Help with Being Holy: The Means of Grace — Financial Giving

Acts
Written By Steve Estes

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Acts 20:33-35
September 18, 2022

Acts 20:33-35: “I have not coveted anyone's silver or gold or clothing. You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

Sermon Outline

1. The Old Testament background

  • The "regular tithe"

  • The poor tithe

  • Leaving gleanings for the poor

2. Is the tithe for today?

  • How important is giving?

  • What is necessary in order to be able to give? Work

3. How giving helps with sanctification

  • Giving gives joy... and joy helps with holiness

  • Giving weans you from this world and gives you focus on the next

4. Two final thoughts

  • Earning money is not wrong

  • The least likely people should give

Steve Estes

Steve Estes has been senior pastor at Brick Lane Community Church in Elverson, Pennsylvania, for over thirty-five years. 

Steve’s books and other writings began with his longtime friendship with Joni Eareckson Tada. As teenagers, they grappled with why God allowed Joni’s paralysis in a swimming accident in the Chesapeake Bay. Steve left for college . . . they kept in touch . . . she liked the style of his letters. When her 1976 autobiography Joni spawned thousands of reader responses, she asked Steve to join her in crafting a follow-up. The result was A Step Further in 1978.

Later, Wycliffe Bible Translators commissioned Steve to write the biography of former college friend Chet Bitterman, a Wycliffe linguist who was kidnapped and murdered by political terrorists in Colombia in 1981. Other books and articles followed, including When God Weeps (with Joni) and A Better December (a giveaway book for non-Christian friends at Christmas.)

Steve was educated at Westminster Theological Seminary, Columbia Bible College and Jerusalem University College in Israel. He has taught homiletics at Westminster and is a board member of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation.

But Steve would say his most significant life achievement was persuading college classmate Verna Stoltzfus to marry him in 1974.  They now have eight children and more grandchildren than can fit in a van.

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Help with Being Holy: The Means of Grace — Prayer