Finanncial Freedome: (Feb. 24, 2008)
Financial Freedom Text: Malachi 3: 6-12
BI “We return to God by bring him our tithes and offerings--our first and best.”
Jerry Seinfeld says, “According to most studies, people’s no.1 fear is ______ public speaking. No. 2 is death. This means if you’re the average person and you go to a funeral, you’d rather be in the casket, than giving the eulogy.”
People may not prefer death over giving a speech, but many people do dread the prospect of public speaking.
According to a survey, pastors dread speaking more about money than any other subject. I think that the reason many pastors dread speaking about money is because they are afraid that what they are going to say is going to sound like a “hustle” (or that they’ll be associated with some manipulative television evangelist).
Former pastor and respected author, Randy Alcorn, notes that “Jesus spoke more often about money and possessions than any other theme, except the Kingdom of God.” Why? Because the Scriptures make it clear that there is a powerful connection between a person’s spiritual life and their attitudes and actions toward money and their possessions.
One of the signs of a healthy a person or a healthy relationship is that they can talk about money without getting defensive, manipulative, or reactive. One of the signs of a healthy church is that it can talk freely and frankly about money.
Three weeks ago, when we began this new series, I talked about how if a person can gain mastery over Sabbath time and over money that a person will make significant progress in their spiritual life. In the realm of our physical health, if we can gain mastery over diet, (what we eat) and exercise, it won’t solve all our issues physically, but we’ll find that we are moving toward greater health. So it is with Sabbath time and money, if we can gain mastery in these areas, we’ll find ourselves progressing in our spiritual life. (I’ve been reflecting on for about 2 years ago when I first started thinking about doing this series.)
And, of course, there is a great deal that we could talk about around the subject of money. How to earn it how to spend it, how to save it, how to invest it, how to avoid debt, how to become generous. We offer courses here at Tenth on a regular basis on financial stewardship led by people like Ken Mair and Alphil Guilaran.
This morning I want to talk about a cornerstone financial issue for a person who wants to follow God…
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Malachi 3 (powerpoint).
In the book of Malachi, we see God’s people have been unfaithful to God. God’s people have not been faithful to the terms of their covenant relationship with God. God feels betrayed by his people. In the book of Malachi we sense that there is a kind of lovers’ quarrel going on between God and his people.
God says…
"I the LORD do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says the LORD Almighty.
8 "Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, 'How are we robbing you?' "In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. 10 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 there will not be room enough to store it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe," says the LORD Almighty. 12 "Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land," says The Lord Almighty.
God’s people have separated from God by committing some very serious sins: they’ve been exploiting the poor, unfaithful to their marriage vows, committing spiritual adultery, etc.
God entreats his people in vs. 7 by saying, “Return to me and I will return to you.”
But what does God call his people to do in order to return to him?
Does he call them to start acting with justice and compassion? Does he call them to become faithful to their marriage partners? Does he ask them to stop worshipping pagan idols?
These are all very, very important to God. But are these the things what he tells his people to do in order to return? No, in verse 8 we read that God calls his people to bring tithes and offerings to him…. Vs. 10 God bring the whole tithe (first tenth of your income) into my storehouse, that there may be food in my house.”
Why does God, in the context of inviting his people to return to him with their whole hearts, ask them first to bring their tithes and offerings to his house? God calls his people to tithe and to bring offerings to him as a way of returning to him because he knows that, when they start giving obediently and generously, other areas of their life will fall into place.
Jesus spoke about this in the Sermon on the Mount when he said (in Matthew 6), “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Jesus taught that our heart would follow our treasure, not the other way around.
What we do with our money, not only reveals the priorities of our hearts, but it also determines the priorities of our hearts.
When we give our money to something, out hearts tend to follow. We buy an i-pod, a car, a condo part of our hearts will follow… we get attached at some level.
If you are with your 8-year-old nephew on the balcony of the 20th floor apartment building overlooking the city and the kid starts to lean his head over the rail and to rock back and forth, what do you say? You, say, “Don’t lean over the rail with your head like that!” If the kid said, “It’s just my head.” You respond by saying “Yes, but if your head goes over, you’re whole body will go over with you!”
That’s the way it is with our money. It may be just part of our existence, but it is a significant part. And where our money goes, our heart tends to follow…
A couple of weeks ago, as we were discussing the Sabbath, I talked about a conversation that I had with a friend who was telling me that when she works day after day after day without a day off, without a Sabbath, she has the sense that her work may be becoming an idol to her. And in Ezekiel 20 God says through the prophet Ezekiel, “If we fail to honour the Sabbath, our hearts will be given over to idols.” Idols of work, productivity, or achievement. If we fail to take a Sabbath, a 24-hour block for worship and rest and life once a week, we’ll begin to depend on our work, our productivity, our achievement, more than God. These things will become idols to us—our “god” and we’ll begin to use the truly real God to help us attain these others gods.
And, so it is with money. God calls us to tithe. It is very clear in this passage in other parts of Scriptures. Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew affirms tithing, giving the first tenth of our income to God. The Scriptures teach, when we give the first tenth of our income to God, we are saying to God, we are saying that we believe that all of money belongs to God.
If we, as followers of God, withhold the tithe from God, in whole or in part (as is true of the Sabbath) our hearts will be given over to the idols of money or financial security or idol of having the capacity to be eat at certain restaurants and do certain things… and very subtly the idols of financial security and financial comfort will become our real gods, the things that we are really trusting in, rather than the living God, and we begin to use the living God to help us serve our real gods.
There are a lot of similarities between Sabbath and giving. That’s why we are combining these issues in this series.
A couple of weeks ago someone came up to me and said, “I have been convicted about keeping the Sabbath,” and he says, “It reminds me of tithing. I heard you say that what tithing is about is trusting that you will be more secure on 90% of your income, with God’s blessing, than on 100% of your income without God’s blessing. The same principle, I think, applies to the Sabbath. What you seem to be saying is that we, long-term, will be better off working 6 days a week than 7. Long-term we will be even more productive working 6 days a week than 7, working on 85% of our time, rather than 100%, as paradoxical as that may seem.”
BTW, Students and working people are telling me how unbelievably refreshed they feel by simply starting to take a 24 Sabbath…
It pays off long-term to honour God’s ways with time and in money.
Again, to relate this to our tithing theme to Sabbath some people will say, “I am so busy with work, I really have no time to take a Sabbath. I have no time to participate in a worship. If the person is married and kids, I have no time no time to spend with my spouse or my children. I just have so much work to do!” God’s response to that would be, “Begin your week with Sabbath. Let the first day of your week be a Sabbath where you worship me, where you rest, where you embrace life, where embrace your friends and family (if you have a family). And then work those other 6 days really hard.” But the rhythm of God is work from rest, rather than rest from work. “Set the aside the first 24 hours for me, for your loved ones, for you.”
Some people say but I can’t afford to tithe. I have so many expenses.
John Maxwell a former pastor and currently a writer and speaker on leadership was talking about how his 14-year-old son Joel got his first job—and got his first official pay cheque. Joel was thrilled! He came home and showed his John and his mom his pay cheque. Then Joel said “You know, I have thought it over and I am not sure if I can afford to tithe.” Whether a person is 14 or 24 or 44, or 84, they may think they can’t afford to tithe. And, if we think about all the expenses we have and all the things we want to do, we may come to that conclusion too…. but if we offer God our first tenth and that’s what tithing really is offering God our first and best, not the last tenth, but the first tenth of our income we will be able to tithe.
Proverbs 3:9 we read that we are to honour the Lord with the first fruits of our wealth, your barns will be filled to overflowing and vats will brim over with new wine.
In Malachi God complains to his people in the midst of this lovers’ quarrel. He asks, “It’s wrong to bring me blemished animals for sacrifice, but you bring to me animals that are lame or diseased. Try offering those to your governor. Would he accept that?”
Paul Harvey, the radio broadcaster, tells the story about a woman who called the Butterball Turkey Company one November. She asked, “Is it still Ok to eat a turkey that has been in the bottom of my freezer for 23 years?” The representative of Butterball said, “As long as your turkey has been properly frozen, the turkey should still be safe to eat, but the flavour would be so long gone that it wouldn’t be worth the effort.” “That’s what I thought,” the caller replied. “I’ll donate it to the church.”
Sometimes we will offer God something that we would never consider offering a friend… Sometimes we treat God worse than our friends and--even our enemies. And in the midst of this lovers’ quarrel, God is saying, “Bring to me your first and best, your tithes and offerings, bring me your first and best, and as you do, everything else in your life your heart will follow and I will provide all that you need.”
God says in verse 10, “Bring the whole tithe into my storehouse so there may be food in my house.” “Test me in this” (God almost always don’t test me, but he says it here because this is so important) says the Lord Almighty “and see if I will not throw open the front gates of heaven and pour out such a blessing, that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty. “All the nations will call you blessed for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty.
God is calling his people to honour him with their first fruits and then to trust that with God’s blessing they will be more secure on 90% of their income than 100%. He says that if you tithe and bring your offerings in, he will prevent pests from devouring their crops and vines in their fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe.
Most of don’t have literal crops that can be devoured, but we know that money can come and go—be devoured like pests crops? Not just in obvious things, like a down turn in the market as we’ve seen recently, or by inflation, by being robbed, but through things unexpected expenses with home or car for our health or undisciplined spending and interest payments.
A lot of us know couples, where both the husband and wife have six-figure incomes, but they mortgaged up to their eye brows, chronically in debt, maxing out their credit cards. The money seems to be eaten away. The converse is also true. There are people on relatively modest incomes who have been faithful in giving the first tenth of their income to God. And God has blessed them and provided remarkably for them. They seem to have financial discipline and enough. (BTW, one of things that tithing and giving generously to God’s work does is that it helps to discipline your spending. If you are committing to giving God your first and best through tithing--you’ll be less likely to waste your money on things you don’t need because you’ll want to make sure you’re always a position to give freely to God’s work).
For many years my parents were attending a main line church, and when the offering basket would come around, apparently my parents (this what they’ve told me years later) they would just reach for whatever cash they had on them (maybe a 5 or 10 or a 20), place it in the offering basket and felt like they were doing well. When they really turned their lives over to Christ, around the time I was a teenager, they were also taught about tithing, about honouring God with the first tenth of your income. I am sure that it initially came as a jolt to them (as it does for most people who starts to tithe), but they began to honour God in this way. I don’t remember all the details as a teenager, but my parents say that looking back…up until that point in their lives it seemed like they were always struggling to make it financially—with 5 kids. My dad was working as a radio announcer for the CBC (which is quasi-government), so we are a modest income, single income family. According to parents, it always seemed like we didn’t have just quite enough to get by, always a little in the red. But after they started tithing, it seemed like they were always in the black—God just faithfully provided.
God began to work some small sort of financial miracles for them. As a teenager, living in a home where my parents started to follow Christ and honour God financially, felt like I was living in a mini-Book of Acts. As a family with 5 growing kids—we lived in a fair-sized house in Surrey, but the basement wasn’t finished and my parents didn’t have the money to finish it.
One day our neighbour Mr. McQuarrie, came by and said, “I have some extra wood and materials from a construction project I was working on. You are a growing family. I don’t need this material so I’m going to finish your basement for you.” So he just started building.
Story after story I could tell you how God provided in extraordinary ways for our family.
My parents taught me to tithe—as teenager… around the time I committed my life to Christ.
When I was making money on a part-time job, the first 10 percent went to God. When I was making 6 figures in the “secular world” tithing became even more important to me. Tithing saved me from becoming too money-centered. I didn’t feel like I was becoming materialistic (hardly anyone does… Donald Trump and Paris Hilton and my cousin Vinny they’re materialistic not me!), but people around me, who were not Christians, were telling me that I was becoming more materialistic. So, I felt the best way to combat that was to give more considerably more than my tithe.
When I took my first ministry job…out of seminary in California…I know that I have shared this story with many of before, but many you haven’t head it because you’re asking if Tenth my “first church.”
My first full-time Christian ministry gig was in Orange County, California. I was a church planting pastor and my starting salary was $200 a month. I committed to giving the first $25 as a tithe to God. The first cheque is always for God’s work. (If you’re asking how could you do that living in the most expensive places in North America on 200 and still afford to tithe? Two weeks ago, I got in one week I got the two cheques from medical insurance company for $550 dollars each. I should have only received one. I immediately thought, this is a mistake one these cheques is not mine to keep. For a moment I thought—I’m curious if both cheques will cash. But, I shred one of them. When I got my cheque for $200 as in Califorina in light of the Bible I immediate think the first 20 is not mine to keep. I would be stealing from God to keep it. I really need God’s blessing right now in a variety of ways. And so because if I give 20 feels it like an obligation, I give the first $25 to God so I can give with joy).
And God provided in amazing ways. I ended up living in a beautiful house verlooking the ocean--free of charge. The owners, who I didn’t know traveled a lot and said to me, “We want someone to live here free of charge in exchange for taking care of our dog and watering a few plants (they ended up getting an automatic sprinkler system of the plants). Do you like dogs? (I do now!). Our little church-start up… didn’t have a building…we didn’t have enough money to rent a building. As we were getting started, one of the mega churches in Orange County offered their facility free of charge for the first year as we were getting started (the pastor felt guilty because this huge was attracted thousands of upper middle class white folk, but not people of color. We had vision to be multi-cultural). We had no money for advertising… when launched our first public service, the Los Angeles Times (Orange County edition) featured us on their front page.
Before we were married… Sakiko and I talked by phone (she was in Japan) frankly about finances… and she asked, do you see us renting or buying a home? I said, renting. Housing prices in Vancouver are expensive… Honestly, I don’t know if we’ll ever get to buy a house… (btw, that’s not a personal goal of mine). She said, Maybe we could save over time for a down payment… Maybe, I said that couldn’t happen for a long time… you see our church is in a building campaign… I’ve asked our community not just to tithe, but to consider giving a sacrificial offering over above their tithe over the course of several years… so I been trying to do that and I haven’t to save much and won’t for some be able to save like that for a long time…
We get married… and not long after someone asks us, “Have you thought about buying a house?” We’ve thought about it, but we are not planning to one … but over the course several months the person keeps asking us the same question… he says… (and you have to understand this is completely “out of character” for this person), I’ll help you get into a house--find one… We say we can’t do that because our church is in a building project… and people are sacrificing their money to pay for it, we can’t, it wouldn’t look right for us to buy a house… he pick a house, and if any one asks, “Where you got the money, this person (not a Christian) says tell them, “God”.
We have a simple, modest house… but when I go upstairs at night look down, my heart fills with thanks…
I feel with God my cup overflows… Your story will be different than mine… but you give God your best first fruit and best in your life, you may never be rich by worldly standards, but you will feel like your cup overflows… with God’s blessing…
The Bible says that if we honour God, God will also honour us. If we honour the Lord with our first fruits, then he will provide more than what we need.
It is an incredible way to live. It is the best way to live. Maybe I am more reflective of this now because my wife is expecting. But I know that some of you will children or kids you’re responsible for nephews, nieces, godchildren, mentorees and you may say that it is all very well to give as a single person, but you feel like if you give God the first tenth of your income your children may miss out.
In the fall, when I was in Boston, one afternoon I went over to a friend’s house unannounced…just dropped by…and my friend, Doug Birdsall, was mowing his lawn. He was glad to take a break. We started chatting. He asked me what I was doing that night. I said, “I am going to be giving a talk at one of the chapters for InterVarsity Fellowship at Harvard.” Doug said, “I wonder if my daughter Jessamin, who is a sophomore at Harvard, will come and hear you speak.” Then Doug paused and he said, “When my wife Jeannie and I felt called to become missionaries to Japan, we had no reservations whatsoever, but we had a little regret about the fact that, as missionaries, our children might miss out on certain opportunities. That hasn’t been the case at all. God has provided beyond our wildest dreams for our kids.” He didn’t articulate this, but I know that his eldest daughter Stacia ended up graduating from Princeton University and then from Yale. Then she spent time in Nepal and India to help Save the Children, and then to Kabul, Afghanistan to work and teach in a hospital there. I know his son Jud graduated from Wheaton, which is considered the Harvard of Christian colleges, and is now working for the US State Department. Jessamin is a sophomore as I said at Harvard.
Doug would be the first person to say that each of their kids faced different challenges at different points in their lives as they grew and developed, but each of them is serving Christ and is seeking to use their gifts for the common good.
Doug is one of those extremely intelligent, gifted people who has an attractive personality, the kind of person who could succeed in any field if he wanted to go into. He chose, not just to tithe his money, but to tithe his whole life. He is a living example to me about when we are faithful in giving to God, God will provide, not only for our needs, but the needs of our loved ones. Doug and Jeannie are living examples to me of the fact that you cannot out-give God.
God says to us, as he said to the people in Malachi’s day, “Trust me. Trust me in the Sabbath. Trust me in the tithe and your heart will follow.” Make Sabbath and tithing two of the spiritual cornerstones of your life and you will free.
Over lunch some time ago, I heard of a pastor’s confession. This pastor said “Back over my ministry I have one significant regret that, as a pastor, I never taught my people in my churches to tithe and to give faithfully to God. I seemed to be able to speak about tithing and giving as a guest at places, but in my own churches I couldn’t do it. I regret that because I feel that I didn’t serve them well in a very important area. I feel like they would have been blessed by God if they had been taught to give.”
Unlike a lot of my colleagues, I don’t hate to talk about giving and about financial stewardship because if God, through me, can teach you to give to God, to give a Sabbath to God, to give of your tithe to God, your first and best, and out of that to donate your whole life to God in the world, I feel that I am imparting a gift of immeasurable value to you and through you to the world….
(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio)
PRAYER…
BI “We return to God by bring him our tithes and offerings--our first and best.”
Jerry Seinfeld says, “According to most studies, people’s no.1 fear is ______ public speaking. No. 2 is death. This means if you’re the average person and you go to a funeral, you’d rather be in the casket, than giving the eulogy.”
People may not prefer death over giving a speech, but many people do dread the prospect of public speaking.
According to a survey, pastors dread speaking more about money than any other subject. I think that the reason many pastors dread speaking about money is because they are afraid that what they are going to say is going to sound like a “hustle” (or that they’ll be associated with some manipulative television evangelist).
Former pastor and respected author, Randy Alcorn, notes that “Jesus spoke more often about money and possessions than any other theme, except the Kingdom of God.” Why? Because the Scriptures make it clear that there is a powerful connection between a person’s spiritual life and their attitudes and actions toward money and their possessions.
One of the signs of a healthy a person or a healthy relationship is that they can talk about money without getting defensive, manipulative, or reactive. One of the signs of a healthy church is that it can talk freely and frankly about money.
Three weeks ago, when we began this new series, I talked about how if a person can gain mastery over Sabbath time and over money that a person will make significant progress in their spiritual life. In the realm of our physical health, if we can gain mastery over diet, (what we eat) and exercise, it won’t solve all our issues physically, but we’ll find that we are moving toward greater health. So it is with Sabbath time and money, if we can gain mastery in these areas, we’ll find ourselves progressing in our spiritual life. (I’ve been reflecting on for about 2 years ago when I first started thinking about doing this series.)
And, of course, there is a great deal that we could talk about around the subject of money. How to earn it how to spend it, how to save it, how to invest it, how to avoid debt, how to become generous. We offer courses here at Tenth on a regular basis on financial stewardship led by people like Ken Mair and Alphil Guilaran.
This morning I want to talk about a cornerstone financial issue for a person who wants to follow God…
If you have your Bibles, please turn to Malachi 3 (powerpoint).
In the book of Malachi, we see God’s people have been unfaithful to God. God’s people have not been faithful to the terms of their covenant relationship with God. God feels betrayed by his people. In the book of Malachi we sense that there is a kind of lovers’ quarrel going on between God and his people.
God says…
"I the LORD do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says the LORD Almighty.
8 "Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, 'How are we robbing you?' "In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. 10 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 there will not be room enough to store it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe," says the LORD Almighty. 12 "Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land," says The Lord Almighty.
God’s people have separated from God by committing some very serious sins: they’ve been exploiting the poor, unfaithful to their marriage vows, committing spiritual adultery, etc.
God entreats his people in vs. 7 by saying, “Return to me and I will return to you.”
But what does God call his people to do in order to return to him?
Does he call them to start acting with justice and compassion? Does he call them to become faithful to their marriage partners? Does he ask them to stop worshipping pagan idols?
These are all very, very important to God. But are these the things what he tells his people to do in order to return? No, in verse 8 we read that God calls his people to bring tithes and offerings to him…. Vs. 10 God bring the whole tithe (first tenth of your income) into my storehouse, that there may be food in my house.”
Why does God, in the context of inviting his people to return to him with their whole hearts, ask them first to bring their tithes and offerings to his house? God calls his people to tithe and to bring offerings to him as a way of returning to him because he knows that, when they start giving obediently and generously, other areas of their life will fall into place.
Jesus spoke about this in the Sermon on the Mount when he said (in Matthew 6), “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Jesus taught that our heart would follow our treasure, not the other way around.
What we do with our money, not only reveals the priorities of our hearts, but it also determines the priorities of our hearts.
When we give our money to something, out hearts tend to follow. We buy an i-pod, a car, a condo part of our hearts will follow… we get attached at some level.
If you are with your 8-year-old nephew on the balcony of the 20th floor apartment building overlooking the city and the kid starts to lean his head over the rail and to rock back and forth, what do you say? You, say, “Don’t lean over the rail with your head like that!” If the kid said, “It’s just my head.” You respond by saying “Yes, but if your head goes over, you’re whole body will go over with you!”
That’s the way it is with our money. It may be just part of our existence, but it is a significant part. And where our money goes, our heart tends to follow…
A couple of weeks ago, as we were discussing the Sabbath, I talked about a conversation that I had with a friend who was telling me that when she works day after day after day without a day off, without a Sabbath, she has the sense that her work may be becoming an idol to her. And in Ezekiel 20 God says through the prophet Ezekiel, “If we fail to honour the Sabbath, our hearts will be given over to idols.” Idols of work, productivity, or achievement. If we fail to take a Sabbath, a 24-hour block for worship and rest and life once a week, we’ll begin to depend on our work, our productivity, our achievement, more than God. These things will become idols to us—our “god” and we’ll begin to use the truly real God to help us attain these others gods.
And, so it is with money. God calls us to tithe. It is very clear in this passage in other parts of Scriptures. Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew affirms tithing, giving the first tenth of our income to God. The Scriptures teach, when we give the first tenth of our income to God, we are saying to God, we are saying that we believe that all of money belongs to God.
If we, as followers of God, withhold the tithe from God, in whole or in part (as is true of the Sabbath) our hearts will be given over to the idols of money or financial security or idol of having the capacity to be eat at certain restaurants and do certain things… and very subtly the idols of financial security and financial comfort will become our real gods, the things that we are really trusting in, rather than the living God, and we begin to use the living God to help us serve our real gods.
There are a lot of similarities between Sabbath and giving. That’s why we are combining these issues in this series.
A couple of weeks ago someone came up to me and said, “I have been convicted about keeping the Sabbath,” and he says, “It reminds me of tithing. I heard you say that what tithing is about is trusting that you will be more secure on 90% of your income, with God’s blessing, than on 100% of your income without God’s blessing. The same principle, I think, applies to the Sabbath. What you seem to be saying is that we, long-term, will be better off working 6 days a week than 7. Long-term we will be even more productive working 6 days a week than 7, working on 85% of our time, rather than 100%, as paradoxical as that may seem.”
BTW, Students and working people are telling me how unbelievably refreshed they feel by simply starting to take a 24 Sabbath…
It pays off long-term to honour God’s ways with time and in money.
Again, to relate this to our tithing theme to Sabbath some people will say, “I am so busy with work, I really have no time to take a Sabbath. I have no time to participate in a worship. If the person is married and kids, I have no time no time to spend with my spouse or my children. I just have so much work to do!” God’s response to that would be, “Begin your week with Sabbath. Let the first day of your week be a Sabbath where you worship me, where you rest, where you embrace life, where embrace your friends and family (if you have a family). And then work those other 6 days really hard.” But the rhythm of God is work from rest, rather than rest from work. “Set the aside the first 24 hours for me, for your loved ones, for you.”
Some people say but I can’t afford to tithe. I have so many expenses.
John Maxwell a former pastor and currently a writer and speaker on leadership was talking about how his 14-year-old son Joel got his first job—and got his first official pay cheque. Joel was thrilled! He came home and showed his John and his mom his pay cheque. Then Joel said “You know, I have thought it over and I am not sure if I can afford to tithe.” Whether a person is 14 or 24 or 44, or 84, they may think they can’t afford to tithe. And, if we think about all the expenses we have and all the things we want to do, we may come to that conclusion too…. but if we offer God our first tenth and that’s what tithing really is offering God our first and best, not the last tenth, but the first tenth of our income we will be able to tithe.
Proverbs 3:9 we read that we are to honour the Lord with the first fruits of our wealth, your barns will be filled to overflowing and vats will brim over with new wine.
In Malachi God complains to his people in the midst of this lovers’ quarrel. He asks, “It’s wrong to bring me blemished animals for sacrifice, but you bring to me animals that are lame or diseased. Try offering those to your governor. Would he accept that?”
Paul Harvey, the radio broadcaster, tells the story about a woman who called the Butterball Turkey Company one November. She asked, “Is it still Ok to eat a turkey that has been in the bottom of my freezer for 23 years?” The representative of Butterball said, “As long as your turkey has been properly frozen, the turkey should still be safe to eat, but the flavour would be so long gone that it wouldn’t be worth the effort.” “That’s what I thought,” the caller replied. “I’ll donate it to the church.”
Sometimes we will offer God something that we would never consider offering a friend… Sometimes we treat God worse than our friends and--even our enemies. And in the midst of this lovers’ quarrel, God is saying, “Bring to me your first and best, your tithes and offerings, bring me your first and best, and as you do, everything else in your life your heart will follow and I will provide all that you need.”
God says in verse 10, “Bring the whole tithe into my storehouse so there may be food in my house.” “Test me in this” (God almost always don’t test me, but he says it here because this is so important) says the Lord Almighty “and see if I will not throw open the front gates of heaven and pour out such a blessing, that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty. “All the nations will call you blessed for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty.
God is calling his people to honour him with their first fruits and then to trust that with God’s blessing they will be more secure on 90% of their income than 100%. He says that if you tithe and bring your offerings in, he will prevent pests from devouring their crops and vines in their fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe.
Most of don’t have literal crops that can be devoured, but we know that money can come and go—be devoured like pests crops? Not just in obvious things, like a down turn in the market as we’ve seen recently, or by inflation, by being robbed, but through things unexpected expenses with home or car for our health or undisciplined spending and interest payments.
A lot of us know couples, where both the husband and wife have six-figure incomes, but they mortgaged up to their eye brows, chronically in debt, maxing out their credit cards. The money seems to be eaten away. The converse is also true. There are people on relatively modest incomes who have been faithful in giving the first tenth of their income to God. And God has blessed them and provided remarkably for them. They seem to have financial discipline and enough. (BTW, one of things that tithing and giving generously to God’s work does is that it helps to discipline your spending. If you are committing to giving God your first and best through tithing--you’ll be less likely to waste your money on things you don’t need because you’ll want to make sure you’re always a position to give freely to God’s work).
For many years my parents were attending a main line church, and when the offering basket would come around, apparently my parents (this what they’ve told me years later) they would just reach for whatever cash they had on them (maybe a 5 or 10 or a 20), place it in the offering basket and felt like they were doing well. When they really turned their lives over to Christ, around the time I was a teenager, they were also taught about tithing, about honouring God with the first tenth of your income. I am sure that it initially came as a jolt to them (as it does for most people who starts to tithe), but they began to honour God in this way. I don’t remember all the details as a teenager, but my parents say that looking back…up until that point in their lives it seemed like they were always struggling to make it financially—with 5 kids. My dad was working as a radio announcer for the CBC (which is quasi-government), so we are a modest income, single income family. According to parents, it always seemed like we didn’t have just quite enough to get by, always a little in the red. But after they started tithing, it seemed like they were always in the black—God just faithfully provided.
God began to work some small sort of financial miracles for them. As a teenager, living in a home where my parents started to follow Christ and honour God financially, felt like I was living in a mini-Book of Acts. As a family with 5 growing kids—we lived in a fair-sized house in Surrey, but the basement wasn’t finished and my parents didn’t have the money to finish it.
One day our neighbour Mr. McQuarrie, came by and said, “I have some extra wood and materials from a construction project I was working on. You are a growing family. I don’t need this material so I’m going to finish your basement for you.” So he just started building.
Story after story I could tell you how God provided in extraordinary ways for our family.
My parents taught me to tithe—as teenager… around the time I committed my life to Christ.
When I was making money on a part-time job, the first 10 percent went to God. When I was making 6 figures in the “secular world” tithing became even more important to me. Tithing saved me from becoming too money-centered. I didn’t feel like I was becoming materialistic (hardly anyone does… Donald Trump and Paris Hilton and my cousin Vinny they’re materialistic not me!), but people around me, who were not Christians, were telling me that I was becoming more materialistic. So, I felt the best way to combat that was to give more considerably more than my tithe.
When I took my first ministry job…out of seminary in California…I know that I have shared this story with many of before, but many you haven’t head it because you’re asking if Tenth my “first church.”
My first full-time Christian ministry gig was in Orange County, California. I was a church planting pastor and my starting salary was $200 a month. I committed to giving the first $25 as a tithe to God. The first cheque is always for God’s work. (If you’re asking how could you do that living in the most expensive places in North America on 200 and still afford to tithe? Two weeks ago, I got in one week I got the two cheques from medical insurance company for $550 dollars each. I should have only received one. I immediately thought, this is a mistake one these cheques is not mine to keep. For a moment I thought—I’m curious if both cheques will cash. But, I shred one of them. When I got my cheque for $200 as in Califorina in light of the Bible I immediate think the first 20 is not mine to keep. I would be stealing from God to keep it. I really need God’s blessing right now in a variety of ways. And so because if I give 20 feels it like an obligation, I give the first $25 to God so I can give with joy).
And God provided in amazing ways. I ended up living in a beautiful house verlooking the ocean--free of charge. The owners, who I didn’t know traveled a lot and said to me, “We want someone to live here free of charge in exchange for taking care of our dog and watering a few plants (they ended up getting an automatic sprinkler system of the plants). Do you like dogs? (I do now!). Our little church-start up… didn’t have a building…we didn’t have enough money to rent a building. As we were getting started, one of the mega churches in Orange County offered their facility free of charge for the first year as we were getting started (the pastor felt guilty because this huge was attracted thousands of upper middle class white folk, but not people of color. We had vision to be multi-cultural). We had no money for advertising… when launched our first public service, the Los Angeles Times (Orange County edition) featured us on their front page.
Before we were married… Sakiko and I talked by phone (she was in Japan) frankly about finances… and she asked, do you see us renting or buying a home? I said, renting. Housing prices in Vancouver are expensive… Honestly, I don’t know if we’ll ever get to buy a house… (btw, that’s not a personal goal of mine). She said, Maybe we could save over time for a down payment… Maybe, I said that couldn’t happen for a long time… you see our church is in a building campaign… I’ve asked our community not just to tithe, but to consider giving a sacrificial offering over above their tithe over the course of several years… so I been trying to do that and I haven’t to save much and won’t for some be able to save like that for a long time…
We get married… and not long after someone asks us, “Have you thought about buying a house?” We’ve thought about it, but we are not planning to one … but over the course several months the person keeps asking us the same question… he says… (and you have to understand this is completely “out of character” for this person), I’ll help you get into a house--find one… We say we can’t do that because our church is in a building project… and people are sacrificing their money to pay for it, we can’t, it wouldn’t look right for us to buy a house… he pick a house, and if any one asks, “Where you got the money, this person (not a Christian) says tell them, “God”.
We have a simple, modest house… but when I go upstairs at night look down, my heart fills with thanks…
I feel with God my cup overflows… Your story will be different than mine… but you give God your best first fruit and best in your life, you may never be rich by worldly standards, but you will feel like your cup overflows… with God’s blessing…
The Bible says that if we honour God, God will also honour us. If we honour the Lord with our first fruits, then he will provide more than what we need.
It is an incredible way to live. It is the best way to live. Maybe I am more reflective of this now because my wife is expecting. But I know that some of you will children or kids you’re responsible for nephews, nieces, godchildren, mentorees and you may say that it is all very well to give as a single person, but you feel like if you give God the first tenth of your income your children may miss out.
In the fall, when I was in Boston, one afternoon I went over to a friend’s house unannounced…just dropped by…and my friend, Doug Birdsall, was mowing his lawn. He was glad to take a break. We started chatting. He asked me what I was doing that night. I said, “I am going to be giving a talk at one of the chapters for InterVarsity Fellowship at Harvard.” Doug said, “I wonder if my daughter Jessamin, who is a sophomore at Harvard, will come and hear you speak.” Then Doug paused and he said, “When my wife Jeannie and I felt called to become missionaries to Japan, we had no reservations whatsoever, but we had a little regret about the fact that, as missionaries, our children might miss out on certain opportunities. That hasn’t been the case at all. God has provided beyond our wildest dreams for our kids.” He didn’t articulate this, but I know that his eldest daughter Stacia ended up graduating from Princeton University and then from Yale. Then she spent time in Nepal and India to help Save the Children, and then to Kabul, Afghanistan to work and teach in a hospital there. I know his son Jud graduated from Wheaton, which is considered the Harvard of Christian colleges, and is now working for the US State Department. Jessamin is a sophomore as I said at Harvard.
Doug would be the first person to say that each of their kids faced different challenges at different points in their lives as they grew and developed, but each of them is serving Christ and is seeking to use their gifts for the common good.
Doug is one of those extremely intelligent, gifted people who has an attractive personality, the kind of person who could succeed in any field if he wanted to go into. He chose, not just to tithe his money, but to tithe his whole life. He is a living example to me about when we are faithful in giving to God, God will provide, not only for our needs, but the needs of our loved ones. Doug and Jeannie are living examples to me of the fact that you cannot out-give God.
God says to us, as he said to the people in Malachi’s day, “Trust me. Trust me in the Sabbath. Trust me in the tithe and your heart will follow.” Make Sabbath and tithing two of the spiritual cornerstones of your life and you will free.
Over lunch some time ago, I heard of a pastor’s confession. This pastor said “Back over my ministry I have one significant regret that, as a pastor, I never taught my people in my churches to tithe and to give faithfully to God. I seemed to be able to speak about tithing and giving as a guest at places, but in my own churches I couldn’t do it. I regret that because I feel that I didn’t serve them well in a very important area. I feel like they would have been blessed by God if they had been taught to give.”
Unlike a lot of my colleagues, I don’t hate to talk about giving and about financial stewardship because if God, through me, can teach you to give to God, to give a Sabbath to God, to give of your tithe to God, your first and best, and out of that to donate your whole life to God in the world, I feel that I am imparting a gift of immeasurable value to you and through you to the world….
(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio)
PRAYER…
posted by Shigematsu at 12:10 PM
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