Give Me
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Today, we conclude this series on money. We have taken the time each week to look at what the bible says about earning money, saving money, spending money and today we want to look at giving money.
First, I want you to understand. I am not preaching this sermon because I need your money. I am also not preaching this sermon because God needs your money. Remember I said it’s really not yours anyway, God owns everything. But, the reason I am teaching you what God’s Word says about money is because I believe that God wants to bless you. And I believe that God wants to bless you in ways that you can’t even imagine, but you have to understand what God says about money in order for you to fully understand what it takes to be blessed abundantly. So, let’s conclude this series.
Many of you remember the flood that occurred here in Fort Smith several years ago. It is known as a 100 year flood. We saw water flowing into areas of Fort Smith that many if not all of us having experienced in our life time. There was water everywhere along the river. There were millions of dollars in damages done to homes in the area. And we are still trying to recover from the effects of that flood.
When water has no place to go, it can be destructive. Water continues to accumulate and rise, and with nowhere to go, it floods homes and businesses and can take lives. But water can provide nutrients for growing crops, feeding livestock, and producing life and fruit. Water needs to overflow in healthy ways.
Our money is much the same. Just as a lot of water can be used to produce life or destroy it, so can money. When money is worshiped it becomes blocked up and hoarded, resulting in greed. But when we allow it to overflow where it is needed, the result of that generosity is fruit and life and growth. When money is not allowed to go anywhere, it can result in damage to our own hearts and a withholding of blessing from others. The amazing thing is when money is allowed to overflow in healthy ways, just like flood waters, there is always more than enough. This is what the practice of giving does in comparison to worshipping money.
Look at what Paul tells the church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians 9:6-7
6 Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
7 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
If you want to worship God instead of money and enter into this journey of overflowing generosity, the best place to start is with gratitude. You have to let gratitude well up in your heart.
Think about those spring rains coming down to create the flood a few years back. The water started to rise. We must let gratitude well up in our hearts in much the same way. Gratitude is a form of worshiping God. Focusing on our stuff, or the lack thereof, is also a form of worship—a form of worshiping material wealth. That’s why gratitude is so powerful. It breaks the power of negativity and selfishness. It stops the downward spiral and starts to lift you up.
This last week we celebrated Thanksgiving. It is a holiday of gratitude. Begin this week by practicing giving thanks. Everyday give thanks to God for all that He’s done. Wake up every morning and thank God for at least three things in your life. Wrap your mind around the great things of God. Move past a mind of greed and open up to a mind of generosity and gratitude.
8 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
God has blessed each of us abundantly and supplied our needs. Don’t be an ungrateful recipient. If we are going to overflow with generosity, we have to start with giving thanks. Next, we give God our trust. Part of giving thanks to God is place our trust in God’s hands.
Trusting God
Trusting God
There are two principles that you have to understand in order to fully trust God with your money. For most people it is easy to trust God fully with everything in their life except their money. And when you tithe it is an act of faith. The first principle that you have to understand is...
The First Principle
The First Principle
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.
God is telling us that He has blessings waiting for us. The sad thing is we miss out on those blessings because we don’t give our tithes. We keep them to ourselves. God doesn’t just want a tithe, but He wants the first tithe.
If you have your bibles, go to Exodus chapter 13.
2 “Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether human or animal.”
12 you are to give over to the Lord the first offspring of every womb. All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the Lord.
13 Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons.
There are more than 500 verses in the Bible concerning prayer and nearly 500 verses concerning faith, but more than 2,000 verses on the subject of money and possessions. Jesus talked about money in 16 of His 38 parables. Therefore, from the Bible’s standpoint, we need to understand money and how to handle it. Why? Because money is a test from God.
How you handle money reveals volumes about your priorities, loyalties and affections. It directly dictates many of the blessings you will or won’t experience in life. The first principle you must grasp, if you are to understand giving, is the principle of the firstfruits. It can also be called the principle of the firstborn or the tithe. I have simply called this principle the first principle.
God was very clear to the child of Israel when he said in Exodus 13:2, “Consecrate to Me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether human or animal.” God wants the first. Everything is God’s. God owns it all. So when He gives it to you, He is asking for the first to be brought back to Him. And there are only two choices for the first. It must be sacrificed or redeemed.
If an animal was clean you had to sacrifice it and if an animal was unclean you had to redeem it with a clean animal. There wasn’t a third option. You either had to sacrifice it or you had to redeem it. God was testing them to see if they would sacrifice the clean animal. Later in the Gospels you can see why this was so important to God. All of us are sinners. Right? We were all born unclean. But God sent His son Jesus, the spotless lamb, the clean animal to this earth. Jesus is God’s only son. He sent Him here to be the sacrifice for us, the unclean. The clean, which is Jesus, had to be sacrificed so the unclean, you and I, could be redeemed. Jesus was God’s tithe.
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God didn’t wait to see if we would clean up, He gave His son first in faith believing for a return. Jesus was God’s tithe. He was His first. That is why the tithe being the first is so important to God. If you give it last there is no faith in that. If you give your tithe first, then you are believing that God will take care of the rest. If you give it first then it is clean.
Think about it this way, any first thing given is never lost, and any first thing not given is always lost. In other words, what we give to God we don’t lose because God redeems it for us. But what we withhold from God, we will lose.
25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.
The first belongs to God in everything that we do. Not just in our finances. But in everything. If you want God to redeem everything that we do then we will give Him the first of everything that we do.
Why do we have church on the first day of the week and not the seventh? Because we want to give God the first day so that He can redeem the rest of the week. The first portion is the redemptive portion. When the first portion is given to God, the rest is redeemed. That is why tithing is so important. It is the primary way we acknowledge that God is first in our life. When we give the first portion of our money to God we are saying to God, “I recognize you first. I am putting you first in my life, and I trust You to take care of the rest of the things in my life.”
And not only does God want the first but He wants the first of the first.
19 “Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God. “Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.
This means God wants the first of your firstfruits not the last of your firstfruits. It’s not the tenth portion of your firstfruits; it’s the first portion of your firstfruits. Notice also that this verse tells you where to bring it. It says, “to the house of the Lord your God.” It doesn’t say to give to missions or to a tv preacher or to an evangelist that is passing through town. Nor does it say to give the first of your firstfruits to wherever you want. It says to bring them in to the house of the Lord. We must always give the Lord’s house first. No matter how your increase comes, you are to give God the first portion of that increase.
The second principle that I want you to get this morning is the Test Principle.
Test Principle
Test Principle
Turn to Malachi chapter 3. I want to read several verses from this chapter to you this morning.
6 “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. “But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’
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.
How many of you want to be blessed? How many of you know that God does not change? He is the same yesterday, today and forever. In this passage, Malachi is giving a message to the nation of Israel, concerning obedience towards God. The people were neglecting their tithes. They had basically stopped giving. As Malachi puts it, they have gone away from My ordinances. God was calling the people to return to Him and He will return back to them. So, think about everything that has happened to them by this time. They have gone into exile and have returned. They have rebuilt the temple and have rebuilt the walls around Jerusalem. And they still are not following God the way that He has asked them to. God is at a point that He is speaking to Malachi the last prophet to speak to the people before God goes silent. This is God’s final plea with the people.
God tells them, because you have robbed me in tithes and offerings you are cursed. We live in a cursed world and he wants to pull us out of that curse but we have to be cooperative by giving our tithe. When we don’t give our tithes and offerings we are cursing our finances. How can you ever get financial relief when your finances are cursed? When you give your money to everyone else but to God you are cursing your finances. If you are struggling financially and you haven’t experienced a raise lately and you have moved from job to job, think to yourself and ask, “Have I been faithful with my tithes to God?”
We treat our tithes like it is something extra that we give. We make sure that we have our entertainment and we make sure that we pay the bills and don’t forget about the tv and internet and if I have something left over I’ll give it to the church. If that is how you think about it, then don’t ever expect to get out of financial trouble. You are cursing yourself by not giving God His tithe.
Every time you get paid you are being tested by God to see who you are going to thank or worship with your first fruit.
Tithing is a test. The word tithe means ten or tenth, basically one penny on every dime. Everywhere you see 10 it’s a test. Think about these things in the bible. There were 10 plagues put on Egypt. There are 10 commandments. God tested the Israelites in the wilderness 10 times. Jacob’s wages changed 10 times. Daniel was tested for 10 days. There were 10 virgins in Jesus parable. Everywhere that you see the number 10 in the bible it deals with a test. Even in our tithing God is testing us. It is a test of your faith.
Malachi 3 is the only place that we can test God. He says test me and see if I won’t be faithful. If I tithe I am blessed, If I don’t tithe I’m cursed.
It is amazing the ways that people will argue on why they don’t have to tithe. They say, “Jesus bore the curse for me.” A curse is simply a consequence for behavior. And they are right, but does that mean that I can do whatever I want. Jesus bore our sin, but have we sinned? Yes. Jesus bore our healing, but do we get sick? Yes.
People say, “Tithing was under the law and we are no longer under the law, I’m under grace.” “Don’t commit murder was under the law, does that mean that we can now commit murder. Don’t commit adultery was under the law, does that mean that we can now commit adultery. Do we think that if we do these things that there are no consequences?”
God gives us these instructions on tithing to bless us, not to take away from us. It is a lesson in obedience. And it is so important that you understand these two principles because they will help you to build trust in God. Stop living under a curse and come out from that curse and experience the blessed life that God has for you.
Start giving. When you give you create a heart that is grateful for a God that loves you and takes care of you. When you let gratitude fill up your life and you learn to trust God you begin to open your heart to be generous in all areas.
So, let me encourage you this morning. Set a budget. Put tithing in the budget first. Start taking that step to put God first. Test God and see what He will do. He tells us to test Him in this area. Start somewhere. Pick a percentage of your income to give and set it up to happen automatically. If you are struggling with 10% start somewhere.
And if you are giving, but not tithing 10%, can you grow your giving? Look at what you gave last year and figure out what percentage that is of your income, and increase it. The beauty of a percentage is the amount fluctuates with your income. As God blesses you, you will have more to give.
If you want to make generosity a part of your life, you must make it a priority. Start with giving. Do not wait until you have more money. The more you make, the harder that money becomes to part with. If you start giving a percentage of your income now, as your income grows, so will your giving, and you will not miss that extra money.
What level of generosity does God want you to go to?
Let’s Pray.