Giving and Blessing • Malachi 3:8-12
1:08:25 Teaching begins
Notes
Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” This is the very heart of God in creating everything and in redeeming and saving. God believes in giving.
The devil takes what God has made good and changes it to create a wrong impression and alter the meaning to make it bad. Surely the devil has worked hard to confuse and inspire fear about giving in the church. Surely he is behind the abuse and manipulation in the church. One result is that people do not experience the blessing that God has for them.
I thought I would teach how I am convinced to give and my reasons for giving. Good theology tends to remove fear. Perfect love casts out all fear. I pray for that love to be with us, and the wisdom from above that is pure and peaceable.
1. First I’d like to explain my background, which is Calvary Chapel.
A. I began life going to a Presbyterian church which influenced me slightly, and as far as giving, not at all. So by the time I went to a Calvary Chapel Bible study I had nothing to unlearn. I was a blank slate.
B. When I went to a Bible study, everything I learned was in the context of book by book, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. It compared scripture with scripture. It harmonised, truth was consistent. I thought, this is the coolest thing in the world. I can know God for myself through the Bible.
C. So I want to emphasise I didn’t have the experience some of you have had, where you were pressured to give money to the church, using the Bible to extract money.
2. I learned about tithing from a Bible study on Malachi 3:8-12.
A. That impressed me. I’m a sixteen year-old kid and I don’t want to rob God. So I’m listening to what God wants.
B. He says bring the whole tithe into the storehouse so that there may be food in My house.
1. The principle taught here is that God wants His people to support the house of God and His ministers. He ordained that the people should support those whose full time job was serving God and serving the people. God has ordained that those that work for Him get their living from it.
2. When the people don’t bring the tithe into the storehouse the priests have no choice but to leave the service of God and take care of themselves. There’s an instance of that in Nehemiah 13:10-11.
3. When the priests can minister, that influences the people, they can draw near to God and the priests keep that relationship open and close. When the priests can’t support themselves and the ministry, there’s no godly influence, the people go off and do their own thing. God is no longer at the centre of the nation’s life. He becomes a story from long ago, the nation goes off the rails, and that invites judgment.
C. God says He will respond with blessing. He’ll open the windows of heaven and pour it down. And He says, “Test me now in this.” There’s only two places in the Bible where God says, “Test Me,” and the other one was to an individual. This is for anyone and everyone. Test Me!
D. God says bring in the whole tithe. That was defined in this study as 10% of your income. Big or small didn’t matter, you take that 10% and give it to the church that you attend. That supports the ministers and the expenses of the church.
E. The point was that it’s honourable to support where you go to church. That should be part of your expenses. You have rent or house payment, utilities, phone bill, food, petrol. This is one of those things that you figure into your financial life.
3. Everything God commands has meaning. The tithe has meaning. It is a token that everything I am and own belongs to You, O my God.
A. The first time in the Bible we see a tithe is about 400 years before God gave the law to Moses.
1. It’s when Abraham returns from rescuing the captives from the Mesopotamian kings. Abraham returns, Melchizedek king of Salem comes out to him with bread and wine, and Abraham gives him a tenth of what he took from the kings.
2. The second time is 100 years later with Jacob. He’s going to Padan-Aram to look for a wife. He’s just had a dream of a stairway leading to heaven, God at the top of it, and He promises Jacob that He will give Jacob the land he’s lying on and descendants. He wakes up terrified. God is in this place and I didn’t know it! Then he makes this vow and devotes a tenth of everything to God.
B. The meaning both times is that I devote myself and all that I have to You, Lord, and this tenth, this tithe, is the token of the whole.
C. Where did they get the figure of 10%? I would think it was something God revealed, like the idea of sacrifice.
1. You notice in Genesis 4 Cain and Abel are sacrificing in the course of time, literally, the end of days. That’s the Sabbath. We don’t read that God commanded the Sabbath, either. Notice that God says, if you do well, will you not be accepted? The only way for Cain to do well is to do what God obviously said to do, like Abel did. God certainly revealed the Sabbath and blood sacrifice. He obviously revealed the tithe as well, or else Abraham and Jacob just made up that figure.
2. An important feature in the whole Bible is that we don’t make up anything. It’s all revealed. Because it all comes from God, it all has meaning.
3. Both Abraham and Jacob deliberately give 10% because God assigned meaning: this symbolises that all I am and all I have belongs to You. This 10% is the token of it.
D. Some people teach something I think is inaccurate about Jacob here, that Jacob is trying to make a deal with God in a sneaky, underhanded way. I don’t think the context supports that. Jacob has woken up from an awesome revelation that God is with him. He is awestruck. He consecrates a pillar to God. Does it make sense that he could suddenly think he could outwit God, what a great idea? God is in this place! He dedicates himself and all that he is to God with meaning as revealed by God. That is the true meaning of this section here.
E. Tithing is certainly commanded in the Law of Moses and people object to tithing by Christians because we’re not under the law. However tithing is a principle established before the law with meaning. Just because it was put in the law for Israel doesn’t change the meaning that this 10% is the token that all I am and all I have is Yours.
4. A further meaning of the tithe is found in Proverbs 3:9-10.
A. The principle is that the first fruits belong to God because He comes first. He is the priority of your life.
B. Notice this isn’t a command on the order of thunder and lightning at Mount Sinai. This is a father teaching his son whom he loves. This whole chapter is how you live your life rightly and beautifully in the presence of God. In Proverbs living rightly is a beautiful, practical art that requires wisdom. This father says, these are to be your values because they’re my values. You live your life to honour God because that’s wise and beautiful.
C. Tithing is a practical expression of that priority.
1. You honour God first with your first fruits, which would be a tithe. It’s an ongoing practice. When God blesses, you honour Him with the first fruits. This is how you live your life, by honouring God first when He blesses.
2. Your relationship with God is practical and affects how you act in real life. It is a contradiction to say, “God is first in my life,” when materially He comes last, if at all. As James says, faith without works is dead.
D. Just like the promise in Malachi there’s a promise here. Your house will be filled with plenty and your vats with new wine.
E. The principle is, make God first priority in your life, and He will provide for you. The principle is repeated in the New Testament. Matthew 6:31-33 Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. What these promises mean is that I don’t have to worry. Now, I have worried, but I have learned that all my worry was a waste of time.
5. My reaction to hearing these things is that tithing made perfect sense.
A. God’s plan is that His ministry is provided for. I loved my church. To think that I’m learning God and I have a church that teaches the Bible, that’s the coolest thing in the world. Provide for the church is right. It makes perfect sense.
B. The tithe is the token that everything I am and have belongs to God, I have no problem with that. He redeemed me by His blood. I belong to Him. I want to express that.
C. He’s first in my life. I have no problem with that. It has to be that way, so I think, okay, this is how you live.
D. And it says that God is going to take care of me. He’s going to open the windows of heaven. He’s going to make my wine vats overflow with new wine. He’s going to do something miraculous. Okay, I have no problem with that, either. Sounds good to me.
E. So ever since then I have practiced the spiritual discipline of tithing. 10% comes right off the top before anything else comes out and it goes to church. I’ve done that my whole Christian life, roughly 50 years.
6. The ongoing discipline of tithing has taught me my own sin and God’s faithfulness.
A. I have found it to be a true discipline.
1. Hebrews 12:11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
2. I was scared when I first tithed because there’s this nagging feeling that if I do this I’m going to die. Isn’t it funny that I want to obey God but it looks like death? If I’m not making it on 100%, how will I make it on 90%? This is an ongoing motif in Scripture that if you obey God it looks like you’re going to die. God is going to allow you to die if you obey Him because He doesn’t care, obviously. Does that come from God or the devil? The point you have to come to is, if I die, I die. I had better find out if God is true before I die, because I don’t want to find it out after I die. There, I did it.
3. I found it hard to tithe when I had little money, because every little bit counts. Surely a small amount like this isn’t going to make much difference. Why not tithe when there’s more money?
4. Because when there’s more money, I’m tithing a bigger chunk of money and it’s hard to say goodbye to that. Think of all I could do with that.
5. Proportionally, it’s the same 10%. There is no difference. Faithfulness in small things means I’ll be faithful in large things. Unfaithfulness in small things means I’ll be unfaithful in large things. There is no difference. I’m either faithful or I’m not. There’s no such thing as “mostly faithful.” That means “completely undependable”.
6. It would be hard to say I enjoyed tithing. I don’t get a tingle. Sometimes I’ve been afraid. If I tithe this I’m going to die. That shows me the state of my heart. For 50 years I have proven that I’m selfish and self-centred, full stop. I really need the Spirit of Jesus to help me to give like Him.
B. On the other hand, my experience of tithing has demonstrated to me that God is faithful to His word.
1. I have worked regular jobs, lived on my own, paid the bills and taxes, been a normal Christian living in a fallen world.
2. Then my experience went beyond what you might call normal life. I knew early on that I would be in full-time ministry.
3. I went full-time with a Christian music ministry band and I made zero money. So I tithed zero. I got food and a little cash from the band sometimes. I tithed. We began touring across the U.S. We began playing overseas, New Zealand, Australia, Philippines, Japan. We eventually moved to Japan for a year and lived there and played concerts constantly. Then we played Philippines, Germany, Sweden, Poland. I’m not making any money. I get food and a place to stay. The Internal Revenue Service stopped mailing me tax forms. I didn’t make enough money to be considered legally poor in the United States.
4. I worked one more job after that, made some money, then became a missionary to Germany and later, England. At this point I’m living on whatever anybody donates to my sending church. Our first seven months in Germany we weren’t making enough support. I’d sold my car in the States, and we made up the difference by nibbling away at that. I called my sending pastor for help. He told me that as a career missionary I’d have to pay attention and build my support. I said if I ever made it back to Seattle I would surely do that, but right now I’m in trouble, can you help me? He said he’d take an offering at the midweek Bible study that night and no promises. The next day he called to say it was the largest offering he’d ever taken in his life.
5. What was my response? Did I whoop it up and say, “Wow, God! What a great scam! I scream for help, they dump money on me!” Absolutely not. I was relieved, but I had to repent and say, “I’m sorry, Heavenly Father. I did not think You were going to take care of me. I’m so sorry.”
6. This became the pattern for most of my life. God has supported us, and I have been pretty low on finances. I got some things I wanted, and when that happened I knew they were miracles. God has supplied everything I needed, everything Joanie needed, everything the girls needed. I worried about things, but somehow the money would be there, and I would realise again, I did not have to worry. Though it was pretty close a lot of the time, God opened the windows of heaven. I repented a lot.
C. Somebody might ask, does tithing work, then?
1. My experience is, that it isn’t magic, a guarantee that you’ll never have problems and you always get everything you want, as long as you pay off God. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that.
2. Tithing makes you set your priorities and stick to them. That means you put the needs high and the wants low. I’ve been in tight situations many times. I’ve had to do without “wants” for long stretches. I learned that I don’t need whatever I wanted, and everything I need I get, and I’m thankful. Such an important lesson: I don’t need stuff, I really need God. Now, God has never failed me. I have experienced too many miracles to even talk about them. I wouldn’t know where to stop. I summarise them like this: you don’t get a miracle until you need a miracle. I’ve needed miracles, and I got them.
3. My understanding of tithing is, I support the ministry where I attend, it puts God first in my finances and it honours God. Call it coincidence, but I’m still alive after many dangers and close calls. It makes as much sense to me now as when I began, so I think tithing works.
7. Here’s one more thing I learned about tithing on my own. A tithe is not an offering. They are two different things.
A. They are similar in that they both come from free will. Nobody is going to compel you to pay a tithe, the same as no one is going to make you give an offering.
B. Here’s the difference between the two.
1. The tithe is to maintain the ministry, honour God and put Him first. It’s a percentage. It’s an ongoing discipline. God is consistent, it seems that God wants His ministry supported consistently.
2. An offering is to do any good that you want, any time you want, any amount you want, after tithing. How much you want to do is up to you.
C. Some people think they will repurpose a tithe and make it an offering. “Well, I was going to give this to the church, but I’ll just give this to you as an offering. It’s all giving, right?”
D. But remember the whole tithe belongs to the Lord. This scripture in Leviticus 27 says there are three things that you can’t offer to God because they’re already His. The tithe is already holy, it already belongs to God. You can’t dedicate as an offering that which is already dedicated to God. The tithe already belongs to God so that excludes giving it as an offering. That’s what this scripture means. By this I can tell what is my tithe and what is a free will offering.
E. People object to tithing on the grounds that it makes people feel they’ve done their job when they’ve paid it, that it’s mechanical and it stops people from giving.
F. The tithe is the start of giving but it’s not the end. I can say that tithing hasn’t prevented me from freewill offerings. I don’t stop giving after I give the tithe. Remember that the tithe is the token that everything belongs to the Lord. I am the steward of His possessions. He can use what is His any way He wants. He has done that with me, many times. I have given away a lot. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
5. So what?
A. This is first for your benefit, to have a starting place to put your finances in order. You want to honour the Lord, you want to put Him first, here’s where you start. Here’s where you build your testimony to God’s faithfulness by first hand experience. This is for you. If your finances are in trouble please talk to me. We can pray and ask God to help you. It’s important to have the right priorities in life and start making moves in that direction. I think God wants to help and bless people as they get their priorities right.
B. Once again, this is my understanding of the scriptures and this is what I do as far as tithing. Maybe you haven’t developed convictions about how God wants you to give. Now you have something to think about. You might be convinced of a different way. Let each man be convinced in his own mind.
I might take two or three questions if you have any.
Okay, let’s pray.