WEBVTT 00:00:01.923 --> 00:00:09.173 So when Andrea and I were younger, we went to see a financial planner. 00:00:09.173 --> 00:00:15.893 We were both on part-time incomes, and so we really wanted to do the best we could with the money we had. 00:00:15.893 --> 00:00:17.964 We had a young family and money was tight. 00:00:17.964 --> 00:00:30.548 One of the recommendations the planner sort of made was a suggestion he said I know you're Christians, but you need to look at your giving. 00:00:30.548 --> 00:00:45.167 Now, when you're trying to stay afloat in a sinking economy, which is our theme at the moment, your expenses are growing faster than your income, so you're essentially going backwards. 00:00:45.167 --> 00:00:49.149 One of the first things you'll look at is your discretionary spending. 00:00:49.149 --> 00:00:59.140 One of the things you need to look at, so that's your hobbies and recreation gym fees, netflix subscription, coffee not coffee. 00:00:59.140 --> 00:01:01.546 Coffee is a necessity, not a discretionary item. 00:01:01.546 --> 00:01:08.471 So one of those discretionary items is charitable giving and church giving. 00:01:08.471 --> 00:01:14.131 Now, andrea and I have always made it our goal to give at least 10% to the Lord. 00:01:14.131 --> 00:01:29.305 That's what a tithe is is 10%, and so when the financial planner made that suggestion to us, suddenly put us in this well, what are we going to do? 00:01:29.305 --> 00:01:31.802 This question, what would you do? 00:01:31.802 --> 00:01:43.888 Well, the people of Israel were facing a similar question over tithing and now reading today from Malachi, chapter 3,. 00:01:43.888 --> 00:01:55.751 Evidently, things weren't going so well for them economically either, and they were faced with the same kind of choices as us have to cut back. 00:01:55.751 --> 00:01:59.128 And, as it turns out, they were cutting back on their tithe. 00:01:59.128 --> 00:02:01.106 And this is what the Lord says. 00:02:01.106 --> 00:02:05.290 So this is from Malachi, chapter 3, verse 7. 00:02:05.439 --> 00:02:18.324 So this is the last book in the Old Testament in our English Bibles, and it says since the days and this is God speaking through the prophet Malachi since the days of your ancestors, you have turned from my statutes. 00:02:18.324 --> 00:02:19.467 You have not kept them. 00:02:19.467 --> 00:02:23.808 Return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of armies. 00:02:23.808 --> 00:02:26.384 Yet you ask how can we return? 00:02:26.384 --> 00:02:29.466 Will a man rob God? 00:02:29.466 --> 00:02:31.324 Yet you are robbing me. 00:02:31.324 --> 00:02:37.930 How do we rob you, you ask, by not making the payments of the tenth and the contributions. 00:02:37.930 --> 00:02:43.110 You are suffering under a curse, yet you, the whole nation, are still robbing me. 00:02:43.110 --> 00:02:48.530 Bring the full tenth into the storehouse so that there may be food in my house. 00:02:48.530 --> 00:02:51.567 Test me in this waste, says the Lord of armies. 00:02:51.567 --> 00:03:08.911 See, if I will not open up the floodgates of heaven and pour out a blessing for you without measure, I will rebuke the devourer for you so that it will not ruin the produce of your land and your vine in your field will not fail to produce fruit, says the Lord of armies. 00:03:08.911 --> 00:03:17.143 Then all the nations will consider you fortunate, for you will be a delightful land, says the Lord of armies. 00:03:17.143 --> 00:03:24.692 So the prophet Malachi probably wrote these words around 450 to 500 years before Christ. 00:03:25.599 --> 00:03:35.368 After the exiles had returned from Babylon where they had been in captivity, they rebuilt the temple roughly around the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. 00:03:35.368 --> 00:03:44.161 By now, israel was a province of the Persian Empire and they were free to practice their religion. 00:03:44.161 --> 00:03:58.128 But needless to say, they weren't doing very well, and God brings a number of accusations to them through Malachi, but the one we are concerned with today is this charge of robbing God. 00:03:58.128 --> 00:04:20.649 So it seems that the people were facing an economic hardship through failing crops perhaps, maybe drought or locust plague or something similar to that, and, as so happens when things aren't going our way, they were throwing up their hands and saying what's the point of following God if everything keeps going wrong? 00:04:20.649 --> 00:04:36.408 So they were having to make some choices about their discretionary spending and decided that one of the expenditures they could do without was giving to the temple, giving the tithes and contribution, or the tenths, as my translation puts it, to the temple. 00:04:36.408 --> 00:04:37.771 So what's that about? 00:04:37.771 --> 00:04:49.406 Well, in the Bible, Torah, the first five books of the Bible, there are actually many instructions on giving tithes and contributions. 00:04:49.406 --> 00:04:52.553 So I just want to highlight a few. 00:04:52.553 --> 00:04:55.785 So Leviticus 27, verses 30 to 32. 00:04:55.785 --> 00:05:05.716 I'm not going to read them because we don't have time, but in those verses the Lord said that a tenth of everything the land produced once they got into Israel was to be his. 00:05:05.716 --> 00:05:07.622 It was to be given to the temple. 00:05:07.622 --> 00:05:12.069 That was their crops, their orchards, their flocks, everything. 00:05:12.069 --> 00:05:14.737 And if they wanted to redeem it, they could do that. 00:05:14.737 --> 00:05:16.100 They had to pay a little bit of extra. 00:05:16.100 --> 00:05:19.000 They had to add a fifth to the value and give it to the temple. 00:05:20.432 --> 00:05:42.504 Part of the temple offerings were burnt as a sacrifice to God very often, but in Numbers 18, verse 8, god says the part that wasn't burnt, which was actually most of the animal, usually was given to Aaron and his sons, so that's the priests as a portion and permanent statue. 00:05:42.504 --> 00:05:47.509 So essentially, those offerings were how the priests got paid. 00:05:47.509 --> 00:06:01.163 And this was because when the Israelites entered the Promised Land, there were 12 tribes, if you remember, and one of those tribes was Levite, which the priests were a part of the tribe of Levite. 00:06:01.163 --> 00:06:04.781 So all the other 11 tribes were given an allotment of land. 00:06:04.781 --> 00:06:12.564 Everyone went in and essentially every family in Israel at this stage was meant to have a family allotment. 00:06:12.564 --> 00:06:15.639 The Levites and the priests didn't get one of those. 00:06:15.639 --> 00:06:21.161 They had a few towns and some of the lands around it, but they basically didn't have those ancestral lands. 00:06:21.161 --> 00:06:25.440 They relied on the temple for their income. 00:06:27.649 --> 00:06:52.182 Deuteronomy 26, verse 12, says that, in addition to the regular tithes every three years, the people were to bring a tithe and make it available to the Levites, as we've just mentioned, the resident aliens, so foreigners in the country, fatherless children and widows, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied, and so that tithe every three years was essentially a way of caring for the poor. 00:06:52.182 --> 00:06:54.497 It was welfare for the people of Israel. 00:06:54.497 --> 00:07:04.338 So there's a lot more but to summarize, the tithes and contributions were an act of worship and an acknowledgement of God's ownership over Israel. 00:07:04.338 --> 00:07:13.757 They were a wage to the priests and Levites who were devoted to the ministry and kept the temple going, and they formed a part of the welfare for the poor. 00:07:13.757 --> 00:07:20.221 And so in that light can you see what it meant for a covenant people who were in relationship with God. 00:07:20.221 --> 00:07:32.160 When they were slack in bringing their tithes and contributions to the temple, they really were robbing God of what was rightfully His. 00:07:32.160 --> 00:07:44.360 There was literally no food in the storehouse for the priests, so they couldn't do their job properly and the poor had no relief from the grinding poverty and injustice. 00:07:44.360 --> 00:07:51.060 And that, says God, is why the people were suffering economic hardship. 00:07:52.529 --> 00:08:05.581 In terms of the covenant, god had said if you live by the terms of the covenant, then I will look after you, your crops won't fail, you'll have no poor among you, because just the way the covenant was set up was they would look after each other. 00:08:05.581 --> 00:08:08.956 If they lived by the covenant. 00:08:08.956 --> 00:08:12.533 It's almost like God didn't need to do anything, but he would protect them. 00:08:12.533 --> 00:08:23.771 But the people had broken the covenant and so what had happened is God says if you walk in the covenant, I will bless you, I will protect you. 00:08:23.771 --> 00:08:35.376 But they had placed themselves outside of that covenant blessing and so they no longer covered it by the blessing but by a curse, and I'll talk about that a little more in a moment. 00:08:37.825 --> 00:08:43.837 The people were withholding their tithes and offerings and contributions because things were getting hard. 00:08:43.837 --> 00:08:59.351 But what they didn't realize was things were getting hard because they weren't honoring God, and part of that there's other things in Malachi but part of that was because they weren't honoring God and being faithful with their offerings, and so things were getting hard. 00:08:59.351 --> 00:09:02.972 And so God says to them test me. 00:09:02.972 --> 00:09:07.615 Essentially, he's saying, hey, try out covenant faithfulness. 00:09:07.615 --> 00:09:13.514 Let's just try this agreement we made together and see what it's like to live under those terms. 00:09:15.806 --> 00:09:21.125 Now you might be saying this morning yeah, but we're no longer under that old covenant. 00:09:21.125 --> 00:09:22.571 That's an Old Testament thing. 00:09:22.571 --> 00:09:24.071 We're in the New Testament. 00:09:24.071 --> 00:09:25.207 It doesn't apply. 00:09:25.207 --> 00:09:28.710 Well, that's kind of true. 00:09:28.710 --> 00:09:36.937 But the New Testament actually has quite a bit more to say about this subject than you might realize. 00:09:36.937 --> 00:09:54.917 In 1 Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 6, paul said that the things that happened to Israel, all the bad things that happened to Israel, took place as an example to us, and so we're to learn from it rather than writing off the Old Testament as something that's outdated. 00:09:54.917 --> 00:10:06.578 And in fact it's interesting that in 2 Corinthians, chapter 9, verses 6 to 10, paul makes almost the exact same point that Malachi is talking about in these verses. 00:10:08.424 --> 00:10:17.731 So in this, what I'm about to read, he's talking about poverty relief that all the Gentile churches were sending to Jerusalem, which was in the midst of a famine. 00:10:17.731 --> 00:10:22.325 But he writes this general principle that applies beyond that specific context. 00:10:22.325 --> 00:10:32.220 He says the person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the person who sows generously will also reap generously. 00:10:32.220 --> 00:10:50.499 Each person should do as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or out of compulsion, since God loves a cheerful giver and God is able to make every grace overflow to you so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work. 00:10:50.499 --> 00:11:01.476 And now the one who provides seed for the sower and bread for food, that's God will also provide and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 00:11:01.476 --> 00:11:07.951 The person who sows sparingly will reap sparingly. 00:11:07.951 --> 00:11:10.917 The person who sows generously will reap generously. 00:11:12.585 --> 00:11:13.509 Do you know what goes beyond this? 00:11:13.509 --> 00:11:25.721 Do you know that Paul appeals to the principle of the Levitical Tithe out of the Old Testament to argue that Christian workers are entitled to an income as ministers of the gospel? 00:11:25.721 --> 00:11:26.245 Listen to this. 00:11:26.245 --> 00:11:30.235 This is 1 Corinthians, chapter 9, verses 13 to 14. 00:11:30.235 --> 00:11:40.874 Don't you know that those who perform the temple services eat the food from the temple and those who serve at the altar share in the offerings of the altar. 00:11:40.874 --> 00:11:42.410 So that's what I was just talking about. 00:11:43.365 --> 00:11:50.442 In the same way he says the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should earn their living by the gospel. 00:11:50.442 --> 00:12:02.024 And then in 1 Timothy 5, verses 17 to 18, he says the elders who are good leaders are to be considered worthy of double honour, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. 00:12:02.024 --> 00:12:08.754 For the Scripture says Do not muzzle an ox while it's treading out the grain and the worker is worthy of his wages. 00:12:08.754 --> 00:12:12.374 And that do not muzzle an ox comes from Leviticus. 00:12:12.374 --> 00:12:15.934 So honour here means payment. 00:12:15.934 --> 00:12:18.033 I think that's pretty obvious from the context. 00:12:18.033 --> 00:12:27.293 It's what we used to call an honourarium, and Paul is saying the elders now what we call pastors were meant to be paid by the church in the same way priests and Levites were. 00:12:27.293 --> 00:12:28.998 Isn't that interesting? 00:12:28.998 --> 00:12:33.515 So the Old Testament perhaps has something more to say to us than we realise. 00:12:33.515 --> 00:12:38.873 And I just want to point out if it says it about money, it probably says other things as well we need to pay attention to. 00:12:38.873 --> 00:12:41.308 But that will be getting us off topic. 00:12:43.525 --> 00:12:45.191 So what does this mean for us today? 00:12:45.191 --> 00:12:56.716 Tithing, and actually more than a tithe when you read the Old Testament, and certainly in the New, where generosity of giving is commanded. 00:12:56.716 --> 00:13:06.674 Tithing was commanded in the Torah, the Old Testament law, and the Gospel teaches us the same principles for today in the church. 00:13:06.674 --> 00:13:10.432 And so what does that mean for you and for me? 00:13:10.432 --> 00:13:13.890 Are we under a curse if we don't give? 00:13:13.890 --> 00:13:20.897 Is some kind of prosperity gospel at work when I give? 00:13:20.897 --> 00:13:25.648 Well, no and no For one. 00:13:25.648 --> 00:13:35.934 Jesus has taken every curse upon himself on the cross, so we don't have to fear a curse, and I don't know if I need to say the prosperity gospel is basically a heresy. 00:13:37.787 --> 00:13:47.955 But there is this principle of sowing and reaping at work, and the Scriptures clearly, old and new, point out and it's just an axiom of life, isn't it? 00:13:47.955 --> 00:13:57.398 What you invest in is what you get a return from, whether that's with your money or whether that's with your time, whether that's with your emotions. 00:13:57.398 --> 00:14:02.013 What we put into is what we get a return from. 00:14:02.013 --> 00:14:21.270 Consider this when pastors and Christian workers, when money is coming into the church, then we can do gospel ministry, we can pursue the gospel which brings growth and blessing to God's kingdom, and when they're not paid, their attention is divided at best. 00:14:21.270 --> 00:14:32.038 There's this other principle at work too, that has to do with the nature of blessing and cursing which I mentioned earlier. 00:14:32.065 --> 00:14:42.291 When we see the curses in the Old Testament, they're usually worded as God bringing a curse onto people, god inflicting punishment on the people, and that's true. 00:14:42.291 --> 00:14:56.778 But very often the way the curses work isn't so much that God is wielding a big stick and bashing the people until they come into submission, it's more that he is removing His blessing from them. 00:14:56.778 --> 00:15:06.995 As I said, they're sort of stepping out of that realm of blessing into this realm outside of God's blessing, which is in a world of sin, is a place of curse. 00:15:06.995 --> 00:15:17.452 It is a place where the shalom, the peace of God does not reside because essentially not because God doesn't want it there and he's not offering it, but because it's rejected it. 00:15:17.452 --> 00:15:28.958 He doesn't accept Jesus as Lord, and so the curse is as much ourselves removing ourselves from God's blessing as anything else. 00:15:29.225 --> 00:15:35.317 So it's like a child who you know, you get a young toddler and you say "don't wander off. 00:15:35.317 --> 00:15:36.966 Why? 00:15:36.966 --> 00:15:42.110 Because when a child stays close to you, they're safe, you can protect them from harm. 00:15:42.110 --> 00:15:47.437 You've probably got all the goodies in your bag that they can eat and the toys they can play with. 00:15:47.437 --> 00:15:49.207 But if they wander off what happens? 00:15:49.207 --> 00:15:53.616 They're wandering into a realm of danger and perhaps hardship. 00:15:53.616 --> 00:15:59.033 It's not that mum and dad don't want to protect them, it's that suddenly they can't not as easily. 00:15:59.033 --> 00:16:05.184 It's like Adam and Eve in the garden they're given the choice between which tree to eat. 00:16:05.184 --> 00:16:10.758 Are you going to eat from the tree of life or from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? 00:16:10.758 --> 00:16:11.589 And what do they choose? 00:16:11.589 --> 00:16:14.445 Every time it's good and evil. 00:16:14.544 --> 00:16:35.354 We want to, we want to be able to figure this out for ourselves, we want to be our own moral authority, but as long as we're walking close to God, his arm around us, by His side, him, us keeping in step with Him, and we're under the shelter of His blessing and protection. 00:16:35.354 --> 00:16:46.947 But if we wander off, god's like saying well, okay, then, if that's what you want, but I can't really help you from, if you're over there, you'll have to wear the consequences, and that's what we call the curse. 00:16:46.947 --> 00:16:48.909 Could he intervene? 00:16:48.909 --> 00:17:04.365 Well, yes, he could, but he honours our choices, and so, when times are tough, it's easy to start to get afraid and, rather than trust, to seek our own safety through our own resources. 00:17:04.464 --> 00:17:17.872 We, rather than the tree of life, of dependence on God and dwelling in His Word, we seek the tree, the knowledge of good and evil, working it out for ourselves, friends, but when times are tough, this is where faith begins. 00:17:17.872 --> 00:17:20.929 Will we stay close to God? 00:17:20.929 --> 00:17:22.634 Will we stay close to His ways? 00:17:22.634 --> 00:17:33.313 Of course, this goes way beyond finances, but it includes finances, and finances have such a hold on us that they're a powerful sign of our faith. 00:17:33.313 --> 00:17:46.776 Will we stay close to God in His ways, looking to Him and His tree of life, or do we panic and close in on ourselves and follow the world's knowledge and wisdom? 00:17:46.776 --> 00:17:52.755 If we do that, we start to move away from the place of blessing into danger. 00:17:54.384 --> 00:17:55.647 We withhold the tithe. 00:17:55.647 --> 00:18:14.036 The giving may not be a literal tithe, but that giving, that generous spirit towards God, that is an act of worship, because our money represents our time and our dreams and our investment, and when we give it to God, we are expressing His worth to us. 00:18:14.036 --> 00:18:33.646 If we withhold that, we're withholding our worship, we're losing our connection with God, who sacrificially gives Himself to us, and so that's why, when that financial planner said to Andrea and me that we should review our giving, we ignored him. 00:18:33.646 --> 00:18:38.116 We're like no, our giving is the first budget item. 00:18:38.116 --> 00:18:40.189 Everything else has to work around that. 00:18:40.189 --> 00:18:43.694 And, friends, god has been faithful. 00:18:43.694 --> 00:18:47.061 Now it does get tricky. 00:18:47.061 --> 00:18:49.928 Sometimes we do have to tighten our belts. 00:18:51.170 --> 00:19:04.755 Those commands to tithing and giving in Israel were particularly for, in the first place, for people who had land, who had means, and when you really don't have to have means and you really need to start crying out to God. 00:19:04.755 --> 00:19:08.824 I wouldn't want anyone to go into debt so they can tithe. 00:19:08.824 --> 00:19:30.638 So, okay, there's an element of common sense in what I'm going to say, but there is also a real challenge here to faith, because to grow in our faith and give God space to work, that only starts to happen when we're at the end of our resources. 00:19:30.638 --> 00:19:38.412 Right, when I have nothing and all I've got is God, it's like, okay, I've got to see what you're going to do now. 00:19:38.412 --> 00:19:46.953 When we pray for healing because the doctors are at their end and there's nothing, god, are you going to do something here? 00:19:46.953 --> 00:19:52.833 When we have a broken relationship and we've done everything we can, god, we need a miracle. 00:19:52.833 --> 00:20:01.019 And when our finances, the wallet's empty, the bank account's looking pretty poor, god, are you going to do something here? 00:20:01.019 --> 00:20:02.162 I need a miracle. 00:20:02.162 --> 00:20:07.512 Miracles happen when we reach the end of our resources and rely on God. 00:20:07.512 --> 00:20:16.039 So I want to ask you today is there a step of faith you need to take in order to seek God's blessing? 00:20:17.001 --> 00:20:23.313 Now I know for some of you you already live in a place of generosity and praise God. 00:20:23.313 --> 00:20:31.034 But I'm guessing there are some here who are perhaps held back by fear or doubt. 00:20:31.034 --> 00:20:39.692 There may be even some here, because we're all subject to this temptation, and who may be held back by greed and materialism. 00:20:39.692 --> 00:20:44.604 But you know, maybe the question will God really provide? 00:20:44.604 --> 00:20:45.885 What if I don't have enough? 00:20:45.885 --> 00:20:47.829 What's going to happen then? 00:20:47.829 --> 00:20:57.270 But God says in Malachi you're having hardship because you're not giving. 00:20:59.622 --> 00:21:07.549 So here's an experiment I want to challenge you with for the next month, let's say for the month of November. 00:21:07.549 --> 00:21:10.948 Why don't you try giving just a little bit more? 00:21:10.948 --> 00:21:21.734 If you don't give regularly, particularly to the church, try it for just one month. 00:21:21.734 --> 00:21:24.039 Try tithing and see what happens. 00:21:24.039 --> 00:21:26.911 Now maybe you just can't count. 00:21:26.911 --> 00:21:30.363 Count, countenance giving 10% For one month. 00:21:30.363 --> 00:21:31.806 I'd really challenge you to try that. 00:21:31.806 --> 00:21:40.330 But if you really can't just give something 5%, if you're already giving why not try giving a little bit more? 00:21:40.330 --> 00:21:48.424 If you're not giving 10%, bump it up, see what happens 15%, maybe More. 00:21:50.146 --> 00:21:53.957 And as you do, though, remember this is an act of worship first and foremost. 00:21:53.957 --> 00:22:18.195 It's a, first and foremost, giving our hearts to God, because money so often has our heart, and in giving it to God, we're releasing Pray, pray as you go, seek God, dedicate yourself to Him, as well as your finances, and look if, after a month or maybe two, god hasn't blessed you in some way. 00:22:18.195 --> 00:22:31.577 If you're really struggling to get food on the table and pay the bills and you have no joy in it and you're not feeling closer to God, okay, stop, you don't have to do it, it's not work. 00:22:31.577 --> 00:22:40.886 Paul says God loves a cheerful giver, and if it ain't bringing cheer into your life, ask God why. 00:22:40.886 --> 00:22:42.131 What's going on? 00:22:42.131 --> 00:22:55.155 Do some self-examination, but if it is, what might happen, it's not when things are easy that we need faith or we need miracles. 00:22:55.325 --> 00:23:01.153 It's when times are tough that our faith is tested, and what does God say in this regard? 00:23:01.153 --> 00:23:02.990 Test me in this way. 00:23:02.990 --> 00:23:09.715 See if I will not open up the floodgates of heaven and pour out a blessing for you without measure. 00:23:09.715 --> 00:23:23.650 Let's pray, oh, father, as I'm preaching this, I'm just aware of how much a whole money can have on me sometimes, and, father, I'm sure that's common to many of us. 00:23:23.650 --> 00:23:40.897 Lord, give us the faith, the courage, the conviction to honor you Father, the understanding to know what's happening when we relinquish our finances to you. 00:23:40.897 --> 00:23:51.673 And, father, I pray that, as we do, that you will multiply your ministry here in this church, that your kingdom will come into our city and into our world. 00:23:51.673 --> 00:23:55.894 Father, I thank you for the abundant generosity of this church. 00:23:55.894 --> 00:24:02.395 We see Lord through our faith offering and through our offerings. 00:24:02.395 --> 00:24:15.825 Lord, there's so much more to do and, father, there's so much more for you to do within our hearts, in our homes, in our families. 00:24:15.825 --> 00:24:18.047 Please make us more like Jesus, amen.