Right. on the. Money. By Pastor Dennis Keating. Wisdom from the Word Ministries

Transcription

1 Right on the Money By Pastor Dennis Keating Wisdom from the Word Ministries Emmanuel Faith Community Church 639 E. 17th Avenue, Escondido, CA

2 Right on the Money is based on a sermon series at Emmanuel Faith Community Church by Pastor Dennis Keating in This booklet was first published in 2007, and revised August The contents of this booklet are the property of Emmanuel Faith Community Church. Copies of this booklet or any portion therein are permitted if proper attribution is given. Emmanuel Faith Community Church Escondido, CA

3 5 The Sermon on the Amount 45

4 Now we come to the question that everyone eventually asks: How much does God expect me to give? Many Christians answer: Ten percent of my yearly income. Is that correct? Is a Christian required to give one tenth of his income to the Lord? The only way we can get God s perspective is to go to the Bible and examine one of the central passages on tithing, Malachi 3:7-12, NASB. Through this passage, we will discuss the amount God requires us to give. From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. But you say, How shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, How have we robbed You? In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you! Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes, says the LORD of hosts. All the nations will call you blessed, for you shall be a delightful land, says the LORD of hosts. To understand the meaning of Malachi 3, we must first look at the context of the passage. The prophet Malachi lived in the 5th century B.C., during the time when 46

5 Nehemiah was governor of the Kingdom of Judah. At this time, Jewish exiles returned from Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild a wall around the city. These returning exiles obeyed God by restoring the Temple worship. When the project was completed, Nehemiah traveled back to Babylon for an extended period of time. During his absence, the people living in Jerusalem neglected many of the Lord s commands. God sent the prophet Malachi to rebuke the people for their disobedience. The People s Sin In verse 7, God lays out the problem: From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from My statutes and have not kept them. The people had actively rebelled against God s ordinances. They made improper offerings (1:6-14) and were unfaithful in their worship (2:1-9). In addition, they divorced their believing wives and married unbelieving, pagan women (2:10-16). The result was that their spiritual values were completely twisted to the point that they called evil good and good evil. Verse 7 of chapter 3 gives the Lord s remedy for the people s sin. Return to Me, and I will return to You, says the Lord of hosts. The call was for repentance: to turn from sin and to faithfully follow God s commands. If they did, God would restore the relationship between Him and His people. In spite of God s open invitation and His grace towards them, the people were unwilling to admit their need for repentance. God repeated their cynical question: But you say, How shall we return? What an attitude! In effect, they were saying, Why in the world do we need to repent and return to You? We haven t done anything wrong! In their 47

6 twisted thinking, they felt that God was the one unfaithful to them. God s response was to present an indictment against His people. Will a man rob God? (verse 8). The obvious answer to God s question is: Of course not! Who would be crazy enough to rob the all-powerful, all-knowing God of the universe? But God says to His people, Yet you are robbing Me! (verse 8). Upon hearing this, the people objected to this indictment against them. They said, How have we robbed You? Did they really fail to see their own sin? They were asking, How in the world, God, can You say that we have stolen from You? God s simple answer in verse 8 is: You ve robbed Me... in tithes and offerings. Let me summarize the problem. The people sinned against the Lord by withholding their required financial contribution to the Temple. When they failed to give back to God what He had commanded them to give, they were guilty of stealing from Him. Remember the concept that we are managers of God s resources? As managers, we are required to handle God s money the way He has told us to do so. If we don t allocate His funds according to His plan and instead keep them for ourselves, we steal from Him. That s why it is so essential for us to have a systematic plan for giving. According to the Old Testament law, God required the Jewish people to give a tithe, or one tenth of their income, to God. Does this mean that if we don t give ten percent, we are robbing God? Let s look closer at the amount by defining our terms. 48

7 The Meaning of Tithe The word most commonly translated as tithe is the Hebrew word maaser meaning a tenth part. This is not a religious word, but a mathematical term dealing with a percentage. A tithe was ten percent. From a study of other religions of the time, we learn that a tithe was not a distinctly Hebrew idea. Many peoples honored their pagan deities by giving ten percent. Why, then, was a tithe so special in the Old Testament? In the Bible, the number ten represents totality or completeness. Thus, when a person gave a tithe, he was symbolizing his giving of the whole. Tithing was recognition that God owns it all. (See Psalm 24:1.) The Hebrews of Nehemiah s day were robbing God when they withheld the tithe because they were withholding from God what was rightly His. We are also managers of God s resources. If you are wealthy enough to have a manager take care of your estate, how would you feel if your money manager or financial advisor considered your income his? What would you do if the manager failed to send you your income? You can see why God was displeased with His people in Jerusalem! The question for us is: Does God ask us to give a tenth of our income to Him as He did the Jewish believers in the Old Testament? We could find the answer in the history of tithing. The History of Tithing First, let s look at the history of tithing before God gave Moses the Law on Mount Sinai. In the Book of Genesis, we 49

8 find the only two statements concerning the tithe before the Law. Genesis 14 tells us that Abraham gave a tenth of the goods captured in his military victory to a priest named Melchizedek. We do not read that God commanded Abraham to tithe or that he ever tithed again. The important point was that he was giving God the credit for his victory and for the spoils he had received. Jacob tithed in Genesis 28:22. He did this right after he had his dream of a ladder that reached into heaven. During that dream, God reaffirmed His promise to Jacob s ancestor, Abraham, that he would father a great nation. As Abraham s descendents, Jacob s family would be blessed. Jacob did not receive a command from the Lord to tithe of his belongings. It appears that he did so voluntarily. Jacob was tithing in response to God s lavish promises to him. The Bible tells of others who tithed before the giving of the Law. Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve s first two sons, brought the first of their increase to God (Genesis 4:3, 4). Noah offered a sacrifice to God immediately after the flood (Genesis 8:20), but the Bible makes no mention that God required a specific amount. In Joseph s experience, we see proportionate giving of a different kind. Joseph required all the people of Egypt to bring 20 percent of their increase into the Pharaoh s storehouse (Genesis 41:34) to prepare for a coming famine predicted by God. The proportionate giving was for the purpose of saving lives. Therefore, we can see that before the Law given at Mount Sinai, there was no standardized amount established for what God expected in offerings. 50

9 According to the Law During Moses leadership of the Hebrew people, tithing became the law. In fact, the Law required three different tithes. 1. The Lord s Tithe This 10 percent of each person s income was to be brought yearly to the Temple and presented to the Lord. It was then passed on to the Levites and priests for their service in the Temple (Leviticus 27:30-33; Numbers 18:21, 24), since the Levites and priests had no other source of income. This tithe was essential to the continuation of Temple worship. The Lord s tithe was exacted from the produce of the land, including crops and animals. 2. The Sacred Feast Tithe Once a year, the people gave an additional tithe to supply the feasts that the Hebrew people observed throughout the year (Deuteronomy 12:7; 14:22-27). The food was taken to a central storehouse where it was distributed to families, servants, and priests. The feast was like a national potluck dinner in which everyone shared in the blessings of God s provision. 3. The Charity Tithe Under the Law, every third year, the people tithed their income to feed the poor and to supply the other priests who lived in various towns throughout Israel rather than just those in Jerusalem serving in the Temple (Deuteronomy 14:28, 29). God 51

10 is always careful to care for the needy and His faithful servants. This tithe went into a storehouse and was distributed as needed. When adding up all these tithes, the Jewish people contributed twenty three percent of their yearly income to the Lord. Yet, we don t hear about this amount when we are challenged to tithe like they did in the Old Testament. In addition to tithes, God asked His people to bring free will offerings to the Temple. These were over and above their tithes. Bible scholars estimate that the Jewish people gave forty to sixty percent of their income to the Lord. This is why the people of Malachi s day were tempted to withhold their finances. Tithing in the Gospels In Jesus day, the religious leaders were proud of their tithing. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus rebukes them for fastidiously tithing but omitting the weightier matters of the Law, such as judgment, mercy, and faith. In Luke 18:9-17, Jesus contrasts the self-righteous leaders who religiously tithed with a sinner who cast himself on God s mercy. In this parable, Jesus shows us that tithing is not a righteous act if a person s heart is not right with God. What then does God expect of a Christian? Should we tithe twenty three percent like the Hebrews did or somewhere in between ten and twenty three percent? Where do we fit into the tithing picture? Tithing in the Epistles According to the New Testament epistles, Christians are not bound by the non-moral requirements of the Mosaic 52

11 Law. God has always required allegiance to the moral laws (moral laws such as do not commit murder and do not lie ). Because of this, God does not set a fixed percentage to our giving. Instead, God gives us principles to which we respond individually. We see this in the principle of proportionate giving. According to 1 Corinthians 16:2, Paul instructed Christians to give as [God] may prosper you. Therefore, the percentage you should give to Lord should be in keeping with your income. Ask yourself, How much has God prospered me? The response, Give proportionate to your blessings. Based on this, the amount God expects will vary from person to person. We see this in the differing amounts given by the believers in the New Testament. Let s look at a few examples. The widow in Mark 12:41-44 was commended for giving one hundred percent of what she had. Jesus contrasted her small but sacrificial gift to the much larger gifts of others who could afford to give more. In Luke 19:8-9, Zaccheus gave fifty percent of his income to help the poor. His gift was a voluntary restitution for what he had personally taken from the people over the years as a tax collector. Ananias and Sapphira gave a significant portion of the proceeds of sale of their property (Acts 5:1-11). As we have seen, their sin was not in the amount they gave, but in lying about how much they donated, trying to take credit for more than they gave. Nowhere in the New Testament do you find God setting an amount to give. Therefore, we must wrestle with the eight principles we ve learned for giving God s way: 1. The sowing and reaping principle 2. The decide ahead of time principle 3. The want to principle 53

12 4. The happy to principle 5. The systematic principle 6. The no exceptions principle 7. The make a plan principle 8. The proportionate principle If you follow these principles and decide on giving ten percent of your income, then you will be in the great company of spiritual people throughout history who gave that way. But God may ask you to give 18 percent, or 21 percent, or another figure. Decide the amount after prayer and consulting with your spouse, parent, or accountability partner. Whatever amount you feel God is leading you to give, I challenge you to set aside the first part of your income for Him. An important element of our giving is to bring the first of our increase to God. We don t spend on ourselves and then give God the leftovers. We reserve the first of our increase for the Lord. This principle is illustrated in Hebrews 7 which tells of Abraham giving a tithe of his spoils to Melchizedek, the priest of Salem. The writer of Hebrews points out that Melchizedek held a better priesthood than Aaron or Levi, who served under the Law. Verse 2 says, Abraham appointed a tenth of all the spoils out of gratitude to the Lord for his victory over pagan kings. Verse 4 describes the gift Abraham gave: Now observe how great this man was to whom Abraham, the patriarch, gave a tenth of the choicest spoils. The phrase choicest spoils (akiothinion) means the top of the heap. Abraham didn t wait until his soldiers had all taken their cuts to give his offering to Lord. He gave of the very best of everything. This showed his acknowledgment that God was responsible for 54

13 his victory and his blessings. Many of us struggle to do this. When we receive income from our work or investments, we pay our bills and set aside some money for our retirement. Then, if we have anything left over from our spending, we think about giving some to the Lord. As a result of this pattern, our giving is not in keeping with our income, but follows our spending habits and that violates the principle of proportionate giving. We are not giving according to how God has prospered us. Proportionate giving can be difficult. Once, a man came to his pastor for counseling. The Lord had convicted him that he wasn t giving enough to God based upon his $4000-permonth salary. The man said, Pastor, I had no problems giving to God a liberal offering when I was making only $1000 a month. Please pray for me. The pastor began to pray, Father, bring my friend back down to a $1000-a-month salary so that he can obey you. What a wonderful nugget of wisdom in this story! Do you want God to bless you according to how much you give? Writer Peter Marshall wisely said, Give according to your income, lest God make your income according to your giving. Are you giving proportionately? The people of Malachi s day experienced the downside of the sowing and reaping principle because they had neglected to give to God what He required of them. They reaped problems because God s hand turned against them. What will happen to us if we withhold from God? 55

14 The Consequences of Withholding in Our Giving God says in Malachi 3:9, You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you! When the people started withholding their gifts from the Lord, God disciplined them. The principle of sowing and reaping went into effect. Their lack of giving began a spiral of bad consequences. When the gifts didn t come into the Temple, the priest, who depended on the gifts for his livelihood, had to go to work in the fields. Consequently, the spiritual needs of the people were neglected. Through their lack of spiritual training, the people made bad choices and were led astray into faulty thinking. Their problems spiraled downward until the entire society was infected with sin. This effect is like the person who buttons the top of his vest wrong. Once the first button is put into the wrong buttonhole, all of the following buttons go wrong. Similarly, everything gets messed up when we don t get the first things right in our lives--including our giving. Because of their sin, the people needed to repent and return to obeying God. They needed to re-button the vest. Whether you have never systematically given to the Lord or have slipped back into habits of haphazard giving, take the challenge to begin giving God s way. Challenge to Giving In Malachi 3:10, God says, Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house. The Lord was telling the Hebrews to bring all their gifts into the Temple. They weren t to hold back. The same could be said 56

15 to us today. Give to the Lord s work. Don t hold back. Giving was so important to the Lord that He did something unusual in Malachi s day. He challenged His people to put Him to the test. Test Me means prove Me to see what I can do with your gifts. Perhaps God s command to the Hebrews to test me brings Deuteronomy 6:16 to mind, which says, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Doesn t that verse contradict Malachi 3:10? Although God doesn t want us to go around testing Him, in several instances He allowed people to test His power and strength to perform what He promised. Do you remember the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal on top of Mount Carmel? God allowed this test to show His power over the pagan deity. For hours, the prophets of Baal prayed and pleaded with their god to send fire from heaven to consume their offering. But nothing happened. As soon as Elijah prayed to God, fire from heaven fell and consumed Elijah s sacrifice (1 Kings 18:20-46). Afraid to lead the troops to war, Gideon put God to the test twice. The first night, he set a fleece out and asked God to keep the ground dry while dew was on the fleece. The second night, he asked God to keep the fleece dry while the ground was wet with dew. Both nights, God did what Gideon asked (Judges 6:11-40). Isn t God doing the same to us? Isn t this what sowing and reaping is all about? In 2 Corinthians 9:6, God says, He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will reap bountifully. When we step out in faith and depend upon the Lord and His Word by giving the amount He asks of us, we open ourselves up to the opportunity to show what a great God He is. He will provide what we need and more. 57

16 The Provision from Giving What did God promise would happen if the Hebrew people tested God by giving their tithe? Malachi 3:10 says, Test Me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. God promises His people that He will faithfully provide. This provision will be so abundant that God will open the floodgates of blessing, so much that there won t be room for it all. Proverbs 3:9-10 confirms this promise: Honor the Lord from your wealth and from the first of all your produce, so your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine. I ve seen this promise at work in the lives of believers today. I received a message from a member of our congregation who told me the story of his own giving to the Lord. In the midst of a horrible financial struggle, he fully trusted in the promise of the Lord to provide. Now he finds God s provision overflowing in his life. Our gifts will have a ministry beyond what we can see. Once a little girl wanted to go to Sunday school, but she was told that there wasn t enough room for her. She went home that night and began to collect pennies to build a new building. One night, she died. Her parents found 57cents under her pillow. This was the money she was saving to build the new building. The pastor of the church discovered what the girl had done and told his congregation. People were so moved that they began to give generously. The newspaper printed the story, and more people gave. Today, 58

17 Temple University stands because of this one girl. God is in charge of everything, and provides for His people: Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes (Malachi 3:11). God rewarded the people in the place that was most meaningful to them, their crops. He will do the same for us. When God blesses us, other people will take notice: All the nations will call you blessed, for you shall be a delightful land (verse 12). Here s the main point we must remember: Giving is not God s way of raising money. Giving is His way of raising His children and showing them off as an example to the world. In fact, God is not interested in our money. He wants our heart s commitment. He wants to produce His character in us. He knows that every time we give sacrificially to help others, we give away some of our own selfishness and self-centeredness and we build generosity and love in ourselves. When we apply the principles of giving, they change us. The change is so significant that it will alter every part of our lives. Have you allowed giving to change you that dramatically? Are you applying the principles of giving God s way? Are you a proportionate giver? If not, ask God to do a new work in your heart, and teach you to give God s way. 59