TITHING THE SEEDS

I normally preach twice a year about giving. It is my duty as a pastor to give you all of God’s word, even those parts that we might not like to hear. But why would I choose the month of Christmas, the most expensive month of the year, to talk about giving to the church? Jesus. That is the reason. Let me explain.

Jesus gave all He had for us. I think that during this season where Jesus is on everybody’s mind, it is only appropriate to talk about sacrifice; both the sacrifice He made for us and the sacrifice we should be making for Him.

I was visiting one of the inmates in Claremore this past week, and the subject came up about giving money to the church. He said it seems like churches are all about money and very little else. To the unchurched, it might seem like that at first glance, but there is much more to it than just putting some of your money in a collection plate.

For the true Christian, giving is an act of worship. It says the giver trusts God so much; He or she is willing to give a portion of their money to Him so He can use it to help others in His kingdom. This is an astounding type of love, because we tend to hold on to our money tighter than anything else we have.

Did you know what we think about money will not only affect our walk here on this earth, it will also affect our eternal lives as well?

Today, I want to talk about money. I realize this is a sore spot with many people, but we have to realize that it is also a sore spot with God, but in an entirely different way.

For the most part, we don’t have a problem with giving, as long as we can give an amount that we are comfortable with. The problem is that puts us in control of our finances instead of letting God take control of them. I want to talk to you today about Christian giving, but I want to do it in somewhat of a different context.

First of all, let’s go back and start with the Bible. I took “Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance” and I counted how many times the word pray, in any format, is mentioned. Prayer is mentioned over 500 times.

I did the same thing with the word ‘love’. It is mentioned nearly 400 times.

Now, let me ask you a question. Do you think God would have gone to the trouble of making sure all those references were in His word unless He actually meant for us to adhere to them? When God repeats Himself, it is only for once purpose: To let us know just how serious He is, about our doing whatever it is He is talking about.

Now, with that in mind, let me tell you how many times the word ‘giving’ is mentioned. It is mentioned nearly 2,000 times! Why do you suppose God mentioned it that many times? To make us focus on giving!

God has given us resources and He expects us to share them. He wants us to give of our time, our skills, and yes - even our money. As we do these things, we are building increase for the kingdom of God here on this earth. And as we do that, He will reward us in kind.

2 CORINTHIANS 9:6-10

‘Remember this; whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, but whoever sows generously will also reap generously.

‘Each man should give what he has already decided in his heart to give, freely and not under any pressure, as God loves the one who cheerfully and willingly.

‘And for doing that, God is able to pour out His blessings on you, giving you back more than you will ever need, and He can make you succeed in everything you do.’

Many people think the time, energy, or money that is given to charities, to the poor, or even to the church is money thrown away. But God tells us that if we give to such places with the proper heart, it is like a seed that is planted. That seed will eventually grow into a large plant. And the money we have given will cause something to bloom in God’s kingdom.

It is true that we should never throw any of our God-given resources away, including our money. We need to be wise and careful, making sure that our gift is what we should give, and given where we should give it. Humans tend to waste what we have on our own desires and hold back from giving to those who truly need it.

It is especially hard on us to give away our money, even to God. There is the story of a man who was dying and he decided he was going to take all his money with him. He instructed his wife to take out all the money from the bank and put it in a sack and hang that sack on one of the rafters in the attic.

He told her that when he died, he would grab the sack as his spirit passed there on the way to heaven. The wife did as he requested.

The day came and he died. The wife raced to the attic and found all the money still there. She thought to herself, “I knew I should have hung it in the basement.”

MALACHI 3:10

‘Bring your full tithe to the Temple treasury so there will be ample provisions in my Temple to take care of My people. Test me in this and see if I don’t open up heaven itself to you, and pour out so many blessings on you that you will not have enough places to put them.’

God commands us to give from what we have. We don’t want to, so He then tells us that not only do we have to give, we must do it cheerfully. We still balk at giving our money, so He goes a step further. He says if we don’t give, we are robbing Him, but if we do give, He will give us so much back we won’t know where to put it all.

Now, many preachers teach that our return will be money, and it could be. Chances are, since God is spiritually focused, it will be blessings that enhance your spiritual growth in Him. It could be the healing of a loved one; or having a loved one accept Jesus; and it could even be money. But whatever He chooses to bless you with will be something that, if we use properly, will bless his kingdom.

If you remember, Job had everything taken away, including his possessions, his children, and even his health. But being steadfast in the will of God, he ended up being rewarded with twice as much as he had before. And that same God who did that for Job then, will do that for you today.

God said for us to test Him in this and He will show us. Now, to let us know just how important that is, let me remind you that this is the only place in the Bible that says we are allowed to test God.

God is trying His best to get us to part with something we hold very dear to us, so that that we can learn how to fully trust Him with more important things – like our very souls. The question is; will we listen?

Another question we must ask is …


1.   WHAT SHOULD WE GIVE?

One day, a little boy and his sister were playing ‘Noah’s Ark’ in the small wading pool in their backyard. They were using an old shoebox for the ark, and the water in the wading pool was the flood.

After the flood was over, they were going to make an offering, but they couldn’t decide on what to offer. The boy wanted to offer the sister’s doll, and the girl would have no part of it. She suggested the boy’s G.I. Joe, and the boy said ‘NO!’ to that, too.

So, the little girl ran to the house and in a few minutes came back with an old stuffed sheep. One ear had long been ripped off, the wool was filthy dirty, and one of the eyes was missing. But she said, “Here let’s sacrifice this. We don’t want it anymore anyway.”

The little boy agreed. The broken and forgotten toy was given to God.

That is exactly how most of us give to God. We are told to give Him our first fruits, yet we take the first portion for ourselves and give Him what left. We give Him the stuff we don’t want anymore. We give to Him out of our convenience, rather than from our love. We give Him the scraps of our lives, or what is left over after we have enjoyed the feast.

God is not a God of forgotten scraps or miserable leftovers. God is a holy God and He deserves the first of all we have.

My son was having financial difficulties some time ago, and he shared with me that he was having a tough time tithing. He asked me what he should do. I told him to figure out what he could give. And once he figures out how much he can give, give more.

When we figure out how much we can give in our tithes, we will always come out with a comfortable answer. But God is not interested in our being comfortable. He is interested in our being obedient. And if you can be obedient enough to give God your tithe, you will be obedient to give Him a portion of everything else, too.

I told my son that if he felt he could only give $10.00, then he should give $20.00. You say that doesn’t make sense. I say it makes perfect sense. Look at it from this perspective. God offered His Son. Can you imagine what kind of a sacrifice that would have been, and how hard it would have been to do that?

Jesus gave His life. Another very uncomfortable sacrifice to say the least, but it was made to show just how much He loves us. And now, God expects you to show your love to Him by making a gift that causes you to sacrifice something you want, too.

If Jesus had given from His comfort, you and I would have no hope of glory today. If God had given from His comfort, Jesus would have never left Heaven. And if we give back to God just what might be comfortable for us to give, we have not given Him anything of our hearts.

Israel had turned its collective backs on God and had become very disobedient. God had long ago said we should give our first fruits to Him in offerings, and it had to be the best that we had. But the priests had started offering moldy bread and diseased animals. Why did they do this? They did this so they could enjoy the best for themselves.

In other words, they had slipped to the point where they gave God the unwanted, the leftovers, that which represented no sacrifice at all. This is disgraceful worship at its best, and purely satanic at its worst.

To answer the question of “What Should We Give?” the answer would be to give the first portion of what we have - and the best of what we have.

Always remember that …

2.   OUR SECOND BEST DOES NOT HONOR GOD

How would you feel if the president of the company you work for called you into his office and said he had chosen you to be his personal assistant – at a very high salary? Wouldn’t that make you feel great?

But how would that change your daily work effort? To most people, if something like that happened, it would make us work that much harder so we would please him. If he had chosen us to be his personal assistant, we would do everything in our power to do the best we could. We would strive to honor Him with our high level of productivity, wouldn’t we?

Let me remind you that you have been called, but by someone higher and more important than any executive. You have been selected by God to be His personal ambassador to this earth. You have been given the duty of being God’s personal assistant in this endeavor, but most of us have ignored the need to honor Him by doing our best.

As a Christian, it is your explicit duty to be as obedient to God as you can possibly be. But too many Christians turn a blind eye to obedience. There is a big difference what God wants from us and what the world wants from us. And we seem to always find ourselves standing in the middle, with our backs on God, looking in the direction of the world.

In 1 JOHN it says to not love the world or anything in it. That includes their opinions and desires. This might help us to focus properly. Always remember that the world is focused primarily on comfort. “If it feels good, do it.” “Just roll with the flow.” Everything in the world is “self-focused.” And that does nothing to show honor to God, as it has nothing to do with any kind of sacrifice.

Those who offer God their second best do not have an appropriate concept of God. If Jesus Christ died for me, then there is no sacrifice that is too much for me to give for Him.

3.   WHY DO WE HESITATE GIVING TO GOD?

We hesitate in giving because we are selfish by nature. “What’s mine is mine and by the way, I want yours, too!”

There is something I do not understand. Some people get very stiff-necked when the subject of giving to the local church is mentioned. I had one man actually yell at me because I said he should tithe to God. He said he does not have to. Yet, this same man will go to a nice restaurant leave a 15% tip.

Now, I think he should leave a tip to someone who has spent the last half hour or so waiting on him, but I also think he should be willing to give to God who has spent a number of years waiting for him, too.

Another reason we don’t give, is that we don’t see any immediate benefit out of it for ourselves. Ah! There comes that old selfish nature rising up again. We do not need to see any benefit at all in order to give to God as He commands. We are creatures of ‘immediate gratification.’ If we don’t see an instant return on what we give, we quit giving. The problem is that is all self-focused and has nothing at all to do with being God-focused.

God has commanded us to give. If we follow God’s command, we will not lose anything. But we will not profit at all if we don’t do what He commands.

Another question we must ask is …

4. WHY GIVE TO THE CHURCH?

I think that for every reason a good Christian can come up with for giving to the church, an unchurched person will come up with two reasons to show why he should not give to the church. What we must determine is which reasons are legitimate and which are not.

A church has expenses just like your home does. You receive your money from an employer. A church receives its money from the congregation.

Let me ask you a question. If you go into your job and do the best you can to do what your boss wants, how would you feel if your boss short-changed you on your paycheck? Let me turn that around. If a church strives to help you in every way God wants it to, how do you think God will feel if you short-change the church?

But like I said earlier, we do not like to part with any of our resources, especially our money. I want to play a movie clip that demonstrates what goes through our minds when we give. This clip makes it much clearer than I would be able to say it.

PLAY CLIP

What were some of the thoughts they had as they put money in the offering plate?

• “Lord, I am giving more this week, so I will keep it all next week.”

• “I cleaned the sanctuary this week, and that is exactly 10% of my check, so I am even.”

• “I am going to keep my tithe so I can buy toilet paper with it.”

If there is a way to excuse us from giving, humans will find it.

We are talking about tithing to the church, but let me remind you that God does not want his church to be a house of money, but He does want you to give to the Temple treasury. Again, the question comes back on us. Will we give what we are supposed to, or not?

We have all heard preachers asking for money. The church needs money to operate, but there is a right way and a wrong way to seek it. I believe it is a violation of God’s word to tell people that God will give them back $1,000 for every $100 dollars they give. That would be kind of like a heavenly slot machine.

You should never give, focused on what you are going to get back. That is a selfish act and God does not reward that kind of giving. We should give because we want to be obedient to God.

A man told me that he was so broke he couldn’t rub two nickels together. He then asked me if his inability to tithe is a sin. I told him that we are to do all we can to be as obedient as we are able. I reminded him of the woman who put two pennies into the collection box at the Temple, and Jesus said she would be rewarded more than others who put large sums of money in that box. I explained that she did the best she could out of a heart that desired to be obedient.

Like I told my son, he should give what he can, and then give a little more to make sure he had to sacrifice to do it. That woman who gave two pennies didn’t have much money at all, so what she gave was a great sacrifice to her. That is what God honors.

I don’t think a preacher should tell people that if they don’t give, the church will not survive. Let me tell you something very important. If God called this church into existence, as long as we are focused on Jesus, and obedient to Jesus, God will not let this church fall until we have done all he wants us to. He will make sure we receive everything we need to keep going, no matter what.

To answer the question of why we give to the church; we give for two reasons.

• Because the church needs funds

• Because we are told to

God wants us to get past our fear of giving. We view it as ‘giving up’ something, while God views it as the “outpouring of a generous and loving heart.’ Which one do we seem to have more frequently?

Look at it this way. If a farmer has a ton of seed, where will it do him the most good; in the barn or planted in the field? If he keeps it in the barn, it will never increase. As a matter of fact, with mice and moisture, it could actually decrease.

But if that farmer plants his seed, that seed will grow and a harvest of even more abundance will be produced. The more seed he sows, the more he produces. That very same principle is the principle of giving that we are talking about today. If you give freely, without holding back, God will reward you. If you are afraid to give what you know you should, for any reason, you will not receive any blessing.

I want you to know this: If you are going to give from an ungrateful or fearful heart, I would rather you didn’t give at all. I do not want you to bring condemnation upon yourself. You wait until you can be obedient to God with a cheerful heart, and then you start giving.

In closing, I want to challenge each one of you to do something. Now, before I tell you what it is, I will let you know that for most of you, it will be a very hard thing to do. Are you ready?

I want to challenge each one of you to put God to the test. I want you to tithe a full 10% for the next two paychecks. And then I want you to tell me how you really didn’t go broke, and how God blessed you with everything you needed.

Will you do that for just two paychecks? Or, don’t you trust God that much? You will never know the joy, the excitement, and the freedom you have from worrying about your financial situation until you start giving to God in spite of it. That is called, stepping out in blind faith. And that is what God rewards – the heart that allows you to do just that.

But God wants more from you than your money. He wants your obedient and loving heart. Will you give your heart to Him all over again … making that commitment to let Him know that He is all you want?

INVITATION