SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the Jesus Image Podcast. We're gonna uh continue our journey in holy generosity and stewarding our finances property properly, I should say, in a way that honors the Lord. And let's pray. Let's welcome the Holy Spirit. Wonderful Lord, we give you glory. Speak to us, we pray, in Jesus' precious and holy name, and may Jesus' image be the most generous church in the world. This is my prayer. Amen. Okay, we're gonna jump straight in. I built a foundation on the last one, just uh just from a very overarching biblical view. Now we're gonna jump straight into some of the Old Testament texts that speak to us about tithing and giving. So I'm gonna ask Cam, my deacon today, to be my reader. And Cam will read Genesis 14, verses 19 through 20. So I want everyone to take your Bibles and let's trust the Holy Spirit to open our eyes and show us the Lord Jesus. Cam, would you read?

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And he blessed him and said, Blessed be Abram of God most high, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God most high, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And he gave him a tithe of all.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Wow. Now he this is amazing. Here the tithe is introduced to Abraham, who predates the law, after his victory in rescuing his nephew. After the victory, Melchizedek, who's called the high priest of Salem, king of peace, I personally believe this is a theophany, a visitation of the preincarnate son, who comes. And this isn't about that, but he offers bread and wine. To me, that's the Eucharist. He has no lineage, so that speaks of his eternal nature. He receives a tithe, which says a lot about him. He blesses Abraham. Remember, the scripture says that the lesser is always blessed by the greater. So he blesses Abraham, who's a friend of God. So whoever this figure is is an incredible figure. And he comes to bless Abraham verbally post-victory, and Abraham's response to the victory and the blessing is I'm giving you a tithe of my conquest. Everything I got. So this is really important to understand. As children of the Lord, we've been blessed by God. We've been given his name. We've been redeemed. We've been purchased. We've been filled with his spirit. Our eternal destiny is much different, I think we would all agree, than it was prior to the Lord coming to save us. So he's declared a blessing over us. Absolutely. We've been called sons and daughters of God. The enemy's been defeated, just like the enemies were defeated here when Abraham rushed in to save his nephew. The enemy kings, the princes and powers of darkness have been defeated. And Abraham's response is: look, I gained a lot through this victory. Take my material wealth. So this has always been the biblical response, the response of the Near East, the response of the Holy Land. It's, I'm going to show you I love you, for example, by cooking for you, by doing something for you. When children are married in my part of the world, the parents will save up for a house to show that they're behind them, that they love them, that they're with them. So the thought of love without natural expression is very, very foreign biblically and foreign in most cultured environments. It's I love you by giving you the best seat. I love you by standing. The Bible teaches us to honor gray-headed people. Wow, so I'm on the way. So what a way to get honor. I just gotta go gray. The Lord's merciful. Jesus says, take the worst seat. You'll be honored how? By getting the best seat. Right? So giving is a way that we declare our honor to the Lord and to people. And this happens through Abraham and Melchizedek, which is prior to Sinai. Now let's go to Genesis 28. I'm gonna give you the actual verses here. It doesn't matter what I say, unless I'm giving you the word of God. Now, here Jacob is on his way to Laban. So he's in a rough spot. He has his encounter in Genesis 28 and makes a vow at Bethel, a vow at God's house. And this is a very, very holy time on his journey. The Lord appears to him, the Lord speaks to him in verse 15. Again, he receives a blessing from the Lord. Behold, I'm with you, I will keep you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I've spoken to you. This is all in a dream. Jacob awakes from his sleep, okay? He knows this is the Lord's place. He says, How awesome is this place in verse 17. This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. So he calls it Bethel. He rises early in the morning. And Kim, I want you to begin reading at verse 18.

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Then Jacob rose early in the morning and took the stone that he had put on his at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it. He and he called the name of that place Bethel.

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House of God, that's important. But the name, just back up, sorry, Kim. But now we're talking about be the way we should be in God's presence, the way God relates to us, the way we relate back to him, all in the context of his presence and his house. Keep reading.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

And he called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of that city had been Luz previously. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, If God will be with me and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, so that I come back to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God. And this stone which I have set as a pillar shall be God's house. And of all that you give me, I will surely give a tenth to you.

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It's amazing. Very, very, very amazing behavior here. And so we see the way Jacob reacted to the goodness of God. He's saying, Look, if you take care of me, I think we can all say God is taking care of us. If you bless me, I think we can all say God has blessed us. If you'll keep me safe, I think we can all say God has kept me safe, has kept us safe. He's been so wonderful. He says, This is the way I know to react to you. I will give you a tenth of all that you give me. Now here's the wild part. Jacob came back with way more than he he entered with. He came back a blessed man. That's incredible. So when when Jacob purposed in his heart, even though he gained more, a tenth was a tenth. You know, studies actually show that people who when people begin to make more money, um, they give less of their income to the Lord. Because that's the nature of money. It has its way of getting its fangs into you and causing you to be greedy. But Jacob knew to go against the grain of that by just saying, here, here's a tenth. So the tithe is again introduced here. And again, that's pre-law. Very, very powerful. Okay. In Exodus 25, now I want you to hear from the Lord how he feels about our giving. Okay, so in Exodus 25, I want you to read verses 1 through 3, Kim.

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Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel that they bring me an offering. From everyone who gives it willingly, with his heart he shall take my offering. And this is the offering which you shall take from them: gold, silver, and bronze.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Alright, so the children of Israel in Exodus 25 had been delivered, they had been blessed. It speaks of the church. They came through the Red Sea, that speaks of holy baptism. They were the cloud moved through them, that speaks of baptism in the Spirit. They had received their calling, they had received the Eucharist in Exodus 12. What a holy, holy experience. And now the Lord begins to teach them how he is going to live with them and live among them. Read that again.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering from everyone who gives it willingly with his heart, ye shall take my offering. And this is the offering which you shall take from them: gold, silver, and bronze.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Incredible. So here the gold, by the way, speaks of divinity. Silver speaks of redemption. Bronze speaks of sin. That he's our sin offering. So the facets of the Lord's character are actually revealed in what they're giving back to him. Where did they get the money from the wealth of the Egyptians? So here we see the Lord teaching us allegorically how the wealth of the world, once it gets into the hands of the church, is going to be used for an entirely different purpose. That's amazing. That God can take money in the world system when it gets in the hands of his people. Now he receives the offerings. What are these offerings for? Building the tabernacle. Building God a house. It's amazing. So why did they plunder Egypt? To build the tabernacle. Not to push Bentleys and if God wants to give you one, whatever. But I'm just saying, like, the stuff we got into in our teachings on giving got so bizarre. I remember a guy actually said he had an anointing to like get certain cars or houses through offerings. I thought, what in the world? What where do you find this in the Bible? Where there are anointings for certain car brands. This is okay, so no one's talking about that. Nobody's talking about that. But certainly the answer to refuting wild unbiblical teaching isn't greed. The answer is to redeem it through holiness. And that's what we see here is the Jews took all the wealth of the Egyptians, took it out into the wilderness, God had a plant. He said, Bring me an offering. And we see the heart of God in the midst of the offering. Read it, Cam, in verse 8.

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And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.

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So stop. What's this unto?

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Read it again, Cam. And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. Oh, hold on a minute.

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So Egypt is plundered. The world is plundered by the church of Israel. They receive it. But why did God do it? So that he could come live with them. Read it again.

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And let them make me a sanctuary.

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Okay. Why?

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Why does he want a sanctuary? That I may dwell among them. Insane.

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Forgive me, Lord. It's not insane. It's perfect. Amazing. I don't know the Lord deals with our current talk sometimes. This is amazing. Amazing. So the heart of the Lord is I'm going to take what was of Egypt. I'm going to give it to you freely. But don't forget to give it back to me. Okay, so we see the tithe clearly introduced with Abraham and Melchizedek, clearly introduced with Jacob. We see voluntary offering clearly introduced in Cain and Abel. The list goes on and on. Noah sets up altars. That means offerings are being given. You don't build altars to climb them. You build altars to kill stuff on them, valuable stuff. Okay. Now here in Exodus 25, we see have the people give me an offering freely with their heart. Notice what you read earlier. Read again verse 2, Cam.

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Speak to the children of Israel that they bring me an offering from everyone who gives it willingly with his heart, you shall take my offering.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Yeah. You know what the Lord's saying here? If you don't want to, I don't want your money. It doesn't mean it's not wrong. But the Lord's like, if that's the way you're going to look at this, I don't want it. Because he loves a cheerful giver. If you don't want to do it, because look, it has to be with your heart, not with compulsion. And I'm not here to do nothing I'm doing on these teachings, trust me, nobody signs up to do this. But my heart is that our church be faithful disciples. And if Paul told the church, follow me as I follow Christ, this is the way Jesus' image lives. Every month, every month, for years. Money comes in, a tithe goes out. Every month, every single month, around the world. Orphans, preaching of the gospel, persecuted church. We've supported the underground church in China. When Gaza happened, natural disasters with Samaritan's Purse. It's our lifestyle. So if you're joining a church, if you want to know who we are, this is who we are. So to be honest with you, it doesn't make sense at Jesus' image to say I go to that church, but I'm not generous. That's not who we are. It might be who somebody else is, but it's certainly not who our church is. It's not who the executive team is. It's not who the staff is. It's not what we teach. It's not who Jesse and I are. And I submit to you, it's not the narrative and declaration of the church. So if you want to like properly resemble, just as a local church, of course, as a Christian, but if you want to tap into who this church is, we are a generous people. And we're generous because we get to be. The Lord says, bring it from your heart. Bring it from your heart. What a wonderful opportunity every time finances come in and we're paid. That we can with our heart walk into church and say, Lord, here it is. You gave me my job anyway. You gave me the grace. Thank you, Jesus. Exodus 35, Cam, verse 29. So again, I started in Genesis, and I'm going to give you, I don't know, as many Old Testament passages as we can. These aren't all of them, but I'm going to give you many so that you can see this is not a new idea. Exodus 35, 29.

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The children of Israel brought a free will offering to the Lord, all the men and women whose hearts were willing to bring material for all kinds of work which the Lord by the hand of Moses had commanded to be done.

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Wow, so here you see the children saying, you know what? It's not the Amalekites' job to build our tabernacle. This is our job. Because we're going to worship in there. This is going to be the centerpiece of our community. I want Jesus' image to take that same ownership. We're the ones going to be in this new building every week, right? We're the ones whose children are going to learn of the Lord every week. We're the ones who are going to be blessed in worship every week. We're the ones who are going to receive the Eucharist every week. We're the ones who are going to receive the living word of God every week. When somebody in our family dies, we're going to go to that church and ask for the funeral to be done there. When our kids want to get married, they're going to get married in there. It would be foreign. Foreign, because we're not those kind of people. We're believers. We're not the kind of people who say, give to me and I will not give back to you. It'd be foreign to expect the church to do all of that and me not support that for the Lord's glory and the sake of my children. Right? So this is just basic, basic Christian thought. And now this is not the tithe that's being addressed in Exodus 35. This is the offering that's being given to the Lord. It's a free will offering. So I'm praying that the Lord moves on all of our hearts, me even more, to give more freely to the work, more freely to the building. I should say the Lord's hands as he builds the building. Back to the tithe, Leviticus 27.30. Now, people like, oh, oh, now we're in the law because we're in Leviticus. Okay. The law was written by the Lord. So this isn't like your favorite author who writes cool novels. This is the Lord. And there are aspects of the law, for example, that die at the cross. There are aspects of the law that are fulfilled in the cross. Now Jesus has fulfilled the entirety of the law, but you should still, for example, honor mother and father. That didn't end with the law. Murder is still a bad idea. It's still disobedience, right? The Ten Commandments, we are now empowered to fulfill them. So remember, grace empowers me. So saying it's just law, you have to be real careful when you say just law, because it's written by God. And Paul says the law is for our instruction. Again, I'm going to show you that the tithe preceded law. It's mentioned in the law. That's why Cam is about to read it. And you're going to see that it transcends law and is mentioned after the law and taken to another level. Leviticus 27 30.

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And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's. It is holy to the Lord.

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That is something. Read it again. So how much of the tithe belongs to the Lord? Read it again.

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And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's. Wow. It is holy to the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Yeah. So if you have a business, this isn't just your personal salary. If you own a business, tithing from the income of the business is very biblical. Some people just tithe what they get, but if they own the business, God gave us the power to generate the income. God gives us wealth to glorify his son. Okay, so here we see that all the tithe, all methods of income here, God says belong to the Lord. Bring it all in. But keep read that verse again, Cam.

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And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's.

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Hold on. It belongs to the Lord. So the tithe isn't mine. This is important. It's not our tithe. We don't pay our tithe. We pay his tithe. It's his. He says it's the Lord's. But beyond that, what else? It's the Lord's and it is? It is holy. It's holy. Holding on to something that is holy, that isn't yours, not the best idea. I'm just saying, not the best idea. If God says it's mine, and then God says it's holy, that means it's set apart. You've heard me teach on sanctification, holiness. It came out from, right? It came out from and is given unto. That's holiness or sanctification teaching. Out from unto. The Lord here is saying not only does it belong to him, it's his and it's been given to him, and he considers it sacred. If you look throughout the scriptures, claiming as your own what God deems to be his and sacred is never a good call. Never. So that's why I say tithing is not generosity. Tithing is obedience. It's giving to the Lord what he's saying is his. And that's why Malachi 3 says, You've robbed me in your tithes, or you've robbed me. And Malachi goes, wait, well, how have we robbed you? Because you've robbed me of my tithes and offerings. Well, how could God even say that? Because he says in Leviticus, it's mine. It's mine. Remember, Israel, the firstborn, mine. The church, when Saul is confronted by the Lord. Jesus. Why do you persecute me? Don't touch her. She's mine. Right? God shows up and warns evil kings about touching his servants. Right? We see this happen. So God has this way of going, that is mine. That's mine. Like I mentioned earlier, the one tree in the garden that he says, don't touch it. It's a test. It's a test. Don't touch it. Why that one? He's testing the heart. Why would he say the tithe is mine? Because he's testing the heart. God is not in need of our money. Like heaven will be fine. What is he actually trying to do? Test the heart. Consider it another tree in the garden. No, hold on. This is the Lord's. And I want to empower all the wives because I mentioned this earlier. Wives have a way of keeping their husbands just intact and on track. And wives are masters at providing unsolicited advice. And we need that. If you're anything like Jess, if you have that Jess anointing, you comment on everything. Praise the Lord. If you're going to comment in an area, I want to give you full liberty to ask your husband, hey, are we are we being faithful? Are we giving? I need to know. Because as a wife, you do need to know. There's a lot more at stake than just the act. It's touching something that the Lord says is his. And what a joy to give it back to him as a family. What an invitation. Alright, Kim. Let's look in Numbers now and we'll see that the that the tithe is mentioned again. Numbers 18, 21.

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Behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tithes in Israel as an inheritance in return for the work which they perform, the work of the tabernacle of meeting.

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Right, so here we see in the old covenant that the priests and the Levites are supported through the tithes of the church. And for what reason? For the spiritual work they are providing. And that's when Paul says, Hey, hold on, am I worthy of an offering? He tells the church. If I've provided what's spiritual, shouldn't you be providing what's material? Paul is getting this from the ways of God in the scriptures. Deuteronomy 12, 6, Cam.

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There you shall take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, your vowed offerings, your free will offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.

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Now I had Cam read that verse first, verse 6, on purpose, because you should be wondering, well, where's the there? Where'd you talk about? Go back to verse 5.

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But you shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses out of all your tribes to put his name for his dwelling place, and there you shall.

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Oh, this is awesome. So he's like, hold on. I'm gonna establish a place in the camp, which the New Testament fulfillment is the people of God. You're where the people assemble and where God is, it's called your church. You're gonna go there. I'm gonna put my name there, okay? It's there you shall take your offering. Okay. And now look at verse 7, you're gonna see something else fulfilled in the same in the same environment.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you have put your hand, you and your households, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Whoa. This is incredible. Here we see in Deuteronomy 12, healthy church culture, healthy church experience. You see, God establishes a people and a place with himself. His name rests there. We are the people of the Lord Jesus. Okay? So that's called church. Part of that is worship, taking the resources that he's given you, taking the fruit of your hands, which by the way are redeemed when you give them back to the Lord. Because the work of hands was cursed when Adam sinned. It's redeemed by God's people. Our work becomes worship when we give the first back to the Lord. So here we see that giving is established in verse 6, and in verse 7, we see Eucharistic celebration, the receiving of communion. There you shall eat before the Lord, and you shall rejoice in all to which you've put your hand. So think about what happens. The works of common people, their hands, because of Adam's curse, our work, we have to survive by the sweat of our brow. It's cursed. But when God's people say, Lord, you gave it to me, my work has been worship. I give it back to you. That should be a huge portion of church experience. Then I receive Holy Communion. What hits me? Joy. I get to feast and rejoice over what the Lord has done with my hands because my hands have been redeemed. It's awesome. It's awesome. So I want to invite us once again to go on this journey together. This is not me saying, How dumb are you for not tithing? No. It's me realizing that, you know, something I've learned and as I've studied, hearts are touched first, God heals bodies, minds take time to renew. And sadly, but it's it's it's true, our pockets seem to be like last in line. Our hearts get touched, our bodies get touched, our minds get renewed. Eventually we give our pockets to the Lord. It should happen more quickly, but I also understand. And I would say this the tithe means tenth, but have you given five percent of your income to the Lord or two? I think the national average is like under two percent for the church. Like across the board, the church is giving like under two percent, I believe, to the Lord Jesus. That's incredible to me. And if you were to ask people, well, why don't you, they would say, Well, I'm not under the law anymore. But the law, we we talked about if you totaled all the tithe, you're talking like somewhere close to 30%. Let's just say you don't think that. Let's say it's 10. So under grace, the logic would be under grace, I'm giving less to the Lord in his work than was commanded by the law. And so I'll let you chew on that for a little bit. But my heart, my heart would be this. My heart would be find the joyful pleasure of giving sacrificially to the Lord Jesus, that you'd become a tither. Yes, for the sake of your heart, for the sake of our ability for God to bless you and your family, for the sake of our ability to further the gospel around the world, and to step into this new area of worship and love that sets the heart on fire. May it be in Jesus' name. I love you so much. Father, in Jesus' name, bless your people, protect them, keep them as the apple of your eye, and hide them under the shadow of your wings. In Jesus' precious and holy name. Amen. I love you. See you soon. God bless you. If you enjoyed this podcast, you can like and subscribe to help us continue to reach people around the world with the gospel. Give today at JesusImage.tv forward slash give. You can also join us in person or online every Sunday at Jesus Image Church. For more information on Jesus Image, events, Jesus School, and resources, visit JesusImage.tv.