Generosity 2 | Pastor Will Hawk | 23 November 2025

We trace how wealth can hide our need for God, why a single encounter with Jesus rarely brings clear sight, and how desire, discipline, and devotion reshape the way we give. Scripture reframes tithing as a starting point and elevates generosity that pursues justice, mercy, and mission.

• rich young ruler and the shock of wealth 
• two-touch healing as a metaphor for spiritual sight 
• desire, discipline, devotion as a growth path 
• Israel’s three tithes and firstfruits trust 
• why tithing is training wheels, not the goal 
• creating margin and resisting autopilot giving 
• six traits of generous living: gratitude, mission, intentionality, charity, unity, holiness 
• practical next steps toward joyful, planned generosity

If you want to learn more about the MidTree story or connect with us, go to our website HERE or text us at 812-MID-TREE.

Chapters

• 1:32 Scripture Reading: Rich Young Ruler
• 4:06 Why Wealth Shocked The Disciples
• 7:42 Generosity Series Setup And Story
• 11:16 Seeing Clearly: The Two-Touch Healing
• 17:26 Desire, Discipline, Devotion Framework
• 24:56 Cold Plunge And Devotion Analogies
• 29:06 How Much Did Israel Give
• 33:46 Three Tithes And God’s Heart
• 38:06 Are Christians Required To Tithe
• 44:26 Benefits And Limits Of Tithing
• 50:06 Firstfruits, Trust, And Margin
• 55:26 Autopilot Giving And Repentance

Transcript

Will Hawk: 0:46

Find a sink, find a sink.

Tiffany Grantham: 0:47

Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Mark, chapter ten. We'll begin in verse 17. If you're reading out of your pew Bible, it's on page 846. I'll give you a few seconds to turn there.

Will Hawk: 1:03

Tiffany's on it, man. She's like, sit down, I got a Bible verse to read.

Tiffany Grantham: 1:11

And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments, do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother. And he said to him, Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth. And Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, You lack one thing. Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me. Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, and he had great possessions. And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. And the disciples were amazed at his words, but Jesus said to them again, Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. And they were exceedingly astonished and said to him, Then who can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said, With man it is impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible with God. This is the word of the Lord.

Will Hawk: 2:38

Amen. Hey, just leave that up for just a minute. Don't take it off yet. Thank you, Tiffany. Appreciate it. Thomas, is this the kid you want in your youth ministry? True or false? It's kind of true. It's not the kid you want to leave your youth ministry. Like by senior year, you're like, get this figure out. Yeah, but this is the kid who sits still, he pays attention, he's got his stuff figured out. I just want you to notice this. By the way, welcome to Mitchry Church. My name is Will. I'm the lead pastor here. Excited to hang out with you guys. In the event that you weren't here last week, we are doing two weeks on generosity and you just slid in. If you were here last week and you knew we were doing two weeks on generosity and giving, and you showed up anyway, I'm really proud of you, and I want you to know that. One of the things I just wanted to point to this from the very beginning. There's a million things you could teach. This isn't going to be our main text for the day. I love the fact that when Jesus says it's hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven, the disciples are what word? Starts with an A. Astonished. Do you want to know why? Because it's easy when we have means for our lives to look like we are exceedingly righteous and godly. It is easier for it to look that way. And what you're going to see, we'll look in one other passage. The disciples are right. Wait a minute, wait a minute. If they're not making it, how is anybody going to make it? Because the religious elite of their day were wealthy. And so they would have looked at this. They would have looked at the Pharisees whose lives were just all buttoned up and perfect. And for Jesus to say, it's actually really hard when we have a lot of stuff in the wallet in the back pocket or in an account. That absolutely blew their mind. And so here we go. You guys can throw it to uh to regular slides and stuff now. Thank you for leaving that up. Here is uh the hope for today. I want us to see the concept of generosity clearly as it relates to scripture. And I do have a little bit of fuel in the tank. Um, I have fuel in the tank for a couple of reasons, but I will only give you one. I heard the best story when I was uh finishing up church last week, and I've been waiting all week to tell you this. So I got permission to share this story. I need you to know that. Somebody's been inviting a family member to church for a long time. They have not been going to church for a long time because you ready for this? Whenever I show up to church, all the church does is talk about money. So they show up last week. By the way, if you're if you're new to Mid Tree, uh, we haven't talked about money in ages. We work through books of the Bible. If it comes up, we talk about it. We don't really do topicals and we're doing two weeks on it. Um, so he shows up with his family member, and I say, Hey guys, we're gonna be talking about money today, and his heart drops. Like, I've been trying to get this family over church forever. He hasn't gone in ages because all we do is talk about money. And I'm even like, I even had a little line where I said, Some of you are leaning next to the person that you invited, and you're saying, I promise we don't do this every week. Like, I'm so sorry. Here's what ends up happening. I'm trying to be very vague, and I can't even tell you the end of the story because it's even better, but it is that person's story to tell. Shows up, some dude just talking about money the whole time. He's he's at church. He leaves, and when he gets home, unexpectedly from a source that he had sort of given up on and written off, a check for thousands of dollars is on the doorstep under the mat. This is like 10. By the way, we're not a prosperity gospel. I'm not saying give me 10 and I'll turn it into 100. You're in the wrong place if you wanted that. If you need 10 to turn into 100, you got to talk to Stokes, not me. That's more his world than mine. I'm like, give me $10 and I'm gonna ask you to go live in Kenya. That's the difference. And um, but he shows up to church, talks about money, it's like, you have got to be kidding me. And on the very week he decided to go, on that very day, was the exact same day in God's providence. Every one of our days written before one of them came to be, Psalm 139. He gets home and has an unexpected blessing. And it was just like so, I'm not nervous to talk to you guys about money. I wasn't really nervous last week. I'm definitely not nervous this week. I'm not saying lift your doormat when you get home. But I am telling you this, the story actually gets better from there, but I can't tell it because it isn't my story to tell. But maybe you will get to hear that testimony in the days, weeks, or years ahead. How is it that we can see generosity clearly? Now, this is Mark 8. I know that you're not able to see everything that I have up here, but what I do want you to notice is this story in the middle. One of the weirdest stories. You couldn't preach the story during COVID, and I'll tell you why. Because they came to Bethesda and some people brought to him being Jesus a blind man, and they begged Jesus to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. Remember, they just wanted Jesus to touch him. And when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, Do you see anything? All right, this is taking it to the to the next level. All right. This bothered me theologically forever. What happens next? Jesus is only asked to touch the guy. He takes it a step up, spits, puts it on the guy's eyes, and then looks at him, red letters on the screen. Do you see anything? Does Jesus have infinite power to heal? Yes or no? Infinite power to heal. And he looked up verse 24 and he said, I see people, but they look like trees walking. Okay. Was Jesus having an off day? Had he missed his coffee? Was it just like, oh gosh, guys? I mean, I've been doing so many miracles. The manometer's just a little low right now. It's gonna be hard to pull this off. Why? Why does Jesus half heal this guy? And what does it have to do with us seeing generosity clearly? Pay close attention. I see people, but they look like trees walking. Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again, and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly, and he sent him home saying, Don't even enter the village. Your life is about to change as a result of this. Why did it only work halfway? Jesus is not at low power. One of the things we realize about Scripture is many times Jesus is doing things before things and after things to explain the things that come before. Why is it that this man needed to be touched twice? Why was it that it was going to require more than one encounter with Jesus? Please hear me on that this morning. Why does it sometimes require more than one encounter with Jesus? Well, one reason is because of who he was coming from. Here are the people who look like they have their lives together. If you feel like you have your life together because you had one encounter with Jesus, you need to read the story that comes from above. It is a dangerous thing to think. I went to church camp when I was a kid, I walked down, I filled out a card, I prayed with my mom and dad, I joined crew in college, I repented tomorrow, and I became a Christian. I've had my encounter with Christ. So now I'm gonna live a generally good life, and I'm gonna try to do all the things that the world does with just a little bit of Jesus on top. That is what we see in story one. We need more than one encounter with Christ to see clearly. Well, what happens at the bottom is Peter confesses Jesus is Christ. Jesus went on with the disciples, and on the way he said, Who do people say that I am? In other words, you can have an encounter with me and not fully understand who I am. You can be near me, you can go to church for years and not see clearly, and at the very end, Peter confesses, you are the Son of God. And Jesus says, just so you know, you didn't come up with that on your own. Why do these stories live around Jesus having two encounters with someone to see clearly? Because it is very dangerous for us to think that we've encountered Jesus once. So now our mind, soul, affections, emotions, desires, and actions automatically move into that category. Number two, you are going to live in a world where lots of people have an encounter with Jesus and an opinion about Jesus, but there is only one way to see him as Lord of all. I submit this to you because when it comes to our generosity, most of us had an encounter, had a teaching, watched a Dave Ramsey thing or whatever else it was. We said, boom, got it. It's kind of who I am, and we moved on. Now listen, you may be able to navigate. You might be able to walk around, but you're gonna walk in a world not seeing clearly if generosity or prayer or faithfulness or evangelism or mission or anything else you feel like you have stamped and it is done. I would encourage you with this. All of us need to continue having encounters with Christ so that we can see clearly. And in our culture, generosity is one that is gonna require more than one encounter with Christ. And that is exactly what we see. Now, this is where we left off last week. If all you knew was the Bible, we walked through what you would believe, we walked through what you would feel. We're gonna get real practical today. What would you do if all you knew was scripture? I have been very careful when I put something on the screen to not editorialize today. I do not want to give you Will's opinions, best guess theological assumptions. I just want to give you Bible because I feel like I know you and you know me. This is the kind of Sunday where the antennas go up and we are looking for problems and we're looking to justify things. So my goal is to simply give you scripture that would say, if all I knew was the Bible, what would I do when it comes to money? And by the way, this third category is the most dangerous. The reason it's the most dangerous is because by far, this is the one that is the easiest to be legalistic about. The easiest to check the box, feel like we've given our heart to God because we had one experience with Christ, we haven't grown from that. We go into autopilot once we begin answering number three. And that was actually a problem in Jesus' own day. As he told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous. I'm gonna be drinking a lot of water. Let me just own the awkward right now. I was traveling a bunch, I've got like plain head, if y'all know what that means, and I'm hearing myself twice today, so I apologize. He told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and they treated others with contempt. By the way, there's a connection there. If you see yourself as righteous, you will often begin to treat others with contempt. Not the point of the sermon, but good to know. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, impressive guy, and the other a tax collector, not an impressive guy. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus. I am not like other men. God, I'm grateful that I'm different. What he's saying here, I'm glad I'm better than the people around me. I want you to watch how we came to that. The Bible could have listed his entire heart. This is what it lists as to what caused him to become self-righteous and see other people with contempt. I'm not an extortioner, I'm not unjust, I'm not an adulterer, I'm not even like this tax collector. That's a bold statement to say in front of God. I fast twice a week and I give tithes of all that I get. That those two things are what caused him to think that he was better than everybody else around him. I skip a meal and I put something in the plate, and that is all it takes for me to be better than the people around me. But the tax collector, standing far off, didn't even feel like he needed to be near, wouldn't even lift up his eyes to heaven, he beat his breast saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. This is the kind of prayer that saves your soul. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. This was a problem. What we're talking about today has been a problem for 2,000 years. So let me give you a paradigm to understand giving as well as any other spiritual discipline so that you do not become self-righteous, nor do you become lazy thinking you've had an encounter with Christ, and that would be enough. I'm not gonna tell you to write things down often. I would capture this. And the reason I would capture this is this will apply to everything in your life, not just generosity. I think it's good for you to have a paradigm for spiritual growth. There are three categories, three tranches, three terraces of pursuing the Lord. Now listen to me. I am telling you that one is better than the other. This is not a everybody gets a green ribbon for participation. But I also want to tell you this not all of us will get to the third rail in this life, in everything. All right? Desire leading to discipline, desire leading to discipline leading to devotion. Desire is I want to reflect God's something. Now you can fill that in with anything from the character of God. Today we're gonna talk about generosity, okay? That's what we're talking about today. I want to reflect God's generosity to me in Christ. 2 Corinthians 8, 9 will be the last verse you see today. That's what I desire. All right. Now listen to me. Just because you want something doesn't mean you have obtained it. I'll just talk to the husbands in the room, all right? Just because you want to not leave your boots out does not mean your wife is giving you credit for not leaving your boots out. Okay? Just because you want to, you pick your own thing. Just because you want to do something, that could be a good desire. I want to serve the Lord. So did the rich young ruler, and he was the most impressive kid in the youth group. Desire is not enough, but not having a desire is a terrifying place to be. I desire to give the Lord my life. That is beautiful. That doesn't mean you've done it. You have to repent, you need to believe, you need to be baptized, okay? But having a desire is a beautiful place to start. That desire should then lead to discipline. Let me be careful with this word. Our English diction uses the word discipline in two different ways. I wake up at six o'clock in the morning to go running, that's called discipline. I reach for a cookie and I'm eight years old and my mom smacks it away. She wouldn't have really smacked me, but she smacks it away. That's called discipline too. This would be category one discipline. I'm intentionally organizing my life. I have a plan and I practice it with joy. By the time we get to discipline, we have moved beyond desire. I don't just desire something, I have put feet to my faith. The rich young ruler never got to discipline. He had all the desire in the world, but he never made it to discipline. I've got a plan and I practice it with joy. And then some of us in some areas will, by the grace of God, gifting of God, calling of God, move to devotion. I want to be careful with this. There was if I woke up on the day I turned seven years old and I shot basketballs for an hour every day. If I had a desire to be a great basketball player and I had the discipline to pull it off, I would never have made it into the NBA. It is not in the cards for me. Okay? Wasn't gonna happen. There are some things where we may not be, and by the way, God gifts us with all kinds of different things. He doesn't do it equally, okay? God is not an equal distributor of gifts, which is also a grace to us when we see people who are better than us at things. We don't have to say, oh, well, I'm not so bad at this. We can say, well, God's gifted me to be good in other things, right? That's that's 1 Corinthians, the body, chapter 12, working together. Devotion is I delight in going above and beyond. Now, if I were to take the word generosity out and I were to pick a different character of God, truth. I I want to reflect God's truth. That's a wonderful thing. Doesn't mean anything until you begin to say, so I have a plan. I read my Bible every day. I've started memorizing scripture. I I uh I get online and I look at studies, I show up to church, I go to Bible studies. Now I have a discipline. Some of those people will move into devotion. I don't just desire it, I don't just have a discipline for it. I feel more alive when I am sharing the truth of God than anything else. Those are the people who become pastors, preachers, MCG facilitators, leaders, Sunday school teachers, et cetera, and so on. All right? Not everybody will do that. If you look at this and you say, I want to reflect God's um mission, some people will have a huge heart for that. And then what do you do? You have a plan, you give to a missionary, you go on a mission trip, you you uh start supporting whatever else, and then all of a sudden it goes above and beyond, and you leave, you go and you spend your life elsewhere. You can apply any characteristic of God that we could desire and watch it walk through these things. The question for you today is this when it comes to generosity, don't answer out loud, but answer honestly in your heart, mind, and soul, where are you? Is it something that you even desire at all? If you don't desire it, I I don't know that you've understood the gospel. When God gives his absolute best, unequivocally, holding nothing back, there should be something in us that at least has a desire to be generous to the people around us. I hope that if you have a desire, it will turn into a discipline. I'm about to help you with that. And maybe some of us have had a discipline, but God would call us into a higher level where we actually feel worship explode from us when we say, just because I've had one encounter with Christ, I may be called to more. So I give you this as a little bit of help. Now, let me give you just one quick thought on desire and one on devotion. If you don't desire something, people who do are gonna look crazy to you. By show of hands, how many of y'all had know someone who is serious about cold plunging, or you knew somebody who is serious about cold plunging? I just need, all right, if you don't know what this is, you you put a bunch of cold water in a bike. Thomas has one. Can I see it? Is it like tucked around? It's in the closet. If you saw our church on Monday and Tuesday, good gracious, Thomas will pull this thing out, he'll fill it with water, fill it with ice, and then he just sits in it because it's good for his health. I did it one time. I did feel great for like 15 minutes afterward. Painful minute and a half, two minutes. If you see somebody do that and you do not have a desire for it or for the benefits, do you know what you call that person crazy? You call that person a fanatic. By the way, that's what the world is supposed to call you. It's supposed to look at your desire for Christ and say, that doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. But once you get to the place where there is a discipline, you're like, oh, okay, I can begin to see the benefits. You may even devote yourself to it, where you spend how much money on Amazon to buy that thing? $48,000. Incredible, incredible. What I would say about devotion is this: if you can't think of anything in your life that causes you to worship that you go above and beyond, I want you to hear this from me. You're missing out. I do not want you to be baseline Christians in anything. You are gifted to excel in something. I'll never forget sitting down at a dinner table with someone in Columbus, Georgia. I was talking to them about this new church plant uh called Midtree, and we had just gotten this property. These were people who had been to Midtree, they were involved in Midtree, and I said, We're we're raising money because we want to be able to break ground and we want to be able to build the building. And I just share with him. He walks away and he comes back with a check in his hand and he hands me the check. And when I look at it, my first thought was this. I didn't think you could do this much on a check. Like, don't you need to call someone? Don't you need to like, isn't there somebody? You're not supposed to be able to like go and get these. It seems like a dangerous thing. He wrote a check for $250,000 and handed it to me after a 30-minute conversation. Can I tell you that is more than discipline, that's devotion, and I will prove it to you by telling you this. That person has not been to this building. That person wrote a check and knew. Remember, we were a nomadic church. We were meeting in Columbus at the time. That person wrote a check knowing that if this building got built, it would edge them out of likely involvement here. That is what devotion looks like. And when you see it, not only does their heart get sent on, do you know how much worship that put inside me? And it doesn't just have to be generosity. Remember, fill in the blank, but find something to devote your life to. All right, now let's get into the nitty-gritty of what we're supposed to do. Little fun question to start you with. I've got a poll. So if you want to engage, grab your phone, scan the QR code. It's gonna take you to a little poll. I would love to see how you guys would answer this question. The question is going to be what percentage did the average Israelite give in the Old Testament? What percentage of income did the average Israelite give? And I've given you a couple of options there. I'll leave the QR code up while I still see phones up. If you get it right, you will enter into the category of people who are available to get one of two books that I'm giving away today. So, all right, what percentage did the average Israelite give in the old testament? Let me see. All right, here's how oh no, oh, is it is it just man, I love doing that. Oh, there we go. All right, we'll we'll let it kind of keep going. But uh I gave you a couple of categories. In first place, right now it's 10%. It's growing, it's shrinking, 25% just took the lead, 50% or more. Not many people are saying zero. All right, so what percentage did the average Israelite give in the old testament? This is really a cool thing to sort of look at and study. I'm gonna I'm gonna hit pause in just a minute. Do do do a few more of you. All right, well, I think it's probably gonna hold right there, okay? What percentage did the average Israelite give? You guys went with 25%. The correct answer is about 23%. And so if you pick 25, you win. You're correct. All right, I'm gonna I'm gonna give you this. Raise your hand if you pick 25%. Go ahead, throw your throw your hand up. Way to go. All right, if your hand is up, you you are able to come and get one of these two books, which will be left here until the end of service. Okay. Available for you. And if you're lying in the house of the Lord, uh, God will know. And by the way, He knows when you're not in the house of the Lord. And I don't know why people make a distinction in that. What percentage did the average Israelite give? It always happens. I love it. The very first it's still here. It's still, I'm just saying. If you don't know me and how how okay I am with spontaneity, there were three tithes that were typically given in the Old Testament. One was a Levitical tithe, it was given to the priests, and don't tell Stokes this, it was given to the musicians. Let's just focus, let's focus right here. All right. Now, this means that in three areas of their life they were giving. But for just a moment, detach yourself from your wallet and move to your heart. God instructed for his people to have a heart for three things. He said, Do you want to know my heart and my character? Do you want to have more than a desire but a discipline? Do you want to have a plan to have a heart like my heart? You are gonna care about the priests, the ministers, and the musicians. You are gonna care about those who are caring about you. Number two, there are gonna be these festival tithes. This may actually be my favorite one to present to you. This would have been money that was put to the side because God frequently in the life of his people would say, I want you to stop, I want you to pause, and I want you to have a party. I think seven times, Thomas, I'm looking at you. Was it about seven times in the Israelite calendar that they would have a festival? It wasn't a few. It's six or seven times. And God would say, I want you to stop everything, I want you to eat good food, have a good conversation, and I want you to talk about my goodness to you. By the way, that's why we do MCG celebrations. We're not just trying to fill out a calendar, we're trying to fill out our heart with how God has called his people to live. So, what do we do? We eat good food, we share good stories because we have a really, really good God. This is what the festival tithe was. And both of the top two would have been annual. They would have done this every year. And then there would have been a charity tithe. This would have been for people who were foreign, for the orphans and for the widows. This is our 127 ministry and action, which means this person would have given 10%, and in that year, this person would have given 10%, and this 10% would be broken up into three, basically, because they only did it every third year. So you actually end up with like 23.33 repeating percent. All right. That is what the average Israelite would have given, listen carefully to what I'm saying, out of obligation. That would not have been going above and beyond. That would have been the discipline number, not the devotion number. There were people who were devoted to it. That what we're looking at is this. It is a very cool thing that God said, I am giving my children a plan. I have a question for you. I'm not putting this one up on the screen. Uh, as of the 20th, five days ago, what's today? 25th, 24th, doesn't matter. As of 23rd, all right, as of three days ago, I now have three teenage boys in my house. I love this. There will be like a teeny little nine-month period where I have four teenagers in my house. 18 years of youth ministry. I hope I'm not walking into this naively, but my wife and I are very excited about the teenage years. Super fun stuff. I have a 13-year-old, that 13-year-old is named Ames. I don't think he's here right now, but I did see Tiggy, so maybe he is. He's probably sitting in my office. All right. If I decided I want to teach Ames what the Bible has to say about wealth, possessions, and generosity, and I put together a plan and I said, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna sit down with him for 60 seconds a day, and I'm gonna read him a different verse, just one verse. I'm never gonna repeat the same one twice. I'm gonna read him one verse out of scripture that has to do with wealth, treasure, possession, money, and generosity. How many weeks would it take for me to get through what the Bible has to offer him? I want feedback on this. How many weeks would it take? Five. Remove that man. Hey, I mean, don't you know verses about creating chaos in the house of the Lord? Okay, I I've got 67, five, huh? 52. Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys. Adorable. 366. Not days, weeks. If I started with the Ames, the day he turned 13, he would be 19 and a half and out of the house before I repeated one verse. Okay. That I I give you this, not editorializing to tell you God wants you to have a plan toward this. And if you don't have a thought toward it, toward it, it it isn't on him. You probably had an encounter with Jesus, thought you were seeing clearly, and then just started walking around in your life. It would take about seven years, 366 weeks. Now I will say you should start with your children. The younger, the better. Giving has never been a difficult issue for me because it was modeled from my mom from the time that I was teeny, right? So when I got my first job at Subway at 15, actually, when I was working at Camp Joy at 12 and 13 years old, it was just like, okay, here's my check. Got 10%, send it out, no big deal. God wants us to have a plan. And God gave his people a very clear plan. Now the word tithing, which you'll hear in the church often, comes from this Hebrew word masar. All it means is tenth. Take a piece of pizza, cut it into, or take a circle of pizza, cut it into 10 pieces, pull one. That would be called a tithe. It's just another word for tenth. And for whatever reason, the church hasn't contextualized to just say tenth. We still say tithe. So that's what it means. And in the church, there are three common opinions on tithing. Don't raise your hand, but I want you to go ahead and say which in your own heart, where are you on this? Three common opinions on tithing. Christians are required to tithe, not required to tithe, but should not required to tithe. I feel like I know where most of you would be. The problem with selecting number one, I'll tell you where I am personally, but where I am doesn't mean that's where you need to be. Remember, desire, discipline, devotion. We're not all going to be in the same place on those. The problem with number one is that in Romans and throughout much of Scripture, we read that Christ is the end of the law. In other words, there is not a static law that is applied to us for righteousness to anyone who believes. And for somebody to say, hey, Christians are required to tithe, actually, in my opinion, goes above and beyond the mandate of Scripture because we're not required to do anything under the law. We operate by the law of grace at this point. In other words, we can't earn our salvation, which is exactly what the rich young ruler thought he had pulled off, exactly what the man praying who thought he had figured it all out. The problem in number three, by saying you're not required to tithe, I know I it may sound like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth here, but Jesus would say this in Matthew 23: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe. His issue is not you legalists for tithing. He says you're tithing out of mint and dill and cumin. In other words, they would go to their kitchen uh windowsill where they're growing these little herbs, and they would count the leaves, and one of their plants would have ten. They're like, well, that one's easy. They would take one and they would give it as an offering to the Lord. Another one had five leaves, had to take it, tear it in half, keep one, and give the half, right? Okay, we're doing basic fractions now, we won't do any more. But notice what Jesus says. You're tithing mint and dilling cumin, but you have neglected the weightier matters of the law. Do you think my biggest concern is you go into your garden bringing a cucumber to church? That's not the big deal. I'll tell you what the big deal is: justice. Do you care about the people in your world that are being crushed by those around them and you could step in to do something? Do you have mercy? Do you look around and see those who are in need? Need mostly of me, but in need in general. Do you have a heart of compassion? Are you faithful in your life? Or do you have a very impressive life, but your heart is eaten up with sin and pride and lust and whatever else? But then notice what Jesus says These you ought to have done. You should tithe, is what he's saying. But you need to make sure you know what the most important thing is. And then he looks at them and he calls them blind, which is why I began by asking you, are you seeing clearly when it comes to this? I'll tell you where I am. I'm somewhere at 2.5. I live somewhere here. I don't think we're required to tithe. I think it is a wonderful place to start. But what I have, it's sort of like baptism. Do you have to be baptized to go into to go to heaven? No, you don't. That that would be legalistic. But everybody who repents and believes in Christ should be baptized. Christ calls us to. And if you look at baptism as, man, this thing is just too difficult. It's too awkward. I don't want people to know. Can I tell you getting baptized in front of a bunch of believers is one of the easiest things Jesus asks you to do? Hey, will you tell the story of my grace to people who have heard the story of my grace and responded to it so that they can celebrate my grace in your life? The rest of the Christian life is going to be really hard if that feels like the high water mark, but there is a benefit to the concept of tithing. So the way when I think of tithing, I would put it this way: it offers benefits with some issues. Benefit number one is it's clear and easy to teach. You can teach it to a kid. It is not difficult to teach the concept of tithing. You can teach it to a new believer. It doesn't matter if the person is salary, hourly, or sales. It is very easy to move the decimal one place to the left. Like tenthing is not difficult at all. That is one of the advantages of it. Randy Alcorn, who writes on heaven and eternity and possessions and wealth, often he would say tithing is the training wheels of giving. It's not going to allow you to fly down the hill. It's not going to move you to devotion, but what it will do is keep you from falling off the bike, basically. It'll keep you from doing nothing, being self-absorbed, or whatever else. Tithing is the training wheels of giving. The other thing that tithing does, but a lot of people don't realize this, is for the Israelites, tithing meant two things. It meant I'm giving 10% for them 23%, 10, 10, and then 10 every third year. It was not only I am giving this, it was when they were giving it. If you look in the in scripture, what you will find is God asked them to give it first. So the first of what you get, I had a teenager come up to me at the in the service and they said, Hey, I haven't tithed and I think I need to start. And I'm like, that's a great thing. We're gonna talk about it next week. And they said, but what I think I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna wait till the end of the year. I'm gonna calculate it all up and then I'm gonna give 10%. I'm like, hey, I think that's great. It's gonna be tough though, because Christmas is right there around the corner. Like, let's just be realistic. You're probably gonna start justifying some stuff. And I will just tell you for me, it's paycheck comes on like the second or the third by the fourth, 10% is pulled and it is taught, it is like tossed toward the church. That's that's just Will's model because this is what I grew up with. The the advantage of the first fruits is not only are you saying, God, I'm thinking about you before everything else, it actually requires trust. Go for a moment into living in the Old Testament. I want you to imagine that you're a cattle farmer and you have one bull and you have one heifer. I never thought I'd get to say heifer in church. All right. One bull, one heifer. And it kids or whatever you got goats is more of my thing. Uh it has a baby, but it doesn't have two, it has one. And you and your wife are looking at this first calf, and you're like, this is the beginning of our small business. This is the beginning of us taking care of our kids. You go home and you start reading Bible story to your kids, and you happen to be in Leviticus, where God says, Give me the first of every male animal that's born. And you have to say, I could use this as an investment, I could use this to build better fencing, but instead, I'm giving it to the Lord. Why? Because God is selfish? No. Edit, undo, go back to last week. God doesn't need anything, He created everything. So if God is a God who asks, why is He a God who asks for our own good? What is God wanting? Trust. Man is not fallen from the sky right now, and every one of you will go home to a pantry and to a fridge that has stuff in it. What does it look like for us to trust when we have so little to need? Well, what it looks like sometimes is not just a tempt, but making sure that it goes out first rather than saying, God, I'm gonna give you what's left. I'm gonna give you my best. And this is what we would have seen in Leviticus. Now, the problem with a strict formula, while there are benefits, is that neither Jesus, Paul, or the apostles ever says, you must tithe. I think the closest is that verse that I gave you in Matthew 23. In fact, most of the time when they bring it up, they're preaching against being legalistic, which is why I can't get my mind wrapped around it is a requirement to tithe, because it seems like Jesus pushes against it. But as I have this whole concept up of tinting and tithing and wherever you are on this, can I speak to two people in the room? Person number one says, Well, what if I can't? Am I about to walk through those doors and feel ashamed for the weeks? No. No, you shouldn't. Remember, it's the training wheels of giving. It is a wonderful place to start, but is not the high watermark of devotion to God and generosity. I have a desire to be generous. Stop, pause, and praise God there. You may have never given anything to the church, to the Lord, to a missionary, to a nonprofit, or anything else. And if in this moment you're like, I want to be a generous person, that is a win. Take the win that God is calling you to have a desire to be generous. And what I would say is this if that has never been you, if if that has been seemingly impossible for you, make future decisions that allow margin for generosity. What we do innately, let me ask you this. If you get really, really busy, what word do you start saying when people say, hey, can we get together? You're really busy, hey, can I come over and hang out? What do you say? No. Or sorry, that's nicer. I say no. Sorry, brother. Okay? If you're really, really busy, you start saying no. Depending on which one of you is in charge of the budget. If it gets really tight toward the end of the month, at least one of you is probably going to begin saying no. If you're really, really tired and your kids are like, hey, can we go play football? What are you probably gonna say? It's okay, be honest. Like, no. I'm worn out. I've been working hard so you can buy that football. All right, you go play with it. I'm gonna I'm gonna take a nap. When we get to the end of our margin, we start saying no. So if tithing feels like something that is radically different than anything you could pull off, let me encourage you with this. You have made past decisions that have caused you to live on the edge. That is human nature, that is American, that is what we do. We red line, we don't live with margin. In the decisions that you have in the days ahead, decide not to make financial decisions that squeeze you from being able to be generous. Sure, you could afford an $80,000 truck, or you could get one for 40 or 20 or 5 and be generous. Make decisions today that leave room for margin tomorrow. You do that with your calendars, you do that with your energy. It is normal for us to live on the edge. The other group of people I would talk to is me, and I need to repent to you of something. The other group that I would talk to is the group that would look at this and they would say that tithing is the gold standard of following Christ and generosity. That was me. If I think that it is the gold standard, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna do it on autopilot. I don't even see the money leave my account. It is, and by the way, I don't want you guys to stop giving automatically. It really does help us with planning and budgeting. We're we're coming up with a way to fix this problem, but can I just give you my problem in my own heart? For me, tithing was the gold standard. It's all that I ever knew, it's all that I was ever taught. So I did it, and it was very hard not to become self-righteous, not to feel like I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do, move on. I've had an encounter with Christ, and so now I'm moving on. That was my issue. My heart is not in giving to this church. I give to the church, but my heart's not in it. I barely even think about it. I don't even feel it. One of our elders has specifically been talking with us for years. And he said, I hate that we don't pass a plate anymore and it doesn't have anything to do with the money that comes in. I don't like it because there's nothing in our service that is pointing to a generous God who has given and calls us to give generously. And when I see that seven-year-old put one dollar in, that does more for my heart than the guy who's been auto-drafting for 10 years. And it's true. And because I have been auto-piloting my giving, I don't think about it. Do you know what happens when you have a pastor who doesn't think about giving? He doesn't talk about giving. When you have a pastor who doesn't talk about giving, you have a congregation who has not been educated in giving. That is my fault. That is on me. And so you may see in the weeks ahead a start passing a play. I need you to hear this from me now. We're not trying to make more money. What we want to do is have a spot in the service for those of you who are already giving to be able to say, Lord, I gave this three weeks ago. I hadn't even thought about it. I'm praying that it would go into mission. I'm praying that it would plant churches, I'm praying that it would put Bibles in hands, I'm praying that it would expand your kingdom. I don't pray about anything that I give because I don't even think about it. Because for me, tithing was the gold standard and it leads to arrogance. And when we see Christ talk about standards, keep in mind he never moves down, he always moves up. You've heard it said, you shall not murder. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother, here's what you have heard the standard is. Can I increase it and tell you I don't even want you to be angry? You have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. Can I take it a step further and tell you that everyone who looks at a woman with less in his heart has already committed adultery? Jesus never diminishes. Now we don't have this on tithing, but if we did, I think Jesus would say something like, You have heard it said that those who have received from the Lord give to the Lord by tithing 10%. But I say to you that a poor widow came in and put in two small copper coins, making up a penny. By the way, she couldn't even tithe off this. Do you realize that? She has two coins. They're made out of copper. She ain't about to chew the thing and spit 20 whatever percent of that piece. So she gives not 50%, she could have, she gives all of it to the Lord. And Jesus points at this and he says, Truly I say to you, this widow is put in more than all who are contributing with their regular giving, automatically drafting out of their account because her heart is in it. They've given out of abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything that she had to live on. Jesus constantly raises the bar, not lowers it. I'm gonna rocket through a few things so that you can have a discipline for giving because I don't want you to follow a strict formula. I think it will make you a legalist. I think it is great training wheels. And if you don't have any discipline on this, I think you should take a step in the right direction, have a desire. And honestly, this is what I would love. Uh buy somebody's lunch today. Buy somebody's lunch today who you do not know. Take care of somebody's gas when you see them in the pump. Love on someone and see if that generosity doesn't give back to you so much more than what that $15 or $20 would have been. I would challenge everybody in the room sometime today. And if you're not going to see anybody today because you're going home to take a nap and watch a game, whatever, do it tomorrow. But in the next two days, I want you to be generous in some capacity. And just to make it easy, don't give it to the church, okay? Just be generous with someone around you because I want that for your own soul. Rather than following a strict formula, believers should display traits that honor and reflect God's character. Now, much of what I'm sharing with you comes out of this book. I have one left, by the way. Uh, God and Money. It's written by two guys who went to Harvard Business School. They are our age. It was recommended to me by Stokes. I've read the first half of it and getting ready for this, and the applications I'm about to give you in rocket form come from this. Here is the discipline that I would recommend. Not a hard and fast line. These are traits that I would want every believer to have. Gratitude, number one. Everything we own belongs to God. Everything. Nothing you have is yours. Family you were born into, you didn't pick. The ability, the intellect that you have, you didn't pre-install, God did. Country you were born into, schools that you went to, all pre-installed software by the creator of the universe. Therefore, any produce that comes from that is something that he has done. I'm not gonna read every verse. I just want you to know I'm not gonna editorialize anything that I am giving you. My favorite, though, would be Malachi 3.8, if you want to check this out in your study today or tomorrow. People are wondering why they're not being blessed. And God literally says this, you are robbing me by not tithing. Why would I say that? Because what God, I'm not trying to guilt anybody. What I'm trying to say is God is considering what they call theirs, His. You can't rob someone of something that isn't theirs. And he is looking at what they have in their hands and he's saying, You're robbing me by not giving it because everything is mine. I would shoot for gratitude. The second thing, I would shoot for mission. Wealth and possessions should be used for God's purposes. Who is faithful and wise, the one who stewards what God has put in his hands well. Philippians 4, 18, I have received full payment and more. I am well supplied. This is Paul talking as he is doing missions. Having received from Epaphroditus, this dude was given some gifts and brought them to Paul, the gifts you sent, and he doesn't say thanks, it's made life easier. Here's what he points to: it was a fragrant offering and it pleased the Lord. He's not even talking about his own life. He's saying your missional giving is an offering unto God. A third trait that honors and reflects God's character is intentionality. Money is one of the strongest forces on the planet. It will guarantee earthly loss or eternal gain. In other words, there is not one cent that you can spend on this planet that is not gonna eventually rust or fall apart. And if you say, Will, what if I want to save it and give it to my children? I think you should. I think you should plan for your children and want to bless them well. Just be careful. Wealth that comes easy easily corrupts our souls. But I would also tell you this: whatever they spend it on, a house or a car, it's gonna break. There is nothing in this world that your money is gonna is going to ultimately last. But everything that we give to God and to his kingdom will last and it will last forever. So we ought to be intentional with it. John Steinbeck, American author, would say this: a strange species we are. We can stand anything God and nature can throw at us. Disease, sickness, difficulty, we can handle it. The only thing that we can't handle is plenty. Too much good is the greatest harm for the human soul. A woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment. She poured it out on Jesus' head as he was reclining at the table. And when not the Pharisees, when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, She just wasted a bunch of money by pouring something expensive on Christ. They'd had an experience with Christ, but they weren't seeing clearly. Jesus, aware of this, said to them, Why do you trouble the woman? She has done a beautiful thing. Why? You will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. And pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for a bear. She is looking ahead. You are looking in front of your own feet. And because she is thinking eternally, what we would call a waste makes all the sense in the world. I have more scriptures for you there, but for the sake of time, I would just tell you, Jesus looks at that and calls it a beautiful thing. We ought to pursue the Lord in our charity. If you looked at that verse and you saw you will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me, and your first thought is, then why are we giving to the poor if we're never going to fix the problem? Congratulations on being a pragmatist, but you're not a great believer. The believer looks at the poor and sees it as opportunity. Those who have contempt in their heart look at the poor and say, What decisions did you make to get there? How did you find yourself there? Now look, I'm not saying that isn't an important question to ask and we need to be good stewards of the funds that we have. I would just flip the question and say, How many decisions did you make that got you where you are? I'm not saying you didn't make any. What I'm saying is many of us are fortunate and blessed simply because we are fortunate and blessed. In addition to charity, I would point to unity. Apart from God, money will divide us. But in Christ, money unites us. Our call to worship, by the way, I did not plan this. It just happened again that the call to worship happens to be in this. David provides for the house as he was able. In addition, he gives out of his, here's the word. David goes above and beyond because he has devotion to the Lord. He then looks at the congregation and says, We want to build a temple for the Lord. Do you want to be involved? Will you consecrate yourself to the Lord? And do you know what happens next? The people rejoice because they gave willingly. This entire kingdom is drawn together because they are about something that is bigger than themselves. And finally, holiness. Uh the quote on the top the only thing that breaks money's power over us is giving it away. That is Stokes' quote to me this week that I think is a quote from John Cortinez, who wrote this book. So I'm giving Stokes credit for it, but it may be needing to be credited to someone else. I just couldn't actually find it in the book, but I do love the quote. The only thing that breaks money's power over us is when we give it away. Those who desire to be rich will fall into temptation and senseless, harmful desires that lead to ruin and destruction. He who loves money will not be satisfied with money. Take care, be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possession. I give you these six because if I wasn't just looking for some kind of one touch, okay, it's 10%, or maybe it's this, or maybe it's more. I I don't want you to have a hard and fast rule. That got me into trouble for the past 20, 30 years. I had a hard and fast rule since I was a kid sitting in the pew. So I thought I was doing everything that God could possibly want for me until I started writing this for you guys. What I would rather is have people and have myself be a person of gratitude, mission, intentionality, charity, unity, and seeking holiness. That, to me, is what discipline looks like. And if God calls you to something higher, praise God that this may be something that causes you to worship. If you're here today, that's great too. All uh all that I am pressing on you is this. Uh, worship team, you can come up. I'm not sure who's coming up. All I care about is this. Whatever is north of where, I'm sorry, whatever is south of where you are, that's where I want you to go. If you don't have a desire, I just want you to start having a desire. If you want help figuring that out, I'll meet with you, or a guy who's much smarter than me will meet with you. If you have a desire but no discipline, I think you ought to move that way. If you have discipline and you're debating, might I be able to be devoted to this and find great joy in it, then that's what I would call you to. Why? Because this is the essence of the good news of Christ. As you wrestle and think, and keep in mind, we we're not passing a plate, where there's not like we're not kicking off our capital campaign until January. But we do want people as we move into Thanksgiving and Christmas to start thinking about do I have a heart that is generous? You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and if you don't, I hope you're beginning to see it and maybe see it clearly today. Life isn't about money. It certainly isn't gonna be about that in the years to come. When I was a kid, I went to Disneyland and we bought a bunch of Disney Bucks. Y'all know what I'm talking about? Disney Bucks? If you if you can't relate to that, just have you ever been on a mission trip and exchanged money and you got a different kind of currency? The moment you get those Disney bucks, or the moment you get those pesos, it feels the exact same amount until you get to the end of your trip. And by the time you get to the end of your trip, you're like, I gotta do something with this. I can't put gas in my car when I get home with this. And so, do you know what ends up happening? You start getting really generous. You're like, Well, I got 4,000 pesos. I don't even know what the conversion rate is. I raise money. What am I gonna do with it? I I you know what? I got it, I'm gonna buy that Coke. I got it, I'm gonna do this. Do you know why that happens? Because the money that you're holding, you realize only has value for a moment. And when you get home to your real home, it's valueless. Every dollar and every cent is that way for us. It feels right now like it matters so much, but there will be a millennia where it's gonna feel like Disney Bucks and pesos when you're back home. So let's view people who can have it openly. Not because we want to pay off debt, not because we have great mission, not because if you have given to the church in the past year, you have helped plant 60 churches around the globe, not including the ones in Kenya. I don't even tell you guys about this stuff, but you have. Because it's what your soul needs to be able to see Jesus clearly. So let's be a people who do, because this is what he did for us. For our sake, he became poor so that by his poverty we might become rich. And if you need to richly see Jesus clearly, and it has nothing to do with money, pray and draw near to him today. A group of us will be praying on the back porch if you want to join us. Feel free to walk, do whatever it is you need. But let's spend a few moments with God before we head out.