Giving 11/8/09

G i v i n g
A Sermon Series on Christian Basics by Rogan Taylor

Part Eighteen

 

1 T i m o t h y 6 : 6 – 1 0

 

Pastor Rogan Taylor, New Hope Church,

South Fork, Colorado - Sunday November 8th, 2009

 

This morning I am continuing my series on the basics of the Christian Life, and today we look at the next crucial basic, so very important to understand and grasp, if we are to grow and be strong in our walk and relationship with Jesus. I’d like together to look at the subject of that part of our lives that affects our pockets – the subject of Giving.

As a Believer, a follower of Christ, what should my attitude be towards money and the things I own? What should I do with it, and what is God’s attitude towards it?

 

This is a vitally important subject! There are a lot of different things that can cause a marriage to split up; over half of marriages today end up in divorce. According to the experts, one of the biggest causes of divorce is finances, and the strain that brings to a marriage; bad money management; spending more money than you have because you haven’t learned to cut your cloth to suit.

 

Somebody once wrote, “It’s difficult to save money when your neighbors keep buying things you can’t afford”!

 

Somebody else wrote, “Money is like manure. Stack it up and it stinks; spread it around and it makes things grow”.

 

Let’s take a closer look at what the Bible, God’s Word, says about money. And remember, these are God’s words, not mine!

Acts 20:35 records Jesus as saying –

 

'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'

 

Jesus also said in Matthew 6:24-26 –

 

24 "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. 25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

  

Yes, it’s vital that as followers of Jesus we put money in its proper place. Listen again to the warning that Paul gives to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:6-10 (this time from J.B. Phillips’ translation) –

6-8 There is a real profit, of course, but it comes only to those who live contentedly as God would have them live. We brought absolutely nothing with us when we entered the world and we can be sure we shall take absolutely nothing with us when we leave it. Surely then, as far as physical things are concerned, it is sufficient for us to keep our bodies fed and clothed. 9-10 For men who set their hearts on being wealthy expose themselves to temptation. They fall into one of the world's traps, and lay themselves open to all sorts of silly and wicked desires, which are quite capable of utterly ruining and destroying their souls. For loving money leads to all kinds of evil, and some men in the struggle to be rich have lost their faith and caused themselves untold agonies of mind.

This is what the love of money does, those who set their hearts on being wealthy. I wonder how many of us can sit back and think how money has ruined some of our friends, acquaintances and even family.

# Many years ago when we lived and pastored in New Zealand, a husband and wife in that South Pacific nation won the lottery, a vast sum of money; they decided to split the difference, but unknown to each other, they both independently decided that this would be a way out of the marriage and so each one secretly made plans and with their share of the winnings left for obscurity in Australia. Both decided to make sure no one could find them, but neither knew their spouse had done the same thing. I’ll leave it to your imagination as to how damaging this was to their children.

 

Hebrews 13:5 says –

 

5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have…

 

In Deuteronomy 8 we read these disturbing words of warning:

11 Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands... 12 lest when your silver and your gold increase and all you have is multiplied… 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God… 17 And you say in your heart, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." 18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth…

 

Friends, we would be very wise to sort out our money priorities before the Lord, for if they are wrong, it could end in tragedy.

“Lord, how do you want me to handle my money affairs?” According to the Bible our very first financial obligation, the one that has a no.1 next to it is the tithe we give to the Lord. As we walk in a right relationship with Jesus, He may tell us to give more than our tithe, that’s between you and the Lord, but your first financial obligation is your tithe – 10 per cent of your income, to be put aside & given before you consider paying any other bill.

Look with me at these Scriptures that talk about tithing, and as we do remember that great people of faith never ask “how much of my money should I give to the Lord?” but “how much of God’s money should I keep for myself?”

1.  Abraham, says Hebrews 7:2, gave a tenth part of all to His God.
2.  Jacob pledged a tithe to the Lord. He said in Genesis 28:22 “This stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”
3. Israel was a tithing people. 2 Chronicles 31:5 says “As soon as the order went out, the Israelites generously gave the first fruits of their grain, new wine, oil and honey and all that the fields produced. They brought a great amount, a tithe of everything.”
4. Tithing was commanded in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 14:22 says “Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year.”
5. Leviticus 27:30, 32 (NLT) says that the tithe belongs to the Lord “A tenth of the produce of the land, whether grain or fruit, belongs to the LORD and must be set apart to him as holy… The LORD also owns every tenth animal counted off from your herds and flocks. They are set apart to him as holy.”
6. We are told to bring our tithe into the Storehouse, which is really the place where you receive your spiritual food, your Church home. Malachi 3:10 quotes God Himself saying “ ‘Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the LORD Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.’ ”
7. We are told that it is not right to withhold the tithe. In Malachi 3:7-9 God says “ ‘Return to me, and I will return to you,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘But’, you ask, ‘How are we to return?’ Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse--the whole nation of you--because you are robbing me.” In simple terms, a tithe is 10 per cent of our gross earnings. An offering is what we give to God over and above our tithe. These verses tell us that God desires both.
8. In the New Testament, we see a new aspect to tithing. The tithe was the minimum giving and often the early Christians went far beyond the tenth. Acts 4:34 says “There was no poverty among them, because people who owned land or houses sold them 35 and brought the money to the apostles to give to others in need.”
9. Jesus emphasized the importance of tithing and giving with the right motive. He said in Matthew 23:23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former” In other words, our heart should be in it, doing it purely for the Lord and not our own selfish purposes. In fact Jesus said in Matthew 6:3, 4 “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
10. The Apostle Paul urged the Church to give proportionately and regularly. He says in 1 Corinthians 16:2 “On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made”…so when I come I won’t have to ask you for money.

 You see, God is in fact very practical about the issue of money; if we obey it’s for His blessing, and ours.

  

Someone once said, “Tell me what you think about money and I can tell you what you think about God, for these two are closely related. A man’s heart is closer to his wallet than almost anything else. The Scriptures promise material and spiritual benefits to the person who gives to God. You cannot out-give God. I challenge you to try and see”.

 

 Friends, this is true. God’s mathematics is different to ours. In God’s plan 9 /10 goes further than 10 /10 !

 

 A key verse in the Old Testament is 1 Chronicles 29:9 which says –

  

“Then the people rejoiced, for they had offered willingly, because with a loyal heart they had offered willingly to the LORD…”

 

 A key verse in the New Testament is 1 Corinthians 9:7 which says –

  

“Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

  

# There was once a man who had a small salary; he went to his pastor because he wanted to be obedient to the Lord with regards to his income; soon enough he started tithing. For His own reasons, God blessed this man and his income increased quite dramatically. But as the years went by, he began to find it increasingly difficult to tithe with all his financial commitments. So he decided to go back to the pastor saying that for difficult economic reasons he didn’t feel he could afford to tithe any more. The pastor responded by saying, “Well we’d better pray that the Lord brings your income back down again so that you can afford it”.

 

 Everything we have comes from the Lord anyway!

 

 Friends, as Believers in Christ, if you are a follower of Christ, we together are the body of Christ. And you & I who love the Lord have been given a responsibility by the Lord to keep His Church functioning in a healthy manner.

 

 I started tithing when I was 15 years old! Imagine if all of us tithed, and that was our minimum. Perhaps there are things God wants us as a Church to move into, but He can’t until we’ve been obedient in this whole aspect of giving.

 

 And remember, as I close, that God could provide miraculously if He so desired. He doesn’t need our money. He could cause money to rain out of the sky!.. but then we wouldn’t learn anything. There is something very valuable that He is teaching us by showing us how to be generous, and how to give. We are blessed when we give and are obedient. And He has chosen people as His instruments. Then when we give, He takes it, uses it for His purposes and multiplies it.