never too poor to give. You're never too poor to give something, time, talent, treasure, whatever that would be. And you're never too young, as we were telling the children. And parents, I would just underscore for you that you would be doing your children a disservice if you weren't teaching them to establish these patterns of giving in their childhood and in their young adulthood, in their teen years. Because this is something that needs to be built into the fabric, the normal fabric of the Christian life. So we give to God. We give liberally, and then we also are to give sacrificially. New Testament believers, throughout the New Testament, we see they give sacrificially. Again, in 2 Corinthians, it says, they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means. So these Corinthians, again, Paul is thanking God for them. He is commending them for giving beyond their means. And they gave with their own accord. begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. And this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then, by the will of God, to us. The idea of giving sacrificially applies to every social class. And it does not mean that every person is enabled to give an equal dollar amount as someone else, but a faithful follower of Jesus Christ will give sacrificially. Christ's evaluation of our giving is not based on the dollar amount. It is based on what we're working with, our available resources. And what may be an appropriate amount for one person may not be at all appropriate for someone else. But it all is determined by where is that level? Where is that level of sacrifice in our giving? Give voluntarily is another principle, 2 Corinthians 9, 7. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly, not under compulsion. So we notice again with these Corinthians, they seem to be a big model for us in all this. The Macedonians in the verse we read in chapter 8, they were commended for giving of their own accord or in the NIV, they were giving entirely on their own. They came to this because God was working in their heart. Jesus followers don't need a gun held to their head in order for them to give to the Lord's work. Really, no one should ever need to shoot the lock off your wallet, to quote one of our one of our members. No one should ever really need to shoot the lock off your wallet so that you can give. You should give voluntarily. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart. Not reluctantly. Not under compulsion. No arm twisting. Give enthusiastically. I've got to think about that for a minute. That may sound a little odd at first. Maybe that seems like a stretch because we just finished talking about giving sacrificially a minute ago. And we said the New Testament commends that kind of sacrificial giving. And in the most cases, people don't really get overly enthused about having to sacrifice. But back in 2 Corinthians 8, 4, the Apostle Paul calls us to emulate the Macedonians' enthusiasm in giving. He says, they were begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. Now, I have to be honest. Come beginning next month, I'll have been in full-time ministry 38 years, served five different churches. I don't remember anyone ever coming up and begging to give. Please, please take my money. I beg you, take it. No, it's just never happened. I don't see people when the ushers come around like, hey, hey, take my money. No, but it says here they were begging. They were begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. These New Testament believers saw financial help as a way to participate, literally to fellowship in the ministry of God's work. They couldn't hold themselves back from wanting to be part of what God was doing. So, something to think about later today, how do you rate your own level of enthusiasm when it comes to sacrificial giving. Again, 2 Corinthians 9-7, each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly. or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." That's a great word, a cheerful giver. The actual meaning of the Greek underneath that is a hilarious giver. I don't think we should all burst out laughing when we have the offering, but the idea of a hilarious giver is it just bubbles up inside of you, the joy that comes from being able to participate in the Lord's work in this way. God loves that. God loves a cheerful giver. Another part of the New Testament pattern of giving. Give according to a plan. Give according to a plan. Christian giving calls for a more than a what's in your wallet kind of approach. Seen those commercials? What's in your wallet? It isn't really when we come together to like, oh well, I got two 20s and a five. I'll throw in the five. No, looking at 2 Corinthians 9, 7 again, it's evident that some planning is involved in New Testament giving. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart. There's a time to sit down, to take stock, to make a plan. Hopefully you have a budget, and that's all part of the budget. Have a plan and then also give systematically. These two things go hand in hand really. Giving Systematically though. It's obviously quite distinct from giving every once in a while giving log it when I feel like it I'll get when I have a few extra dollars no giving giving Systematically second. I'm sorry first Corinthians 16 to it says on the first day of the week Paul is telling the Corinthians again on the first day of the week each one of you is to put aside something and store it up as he may prosper so that when I come I There'll be no collecting necessary. We'll have the money all gathered together and we can just take it and distribute it as needed. So have a plan. Give systematically. And give proportionally. That's another implication of 1 Corinthians 16 too, which we just read a minute ago, that our giving needs to be in alignment with our personal prosperity. Paul says each one of us should give as he may prosper, in keeping with your income. Now, that seems to support the idea of giving some sort of percentage of your income. That's not a legalistic requirement of the New Testament. In the Old Testament, a tithe is really a requirement, and it seems like a tithe, 10%, may be sort of an entry-level place, but that may not be really doable or possible for everyone. But the idea of making a commitment to yourself and the Lord of a percentage of your income seems to support this idea of giving according to your income. The appropriate amount for you may not be at all what an appropriate amount for someone else might be. I mean, you may give 9%, the person next to you may give 90%, and the person giving 90% may be not sacrificing in quite the same way. So that's between you and God, but it's something to think about, it's something to pray about. We should give according to the way the Lord prospers us and to what constitutes a level of sacrifice in our lives. And then finally, we should give to what lasts. Give to what lasts. There's a timeless instruction of Jesus. It's so relevant. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, Matthew 6, 19 through 21, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Such a link. Such a link between the affections and the attitudes of our hearts and this ministry of giving, this participating with the Lord, this laying up of treasure in heaven, the idea of sending it ahead. You know, the old cliche, you never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul. Of course, that's true. But you can send it ahead. You can send it on ahead. It kind of reminds me of a short anecdote about A man who desired to be, he had vast riches and he desired to be buried with them so he'd have them in the next life. That was his little warped theology there. So they did all the things you usually do at the funeral home and they had the viewing and the casket and all these bundles of money were in the casket. And then at the end when the people are filing out, the wife goes up and she starts unloading all that out of the And they're like, no, no, you can't go to his request. She says, no, I'm going to write a check. No. You should send it on ahead. You can't take it with you. Send it on ahead. Now, I think it's a real blessing. Our ministry, what the Lord has enabled us to do over the years in Pomfret, you are very generous people. By and large, very, very generous. I mean, the little moniker, that little phrase, the little church with the big heart, I think it fits so well. And you always have stepped up when the need is there. You'll see in today's. that we ended last year with giving that was significantly behind our budget. And again, we don't give to the budget per se, and the Lord has helped us, enabled us to pay our expenses, meet our bills, so that's not the main issue. But the main issue is this is a spiritual matter. It's not a mechanical matter. It's not a matter of going through some motions. No, it's a heart. It's a hard issue. And insofar as we want to partner with the Lord, and insofar as we want to experience His joy, insofar as we want to express that joy beyond the borders of these beautiful walls that He has put up to replace that old building, it has to come from the heart. It has to be all these things. Give to God. Give liberally. Give sacrificially. Give voluntarily. Give enthusiastically. Give according to a plan. Give systematically. give proportionally, and give to what lasts. Let's pray together. Lord God, Heavenly Father, You are the giver of every good gift, and we recognize that. We celebrate that week by week. We thank You for that. And we pray that you would continue to conform us to the image you have for us in Christ, that we would model this kind of pattern in our giving, and that our heart's desire would be to partner with you for joy. Not, Lord, to pat ourselves on the back or to feel comfortable in any way, but that we just would want to see Your joy continue to expand within us and expand through us. Help us, Lord, to step forward as a congregation in this whole matter. At every stage, at every age. Children, teens, young adults, adults, seniors. Lord, we lay that with You. We pray as we move forward to the table. Lord, that we would remember afresh and anew that Your greatest gift has been expressed to us by what is represented there, the gift of Christ, His sacrifice, His life, and His death. In Jesus' name, amen.