Give What You Have!

Acts 3:6: "Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee;
In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk."

Peter said to the cripple at the gate Beautiful: "Such as I have give I."
What a motto to live by!
What I have I give!

This seems to be the attitude of the early Christians on all occasions.
They gave their witness at every opportunity.
Without any appeal or every-member canvass, they sold their possessions and brought
the money to give it to the Lord and to their brethren.
Whenever need arose, they were ready to give their service.
Many of them finally gave their life for his faith.

Peter prefaced his statement by saying, "Silver and gold have I none."
Judas, of course, could not have said this.
He had money.
He was the treasurer of the disciples' band, and John tells us that he had become a thief.
For thirty pieces of silver he had sold his Lord and his own soul.
He could not say, "Silver and gold have I none."
Neither did he say, "What I have I give."
His motto was: "What I can, I get."
There seems to be far more people living by the motto of Judas than by the motto of Simon Peter.

The man who addressed the cripple was on his way to a prayer meeting.
He who truly worships truly develops a spirit of giving.
Charitable causes depend very largely upon active church people for their support.
In a sense Peter expressed an inescapable law of life.
We cannot give what we do not have, and we cannot avoid giving what we do have.
This applies to material possessions.

Upon reading of large gifts given by a millionaire to religious and charitable causes,
a man said, "How I wish I had a million dollars that I might do great things
for my fellowman, too."
The treasurer of his church, who happened to be listening, said nothing.
He knew that this man who had a comfortable income, gave very little to anything.
Our generosity is expressed not by what we would do if we had more,
but by what we do with what we have.

However, we do give of our means, if not to the church, then to others.
What we give our money for indicates what our real interest is.
For some, life's prime objective is to leave a large estate, and they leave it.
The same law applies to spiritual qualities.
What we have we give.

If we have faith, others will be moved to believe.
If we have an optimistic spirit, we share it.
If we have love for Christ, others will be influenced to love him, too.

But if we have bitterness or doubts or sin in our lives, someone else will be contaminated.
We cannot give what we do not have, but we cannot keep from giving what we do have.

A man who was a heavy drinker and gambler came to his pastor and said,
"I have two fine boys. I do not want them to be what I am. I want them to be like you
and your deacons. Won't you do me the favor of taking up as much time as you can with my boys?"
The pity was, however, that the older boy was already beginning to walk in his father's footsteps.
What the father had, he was giving.

Peter told the beggar, "Look on us."
We do not have to tell people to do that.
They will look, and they will take in what they see.
If, then, we would give to the world something noble and fine, we must have noble
and fine characteristics within ourselves.
That which we give unconsciously is our most precious contribution.

In another sense giving is the secret of all truly great living.
The world is full of people who live to get what they can, but the great souls are those who live to give.

Marie and Pierre Curie, distinguished scientists, were the first to isolate radium,
which was a great boon to mankind.
They were quite poor and had very inadequate equipment with which to work.
When success crowned their efforts, they were offered large sums of money
by various commercial enterprises for the exclusive privilege of exploiting their discovery.
They considered the matter seriously and reached the decision that it would be contrary
to the scientific spirit for them to conceal their discoveries from the world and give one
concern the privilege of exploiting them.
The world needed what they had found, and the world should have it.
So they published freely all of the results of their experiments.
They were great scientists, but they were greater persons.
Their concern was to give to mankind what they could and not to get for themselves all they could.

George Washington Carver was a great physicist.
His discoveries for the use of peanuts, sweet potatoes, and clay have been
of inestimable value for the South.
He was also a deeply devoted Christian.
For many years he taught a Bible class of young men.
For him, scientific investigation and religious faith were closely related.
He approached his experiments in a spirit of prayer and felt that success was God's gift
in answer to his prayer.

Therefore, he refused to sell his discoveries.
He lived on the meager salary of a faculty member of Tuskegee Institute, making no effort
to profit by the discoveries and refusing money offered to him for them.
His one aim was to improve the lot of his race, not merely the colored race, but the human race.
Dr. Carver was a great scientist, but he was a great person. He lived to give.

The kind of greatness possessed by Carver and the Curies does not always bring fame.
Many a quiet little mother, a modest school teacher, an old family physician, or a humble minister
of the gospel has shared the same spirit.
But however obscure the life, the extent to which it is lived to give is the measure of its greatness.

Albert Schweitzer was one of the world's great organists, a distinguished theologian,
and a well-trained physician.
But his true greatness was seen only when he left everything behind to go to Lambarene,
the neediest spot he could find in the world, to give himself in service for his fellowman.

Getting in itself is not wrong.
We can give only what we have.
But there is all the difference in the world between the man who gives only a little
in the hope of getting a lot more, and the man whose only motive for getting is that he may have to give.

Life can be transformed for one who comes into contact with a person such as Simon Peter.
The beggar at the gate called, Beautiful, doubtless had not thought that his life would be
greatly changed that day.
His hope was to collect a few pennies to keep body and soul together.
Surely, he felt himself to be less fortunate and less happy than the people around him.

His body was incapable of leaping, and his soul had nothing about which to leap.
But there came his way that day a man who had something more precious than money
and whose one desire was to share what he had.
Peter lifted the man up, and together they went into the temple.
There was a new song on the lips, a new spring in the legs, and a new joy in the heart
of the man who had been a beggar.

A quiet little man who had served as pastor of a country church for more than fifty years died.
At the funeral service a young minister said concerning his old pastor:
"Having known this man, I have more faith in God and more faith in humanity.
I know God is real, for he walked with him.
And I know human nature can be refined by God's grace, for he was like Jesus."
Fortunate is he whose life has been profoundly influenced by a great soul who has learned to give.
The true meaning of Christian living is found in Jesus, who Himself lived only to give.
He came, not to be ministered to, but to minister, and to give His life.
Calvary was the ultimate expression of this life purpose.
He gave His all.
We are His true disciples as we share this spirit.

A minister asked a businessman for help on a worthy project.
The man complained, "Apparently all there is to Christianity is give, give, give."
The minister replied, "I want to thank you for the best description of Christianity
I have ever heard."

Those who have not the spirit of giving do not understand this.
They think of giving as a painful process and feel that those who give generously must be
under some kind of compulsion.
On the other hand, for him who has the Spirit of Christ, who gave His all, the only pain
connected with giving is seeing needs which he has not the resources to supply.
The measure of his generosity is one: "[What] I have I give."
He has learned the true meaning of life itself, who, looking out at the needs of others
and then looking at the resources God has given him, says resolutely: "[What] I have I give."

Sermon Adapted