Fresh Faith Week 3

Malachi 3: 8-12; Matthew 25: 14-30

Good morning, we are in the third week of our series on Malachi called “Fresh Faith.” I chose this series of messages at this particular time because next month we will be renewing our vision and refocusing on what God has called us to do as a local body of believers. I will be issuing a challenge to help all of us become more involved, in order to better reach the community of Ottawa, Illinois. That said, before we dive into all of that, I wanted to do a series on the themes of honoring God, Sacrifice and stewardship. This week we will turn over to Malachi Ch. 3. where we will see similar themes as week 1 and 2, but applied a bit differently.

The series is titled Fresh Faith because all throughout the book of Malachi, the people refused to offer up to God the proper respect and honor, due to the fact that they were in a tough situation. I touched on this the first week, during this period of time, Israel had been taken captive by the Babylonian army, the Babylonians were then captured by the Persians…thus making them Persian captives. They were given permission to return to their homeland and rebuild Solomon’s temple. After returning and rebuilding the temple, they found themselves destitute and poor. All of the infrastructure had been torn down during the war with Babylon, all of the farms destroyed-the people were in a bad way. As a result, they started skimping out on God and not following the Law of Moses. They lacked the faith that God was indeed Jehovah Jira-the God that provides. They found themselves holding on tightly to what they didn’t own…I’ll explain what I mean by that as we go forward today.

Let’s Pray.

Now, before we dive into Malachi, I want to preface my sermon today. Today we are going to talk about stewardship and giving. I asked for everyone to be here because the subject of stewardship and giving are very, very important…not just to me or to the future of Ottawa First, but mainly to God.

So first, I will only address these issues once or twice a year, so I thought it was important for everyone to come and participate…so, thank you for being here.

Second, the typical local pastor avoids this subject like the plague, for 3 reasons:

The church has gotten a bad reputation when it comes to asking for money

People do not like to be challenged in this area and will leave a church if the preacher talks about money too often

The preacher himself struggles in the area of stewardship and giving and doesn’t want to practice what he preaches.

For those reasons, and more, the topic of giving is avoided.

Third, since becoming your pastor, I want to make it clear that I have not looked at anyone’s giving records, and will never do so. The only time a person has their giving looked at is if they ask to be a member, in which I would have Joe or Dean take a look, for accountability sake. I learned this from my dad and from Bob, my former boss. When a pastor looks at the giving records 2 things happen.

As hard as he may try, he will become biased toward those to give more (which is wrong, but it’s simply a fact. We are all human).

When the time comes to talk about this subject, he can do so without any reservation whatsoever, because he doesn’t know who gives what.

Lastly, I’ll get this out of the way at the very beginning, so I can focus on the message. The finances of a church are an important part of what the church is able to do in the community. In addition, the finances of a church determine the pay of the pastor. The way our denomination works is that every church operates independent, financially…meaning, AG organisation does not give us any money, nor do they pay my salary. My compensation is based off of the churches finances. As a result, people can get the idea that whenever the pastor talks about money, it’s because he must want a raise. Let me put that to bed out of the gate. I did not accept the job as your pastor because I wanted to make a bunch of money. I accepted a set amount and haven’t asked for it to change once and I have no plans to do so. My desire is that we all learn and adopt the Biblical principles of stewardship and giving. If everyone here does that, Ottawa First will thrive.

Now, all of that to say, if I am going to get up here and teach on stewardship and giving, then you all should know if Laura and I practice what we preach. Since becoming your pastor, Laura and I tithe regularly; as a matter of a fact, late last year we began to pray about increasing what we give…so, as of this month, Laura and I have stepped up to do even more. I do not say that to brag or to be Pharisaical, but to let you all know that we are all in this together…those of us who are the leaders should be setting the example in every area, including this one.

With all of that out of the way, let’s get started. Who’s ready to have their flesh offended today? I am going to lay out my sermon today as follows, first we will talk about our passages in Malachi and the overall practice of stewardship and giving in the O.T., then we will turn to a story in Matthew, go through that and talk about the difference between O.T. principles of stewardship and giving compared to the N.T. then at the end I will bring it all together and apply these principles to our lives.

Malachi 3:8–12 (NASB)

8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you! 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. 11 Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not [r]destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes,” says the Lord of hosts. 12 “All the nations will call you blessed, for you shall be a delightful land,” says the Lord of hosts.

A bit ago I touched on the fact that, at this time in Israel’s history, they were struggling financially, so as a result, they stopped bringing their tithes and offerings to the Temple and storehouse. God was not pleased with this, as He had commanded the people to both tithe and give offerings. Like other places in the book of Malachi, we see God confront the people of Israel with a rhetorical statement: “Will a man rob God?” That’s a pretty serious accusation, He is saying that His own people are stealing from him. Of course they answer: “How have we robbed you?” This was the wrong question to ask. Just a note to self, if God comes to you and asks a very obvious question…do not answer in a smug way, because you will not like His response. The people were robbing God because they were not following His commands and in this case, His command was to give tithes and offerings.

Then, starting in vs. 10 God explains why He wants the people to be faithful-it’s in this monologue that we can read one of the most stunning verses in all of the Bible. In regard to being faithful with their tithes and offerings, God says “test me in this and see if will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.” As a side note, this is where pastors normally stop and equate this promise to Israel with a personal promise to you and I. It may preach well, but it’s bad exegesis to be honest. This promise was to the nation of Israel, no to individual believers . Anyway, God goes on to say that He will make sure that the land is blessed, so that the crop yield will be good. God then ends this section of scripture by declaring that if Israel follows this command, not only will they be blessed, but they will be a good example for the nations that surround them. How much of that applies to us today…we will examine that as we go forward.

It is clear from these passages in Malachi Ch. 3 that God desired to bless the people of Israel, if they would only do what they’ve been instructed to do. We see this theme all throughout scripture: if we obey the Lord’s commands, our lives will be blessed. So, what was the purpose behind the tithes, as it relates to Malachi Ch. 3, why did God want the people…or actually, command the people to give both tithes and offerings?

There are a couple of different reasons, and although we do not have time to go in depth into this area, I do want to mention it, because it’s the same principle we find in the N.T. First, to support those whose job it was to care for the temple (they were not allowed to own any land) and second, to provide for the poor among them-those were the two main reasons that God established Tithes and Offerings as a separate function from that of sacrifices. Then, in the N.T. we see a similar sentiment:

1 Tim. 5: 17-18

17 The elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. 18 For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing,” and “The laborer is worthy of his wages.”

1 Cor. 9: 8-14

8 I am not speaking these things according to human judgment, am I? Or does not the Law also say these things? 9 For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing.” God is not concerned about oxen, is He? 10 Or is He speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing the crops. 11 If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? 12 If others share the right over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this right, but we endure all things so that we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ. 13 Do you not know that those who perform sacred services eat the food of the temple, and those who attend regularly to the altar have their share [g]from the altar? 14 So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.

If you notice in vs. 9 of 1st Cor. that Paul mentioned the law of Moses, he quotes from Deut. 25 with says: You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing. For the longest time I had no idea what Paul meant by this. What this means, and Paul explains it well, that those who labor for the Gospel should be able to receive their living from doing so. We see the same idea in 1st Tim. In a little bit we will go into the difference between the O.T. command of bringing the tithes and offering and the N.T. principles of giving, because there are some differences. Before we do that though, I want to do a couple of things. First, I want to focus our attention on a particular part Malachi 3, then I want to flip over to the N.T. and look a story from the book of Matthew.

We’ve already talked about the fact that God was displeased with Israel for not giving of their material wealth properly…and I read that God desires to bless those who do obey this command, but the part I want to focus on for a moment is right at the beginning, in verse 8.

Mal. 3: 8

8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings.

Why would God say that the people are robbing Him? How in the world were the people of Israel robbing the Lord? I mean, sure, they weren’t being obedient in many areas (as we’ve seen so far in Malachi) but this is the first time God has accused the people of stealing from Him…after all, when we do give, aren’t we giving what is already ours? This right here, if you do not take anything else away from this message today, make sure to remember this:

The people of Israel were stealing from God because all that they owned was given to them by God. The land that they farmed, given to them by God, the animals they cared for, given to them by God.

Psalm 24: 1

The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it.

God had given the Israelites everything they had…furthermore, everything that is on this earth, rightfully belongs to the Lord, and all of those who dwell in it, that is you and I and this is true today, just as it was back in the days of Malachi. God had blessed Israel with material possessions and wealth, at certain points they were wealthy and at certain points they were struggling-regardless, everything they had came from God. Just like today, everything we own rightfully belongs to the Lord. If you struggle with the idea that all of your stuff belongs to the Lord, then I can guarantee that you will forever struggle in the area of stewardship and giving. God blesses us, then asks us to simply be good stewards of what we’ve been entrusted with. The problem that we see all throughout the Old Testament, including in Malachi is that Israel was not good at stewarding the things God entrusted to their care.

Throughout scripture there are 500 verses faith, about as many about prayer, but there are 2000 passages about money, finance and property. In addition, about 40% of Jesus’s parables are about finances. The theme of stewardship is front and center all throughout the Bible. So what is stewardship?

Stewardship: To protect and expand the resources of another. Let’s look at a couple of examples of stewardship. We will find the first one all the way back in

Genesis 1: 27-28

27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that [am]moves on the earth.”

We often think that the first command that God gave Adam and Eve was a negative: do not eat from the tree! Except it wasn’t the first command-the first command was for Adam and his wife to properly steward the garden that the Lord gave them. To be fruitful and multiply, to protect and expand the gifts that God entrusted to the first couple. Of course we know that they were not good stewards and as a result, they were kicked out of the garden. That is one example of stewardship the second one is found in

Matthew 25: 14-30

14 “For it is just like a man about to go on a journey, who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them. 15 To one he gave five [a]talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey. 16 Immediately the one who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and gained five more talents. 17 In the same manner the one who had received the two talents gained two more. 18 But he who received the one talent went away, and dug a hole in the ground and hid his [b]master’s money.

19 “Now after a long time the master of those slaves *came and *settled accounts with them. 20 The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you entrusted five talents to me. See, I have gained five more talents.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your [c]master.’

22 “Also the one who had received the two talents came up and said, ‘Master, you entrusted two talents to me. See, I have gained two more talents.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’

24 “And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. 25 And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’

26 “But his master answered and said to him, ‘You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed. 27 Then you ought to have put my money [d]in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest. 28 Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.’

29 “For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away. 30 Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

What a story! We don’t have time to go over this in detail but, do you know what parables do, parables give us a glimpse into what the kingdom of heaven is like, parables give us a window into how God thinks and operates, that is why we pray: on earth as it is in Heaven. So, exactly how much is a talent? There are different sources and varying amounts, so I took the most commonly used numbers:

Around 20 years of daily wages for a six-day workweek. Today, one talent would be $348,000. So, to one guy he gave 5 talents, that would be about 1.75 million, the next guy he gave around $700K and the third guy, only one talent. Each of them recieved a bunch of money, that’s for sure. Each according to their own ability-meaning, the boss gave each of them what he thought they could handle. He wanted these men to steward his money: to protect and expand the resources of another. The money wasn’t theirs, it was the Lord’s

The first two men were good stewards with the bosses money. They didn’t just protect the money, but they expanded it…but what about the third guy? The third guy was afraid of the boss, called him a harsh master…but there is no indication here that the boss was a hard man. The third man had fear and that fear kept him from being a good steward. Perhaps he had fear that loosing the money would cause him more trouble than simply protecting the 1 talent. Fear cause the third man to not invest the money and do things with it that would expand the talent. As a result, the boss was very angry with the man. He took the money from him and gave it to one of the men who had been a good steward. The bosses initial perception of these 3 men turned out to be correct…the two he gave more money to were good stewards. How many of us know that one day the boss is going to return and we will have to give an account for what He’s given us to steward? I don’t know about you, but I want the Lord to look at me one day and say: Well done good and faithful servant.

Perhaps you’ve never though about stewardship that much. Most of us do not walk through like acting as though what we own-our car, job, our family, the clothes on our back, everything we have is owned by someone else, and I include myself in that statement. Why do you think that the Bible denotes so much time to the area of money and finance? Because it’s such a major part of our lives here on earth. There is a saying: Money makes the world go around-while that is a secular point of view, there is a truth to it whether we like it or not.

There is one major reason that a Christian struggles in this area-it’s because they do not understand or believe that we are simply stewards of our time, talent and treasure. So, what does the Bible teach about stewardship and how can we apply it to our lives today.

Proverbs 3: 5-10

Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. 7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. 8 It will be healing to your [c]body And refreshment to your bones. 9 Honor the Lord from your wealth And from the first of all your produce; 10 So your barns will be filled with plenty And your vats will overflow with new wine.

To conclude today I want to quickly cover 3 areas about stewardship and how we can apply it to our lives.

We are merely stewards

How can I be a good steward?

What about this thing called tithing?

We are merely stewards!

First, scripture is clear that we are merely stewards of our time, talent and treasure. Therefore we must steward each one of them equally. I talk a lot about our time and our talent-making sure to spend time with the Lord, using our God given gifts to further the kingdom-both are very important-and it’s equally important we properly steward our treasure or our money. In the society in which we live, we do not trade goats and sheep…our treasure is our money. The passages we’ve gone over today make it abundantly clear that God is not pleased with those who do not steward their treasure well. So, that is the first way we can apply the Biblical principles of stewardship and giving to our lives-to recognise that what we have isn’t ours.

2. How can I be a good steward?

What does it look like when we steward our money and finances well? Again, scripture is pretty clear about that. When we are stewarding our money we are protecting and expanding God’s resources, meaning, we are taking what God gives us and we use it to further the kingdom-after all, what higher calling is there than to be used of God to further His kingdom. If you really want to get a good idea if you are currently being a good steward simply look at your bank statement, that will tell you everything you need to know. If stewardship is an area that you may struggle, that is OK. No one here is judging you. How you steward your finances is between you and the Lord-and I would involve your spouse if you are married and want to avoid arguments. The purpose of my sermon today is not to cause condemnation; rather, it’s to challenge all of us in this area of our lives-no different than the other areas where we may be struggling.

We can all be good stewards by being faithful in what the Lord has given us

Luke 16: 10-13

10 “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much. 11 Therefore if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous [i]wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you? 12 And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? 13 No [j]servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and [k]wealth.”

If properly stewarding your money is an area of struggle, Laura and I are here to help you get on track. Sometimes people get themselves so debt ridden that it’s impossible to give to the Lord. If that’s the case, then there is work that needs to be done. As we’ve seen in many of the passages today, God entrusts more with those who are good stewards. If we are stewarding His money wisely, God will bless you with more; in the same manner, if we are not good stewards, we have no room to complain about our financial situation.

So, We are merely stewards, how can I be a good steward and lastly

3. What about this thing called tithing?

Tithing is a practice that’s been around before the law of Moses. Abraham paid a tithe to Melchizedek; Jacob also paid a tithe. Then when God gave Moses the law he set up a system in which the poor would be card for as well as the people who maintained the temple. What does that mean, a tithe is 10% of your income. Back then it was cattle, crops, grain, etc…today, if we lived in O.T. time, we would tithe on our income. Now, the question is, does the N.T. command us to tithe…the short answer is no, but for the people who want to focus on that, I have this to say: The righteousness of grace is far more powerful than the righteousness of the law. Meaning, under the new covenant we are actually called to a higher standard than that of the Law. Jesus said, You’ve hear it said: that shall not murder, but I say to you do not even be angry with your brother.

The way that we should look at tithing today is not as a rule, rather as a principle. To be honest with you, for mature believers in Christ, who truly want to steward their money well, our tithe should be just the start of our generosity. Our question should never be: how much do I have to give, rather, how can I be a better steward of God’s resources. Earlier I read some scriptures from the N.T. where Paul was giving some instructions to the early church-telling them that those who labor in the Gospel should receive their living from the Gospel. I only bring that up because our churches today are different than back then. Back then most of the churches were in people’s homes or a property owned by one of the wealthier people who attended the church. Today we meet in a building like this one. For those that call Ottawa First their church and view this body of believers as their family, this is where that support should go.

Here is the reality of the situation, the churches that thrive the most are the ones where the people really understand the principle behind stewardship. The size the the church doesn’t matter. God is pleased and honored when His people steward His money well and invest their treasure in the place they are being fed.

Last scripture for today:

Luke 21: 1-4

And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. 2 And He saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins. 3 And He said, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them; 4 for they all out of their surplus put into the [d]offering; but she out of her poverty put in all [e]that she had to live on.”

This is a fantastic verse because it cuts right to the heart of the matter. This little old lady was the one who was stewarding her money well while the wealthy people were the ones putting defiled meat onto the altar. This lady was truly following the N.T. principle behind stewardship and giving. I guarantee she was giving way more than 10%, it says that she gave all she had to live on…the righteousness of grace is way more powerful than the righteousness of the law. The reason I teach the principle of tithe is because it is a good benchmark. God blesses us and asks for 10% back, that’s it. Again, we all struggle in different areas, there is no judgment…only a call to change how you think in this area. The question isn’t if God is calling you to give or if you felt led to give-you have. If God has blessed you and He has, we are called to steward those blessings properly.

Challenge is to pray about this issue. If you are already stewarding your money well, then that is great…I’m not even going to say that maybe God is calling on you to give more because that’s not what this is about. I want all of us to live out the principle of stewardship and be faithful in what God has blessed us with, whether that be much or little…the amount does not matter, it’s the heart and motive behind the giving that matters, it is the obedience to the Lord that matters. Those who have been given more by God have an even higher responsibility in this area…but we all are called to be stewards and part of that stewardship is investing in the kingdom with your treasure. Also, let me say this…if you do not give on a regular basis and have not ever really developed this principle in your life, let me encourage you to simply start somewhere…start with 5% …again the tithe or 10% is supposed to be a target for us to reach, it’s not a rule, it’s a principle.

I thank the Lord that these principles were sown into me at an early age. Quite a number of years ago, when Laura and I first got married we faced some very lean and difficult times. At one point we had to move in with my parents due to the fact that I faced 2 bouts with cancer within a 10 year period. The cost was overwhelming to say the least. Despite this, we always remained faithful in stewarding our money, making sure to tithe to whatever church we were attending. I believe that as a result of our faithfulness, even when times were bad, the Lord has richly blessed us. A number of years ago one of Laura’s aunts died and left us about 80$ dollars. I will tell you, it was a joy to bless our church at the time. I grew up watching my mom and dad, my grandma and grandpa, as well as my Aunts and Uncles. Both my Aunt and Grandparent gave their houses away when they moved out of them. All of these individuals lived out the principles of stewardship before my very eyes. You do not have to have a lot to be a good steward, you just have to live in such a way where generosity is a way of life rather than a rare exception.

Let’s Pray.