00:00:00.000 - 00:00:29.720

The following message for the moment is delivered by the Reverend Dr. Bruce Wheeler Thielman. Today's sermon is entitled "Good Old Vitamin P." Let us continue in worship by giving attention to the reading of God's Word as it is recorded in portions of the 15th and 16th chapters of 1st Corinthians. I begin

00:00:29.720 - 00:00:56.440

the reading in the 15th chapter at the 51st verse. "Lo, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must

00:00:56.440 - 00:01:25.820

put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must push on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory.' O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? The sting of

00:01:25.820 - 00:01:48.640

death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Now concerning the contribution for the

00:01:48.640 - 00:02:14.300

Saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper, so that contributions need not be made when I come. And when I arrive I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to

00:02:14.300 - 00:02:50.300

Jerusalem. If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me. And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his word written. Pray with me. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

00:02:50.300 - 00:03:21.180

The following story is true in every detail. Edward Spencer was a theological student at Garrett Theological Seminary on the campus of Northwestern University. On the night of September the 8th, 1860, he had retired early because of a test the next morning, but he was wakened by the shouts of his classmates.

00:03:21.180 - 00:03:49.180

It seems that two ships had run into each other on Lake Michigan just a few miles offshore from Winnetka. Now back in those days, in the period preceding and immediately following this particular accident, it was not unusual for such things to occur on the Great Lakes. In a 20-year period, 6,000 vessels sank into

00:03:49.180 - 00:04:16.620

the waters of Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes. But the crash between these two ships was particularly serious, because one was an excursion ship and the other was a lumber-carrying freighter, and there were more than 350 persons available on board these vessels. When Edward Spencer heard this, he got up,

00:04:16.620 - 00:04:43.420

dressed, and ran the three miles to Winnetka. It was a stormy night and very cold, and when he looked at the water he could tell immediately that there was a strong undertow. Most people were afraid to get into the water to try to swim out and rescue those who were perishing. But Edward Spencer had grown up in Rock

00:04:43.420 - 00:05:10.300

Island on the Mississippi River, and so he was a very strong swimmer. And so without any hesitation, he plunged into the icy water, and for six hours he swam back and forth between the shore and the sinking vessels. In the process, he was constantly being battered by the waves, and he also was seriously cut and

00:05:10.300 - 00:05:40.620

wounded by some of the debris floating in the water. He made 15 trips to those vessels three miles out and back again, and when dawn came, he sat down to rest beside a fire. But he had no sooner sat down than someone cried out, "There are two more alive!" And two more had been spotted floating on the wreckage. And so

00:05:40.620 - 00:06:17.780

immediately he jumped into the water, swam out, rescued those two, and brought them to the shore. In that terrible accident, 287 lives were lost. 98 were saved. Of those 98, 17 were saved by Edward Spencer. He never went on to become a minister of the gospel, because the wounds he sustained that night made

00:06:17.780 - 00:06:46.340

him an invalid for the rest of his life. Years later, when he was living in California, the Los Angeles Times sent a reporter to interview him, and one of the questions put by the reporter was this, "Is there any particular memory you have of this terrible disaster?" And Spencer did not hesitate for a moment, but

00:06:46.340 - 00:07:19.060

immediately replied, "Yes, there is one. Of the 17 people I saved, not one of them ever thanked me." Now that's hard to imagine, isn't it? Someone saves your life, and you do not say to them even a simple "Thank you." Yet we should understand that, we who are part of the Church of Jesus Christ, because there are those in the

00:07:19.060 - 00:07:49.380

Church who have been saved from death and from hell by the sacrificial self-offering of Jesus Christ as Lord. And some of these people have never really said "Thank you" to him. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, the 15th chapter, begins by discussing the sin of humankind. He then tells how Christ

00:07:49.380 - 00:08:10.860

came into the world to save us, how he was done to death, but how he was resurrected from the dead. And then Paul goes on to describe how Christ's resurrection has been one also for all those who believe. And he concludes his recitation of the theology of the faith when he says, "Thanks be to God who

00:08:10.860 - 00:08:39.020

giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." And then, assuming that all those who had received so much from God would want immediately to express their appreciation, assuming that in the face of this astonishing love, these persons would want to demonstrate their deep gratitude, Paul goes on and in his very

00:08:39.020 - 00:09:06.260

next sentence he says, "Now concerning the contributions." He thinks, you see, that people, when they remember what God in Christ has done for them, will want immediately to respond. And one of the ways in which they will respond is by means of their contributions. Paul goes on to give the pattern and the process

00:09:06.260 - 00:09:39.500

of Christian giving. He says, "On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper, so that no contributions need be made when I come." Now I take these words of Paul to be a handful, if you will, of spiritual vitamins. And all of the vitamins, each capsule is vitamin

00:09:39.500 - 00:10:13.900

P, good old vitamin P. First, Paul speaks about the priority of Christian giving. He says, "On the first day." God is not to receive leftovers. Rather, on the day of Christ's victory, on the day of his resurrection, on the day on which God gave to us the gift of eternal life, on the first day of the week, that which is

00:10:13.900 - 00:10:40.140

to be given to God is to be set aside. The Old Testament puts it this way, "Honor the Lord with your firstfruits." Now this is an essential of Christian giving, and you can easily understand why. If you have ever done any serious dieting, you know that it is imperative that you make out your store list before you go into

00:10:40.140 - 00:11:06.100

the supermarket, and that you buy only those things which you have listed. If you go into the market and simply roam up and down the aisles with your cart, you will be led to do a lot of impulse buying, wasteful buying, buying of things that you, being on your diet, should not have. Well, Paul says, "Before you can be

00:11:06.100 - 00:11:30.980

caught up in impulsive or wasteful misuse of that which is yours, that which is the Lord's is to be laid aside." Back when I was a teenager, I remember a missionary who had served many years in India telling me of one of his experiences. A woman who was in his church ran in one day and said that her

00:11:30.980 - 00:11:57.660

next-door neighbor, who had two sons, one of whom was very healthy and the other was very sickly, had told her that she was going to take her sons down to the Ganges River and offer one of them as a sacrifice to her vicious Hindu deity. As soon as the missionary heard this, he rushed as quickly as he could to the

00:11:57.660 - 00:12:25.420

place where he thought the woman would be. But when he got there, he was too late. She had already drowned the healthy little boy. And the missionary said to her, with the tears streaming down his face, "Why did you do it so quickly? And why did you offer the one who was healthy instead of the one who is so

00:12:25.420 - 00:13:02.060

sickly?" And she replied without a moment's hesitation, "All that I do for my God I do first, and I never offer him anything less than the best." Now if that woman could respond to her cruel pretender of deity in such a heartless way, how much more are Christians who have a God of love who tells us to be agents of love

00:13:02.060 - 00:13:36.060

in the world be willing to give to that God first because of all that he has given to them? Now the second vitamin P that Paul offers us is persistence in giving. He says on the first day of every week. You know, it's a rather strange thing, but when life gets tough, a lot of people suddenly become more religious.

00:13:36.060 - 00:14:05.260

You have heard the saying, "There are no atheists in foxholes." But what is stranger still is this, that when life gets tough and these people become more religious, the amount that they give to the ministry of God and God's people usually becomes less. In other words, as their praying increases, their giving

00:14:05.260 - 00:14:32.900

decreases. It's interesting to notice that in the New Testament, Jesus only commends two people for what they offer to the Lord. One is a widow who gives two small mites, the last two coins that she had, and the other is a woman of the streets who has only one real treasure, and that is a vase of rare oil which she

00:14:32.900 - 00:14:59.260

gives to Christ. In neither instance is Jesus commending these women because of the amounts which they have given. Rather, he is commending them for the fact that in spite of their circumstances, no matter what their circumstances, they were altogether persistent in their giving. This

00:14:59.260 - 00:15:19.700

incidentally is one of the reasons why we have a pledging process in our church. We do this really for two reasons. First of all, we need to know an idea of what will be coming into the church in order that we might understand how much we have to spend. But secondly, and more importantly, when a person has made a

00:15:19.700 - 00:15:45.540

pledge, a commitment, has set before themselves a goal, it is more likely that they will persist in trying to reach that goal. Now the church never sends a bill, the church never duns anyone, but the mere fact that they have set for themselves this mark will lead them, most often, to become more serious and

00:15:45.540 - 00:16:12.100

persistent in reaching it. It's always been a mystery to me how people are willing to sign pledges to pay for their automobile or to pay for their home or to pay for their new refrigerator, but they're unwilling to sign a pledge to the church. All of these first things will dun you to death as soon as you

00:16:12.100 - 00:16:39.580

slip behind in your payments, but from the church you will receive no such word. One gets the distinct impression that these people care less about their theology than they do about their Toyota. Shortly after the Battle of Bull Run in the Civil War, one of the commanding generals of the Southern Army sent a

00:16:39.580 - 00:17:00.660

letter back to his church. Now because communications were so poor in that day, everyone was very anxious to hear about this battle, especially from one who had been a commanding officer in it. So they gathered for the minister to read the letter, and when they had assembled, he opened the letter, took out a single

00:17:00.660 - 00:17:38.060

sheet of paper with a smaller piece of paper inside it, and read the following words. "Reverend sir, when I got to my tent last night I was ever so tired, but I suddenly remembered that I had not paid my pledge to our Sunday school. Please find my personal check enclosed. Respectfully yours, T.J. Jackson." T.J.

00:17:38.060 - 00:18:08.660

Jackson was, of course, Stonewall Jackson. Now Stonewall Jackson was known, insofar as military tactics are concerned, above all for his unstoppable persistence, and the same persistence which he practiced on the battlefield he practiced in his Christian giving. Persistence, you see, is what leads ultimately to victory. That's

00:18:08.660 - 00:18:39.260

the reason Paul says on the first day of every week. Now the third vitamin P pill that he hands to us is proportionality, for Paul says we are to give as he or she has been prospered. In other words, we are to give in terms of what we have received. The Bible does not attempt to set up any financial standard for giving.

00:18:39.260 - 00:19:05.220

If it were to set an amount, poor people might not be able to reach it, and that same amount might be no challenge at all to the rich. If it sets a very high amount, the rich could reach it, but the poor would not be able to come close to it at all. So the Bible, instead of setting an amount, establishes the

00:19:05.220 - 00:19:39.820

principle of proportionate giving. It says, "Every man shall give according to the blessing which the Lord has given to him." And what percentage does the Bible establish? It establishes the tithe, ten percent of one's net income. Jesus, referring to the tithe, said, "This ye ought to do," and then he goes on and says to

00:19:39.820 - 00:20:10.140

his disciples, "The scribes and the Pharisees tithe, and your righteousness should certainly exceed theirs. To whom much is given, he says, of such will much be expected." There's an old story of a very rich man who died and went to Heaven's Gate and was met there by some angels, and one of the angels said, "On

00:20:10.140 - 00:20:36.220

what basis should you be admitted?" And this very rich man said, "Well, I only joined the church a year ago, but I have given one dollar every week since I joined, and I gave ten dollars to the special Christmas offering, and then on one occasion I gave ten cents to a poor fellow who begged it off me on the

00:20:36.220 - 00:20:59.580

street, and there was another time when I gave a quarter so that a lady could buy a newspaper to hold it over herself to keep a little dry in the midst of a rainstorm." "Is that all?" said the angel, and the man said, "That's all." And the angels discussed among themselves as to whether this man should be admitted or

00:20:59.580 - 00:21:22.980

not, and one said, "I don't think we ought to let him in." And the other said, "Oh, I think we ought to give him a break." And the first one said, "No, I don't believe that we should let him in." And the second one said, "Well, if you don't let him in, what are you going to do?" And the first angel responded without a moment's

00:21:22.980 - 00:21:59.500

hesitation, "Well, I'll give him back his sixty-two dollars and thirty-five cents and tell him to go to hell." The principle of proportionate giving is the expression measured in terms of the love that one has for God. To ignore that principle is to fall short of what that love is intended to be. Now the last pill

00:21:59.500 - 00:22:27.860

that Paul hands us, the last vitamin P, is practicality. He says this is to be done so that no special offering need be taken when I come. You see, if people tithe, and if they do it persistently, that is, regularly, then there will be no need for additional special offerings. It might interest you to know that the

00:22:27.860 - 00:22:57.700

average giving of a member of this congregation, rather than being the tithe of ten percent, is just a little over two percent. It might also interest you to know that of the 833 people who made pledges to the work of this church in this year, 271 have yet to give anything at all. Now this forces upon the church

00:22:57.700 - 00:23:19.860

some very hard decisions. Which missionaries are you going to stop supporting? Are you going to say no to Pittsburgh Seminary, which is establishing a program to minister to the poor of the city, a city that is now talking about building another 100 million dollar baseball stadium? Do you

00:23:19.860 - 00:23:43.660

say no to the opportunity which has been given to us to bring another Christian television channel into Pittsburgh and all of the surrounding communities? Which rooms do you decide to leave dirty because you have to let one of your custodians go? And which do you choose to do, allow the roof to leak or the windows

00:23:43.660 - 00:24:12.780

to sag or the fire escape to remain unbuilt or the pointing on the outside of the building to continue to deteriorate? Those are painful questions. I remember once in Atlanta, Georgia, seeing a bus and on the side of the bus was a sign that said, "Ride a $200,000 bus for 80 cents." Well this is a

00:24:12.780 - 00:24:42.220

multi-million dollar structure. The windows alone in this room constitute the largest collection of Tiffany church glass anywhere in the world. This church has been called the Stradivarius of churches. But are we to let it fall into rot and into ruin because we do not have those who give as the Lord requires of

00:24:42.220 - 00:25:15.620

them? Oh, you may think that you would know exactly where to make cuts, but I would ask you to consider this. Would the person sitting behind you choose to make the same cuts that you have chosen? You see, it's not easy to make cuts when you know that the church is the only hope of the sinful and those sick of life and

00:25:15.620 - 00:25:53.380

those who are suffering and those who are lonely and separated. So Paul, when he hands out his vitamin capsules of vitamin P, says the first P is priority and the second P is persistence and the third P is proportionality and the fourth one is practicality. There were four people riding together in a single

00:25:53.380 - 00:26:23.580

compartment on a railroad train. A very dignified and proper older lady, a beautiful young girl, bright and perky, a colonel in the army in full military uniform, and a private in the army in full uniform. The train went into a tunnel and in the darkness there was heard the sound of a kiss and

00:26:23.580 - 00:26:54.140

immediately following the kiss the sound of a sharp smack. And when the train hurtled out into the light, the colonel was sprawled back in his corner of the compartment with an ugly red welt on the side of his face. The older lady thought to herself, "It is good to see this young girl repel this attack upon her honor."

00:26:54.140 - 00:27:20.060

The young girl thought to herself, "Now why would he have kissed that older lady when he could have kissed me?" The colonel thought to himself, "Surely that girl must know that the dignity of my rank would prohibit me doing such a thing as kissing in the dark." It was obviously this private who kissed her. And the

00:27:20.060 - 00:27:52.220

private thought to himself, "What a wonderful world it is when you can kiss the back of your own hand and then punch a colonel in the eye." Each one was thinking a different thing and no one knew what the other was thinking. I don't know what you're thinking this morning, but I can hope. I hope that you are

00:27:52.220 - 00:28:26.380

thinking about the love of God. I hope that you are thinking about how your love should show itself in giving. Not grudging giving, but generous giving. Giving to God first, giving to God regularly, giving to God the tithe, and giving to God that tithe to meet all the needs of the Church. For the Church

00:28:26.380 - 00:29:10.340

belongs to that one who gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever liveth and believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And to him be the honor and glory forever and forever. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, grant by the ministry of thy Holy Spirit within our hearts that we might

00:29:10.340 - 00:29:45.020

be spiritual givers. For Jesus' sake, for the world's sake, and for our own sake. Amen. [Music] [Music]

00:29:45.020 - 00:30:37.020

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

00:30:37.020 - 00:30:46.720

[Music] for all.