Priority of Giving

Malachi 3:7-12

Summary: In Malachi 3:7-12, God calls His people to return to Him, emphasizing the importance of faithfulness in tithing and offerings. He promises blessings for obedience and challenges His people to test Him in this area, demonstrating His faithfulness to provide abundantly for those who trust Him.

Application: This passage serves as a reminder to Christians about the importance of trusting God with our finances. In a world that often promotes self-reliance, this message reinforces the need to surrender our resources to God and experience His provision and blessings. It invites both believers and seekers to examine their priorities and return to faithful stewardship.

Teaching: The sermon teaches that God desires His people to be faithful in giving, not only as an act of worship but also because it opens the door for His blessings. Because of God's promises, we can have confidence in His provision when we prioritize Him in our finances.

How this passage could point to Christ: In the broader context of Scripture, Christ is the ultimate provider, fulfilling the promise of abundance and spiritual nourishment. Through His sacrifice, He calls us to a transformative relationship, which encompasses every aspect of life, including how we handle our resources.

Big Idea: God rewards faithfulness with abundance, calling us to trust Him fully in our stewardship and experience His blessings.

Welcome to Stewardship Days here at MVBC. It is during these days where we learn how to live the Christian live in making right choices with the resources He has given to us. Welcome to each of you who are attending and you who are first time guest. Just for you who are first time guests, I don’t preach on money every week. It is interesting that Jesus spoke more on money than He said on heaven and hell.

The reason is because your money and how you use it is directly connected with your spiritual walk. Jesus said it best Matthew 6:21

Matthew 6:21 KJV 1900

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Since God owns everything, what He gives to us is entrusted to be used wisely. God gives us wise instructions on how to use our money that would bring glory and honor to HIm. We learned last week that all our resources including our money belongs to God. So, when we give to God, we are simply returning His money and we are not giving out of our money.

“Yes, giving is an act of faith, but God rewards that faith in every way. That isn’t the reason we give, because that kind of motivation would be selfish. “If you give because it pays, it won’t pay!” said industrialist R.G. LeTourneau, and he was right. We give because we love God and want to obey Him, and because He’s very generous to us. When we lay up treasures in heaven, they pay rich dividends for all eternity.[1]”

Giving should be a priority in our lives. The government doesn’t give you a choice to give, it comes after your money. However, God gives you the choice to give to God who should be first. Priority is to consider something more important than norm.

When asked why he had been so successful, Tom Landry responded to a crowd of more than two thousand students at Baylor University, “In 1958, I did something everyone who has been successful must do, I determined my priorities for my life—God, family, and then football.” (Cited in Dallas Morning News, March 2, 1978).[1]

[1] Michael P. Green, ed., Illustrations for Biblical Preaching: Over 1500 Sermon Illustrations Arranged by Topic and Indexed Exhaustively, Revised edition of: The expositor’s illustration file (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989).

[1] Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Amazed, “Be” Commentary Series (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 160.

“Of the 38 parables that Jesus taught, 16 of them deal with stewardship. As a matter of fact, about one out of every ten verses in the New Testament deals with the matter of stewardship. You take the verses that deal with stewardship—there are over 2,000 of them. God is interested in our stewardship: how acquire and use our money. One of the greatest tests of your spirituality, and how much you love God, and you much you believe the Word of God, is stewardship.” (Adrian Rogers)

What is your priority in your use of finances? Christian, how do you use your finances?

According to recent data, the average percentage of giving in 2024 church offerings is around 5% of income among Christian, with a significant portion of churchgoers not giving regularly, and only a small percentage consistently tithing (giving 10% of their income to their church; however, the number may vary. While I do not what people give here at MVBC, I do believe that we are above the average but this doesn’t mean we don’t have room for improvement.

In this passage God is calling His people to come back into a relationship with Him. The call to return to Him is a return to tithing and giving. God shows us four priorities we should have in our lives.

1. Priority of our relationship with God

Malachi 3:7

God is greatly concerned about our relationship with HIm. Worship in the Bible is accompanied with an offering.

A. A return to His will

1. This call to return is more than just a financial act but a return to God’s

will and purposes.

2. A good stewardship is greatly concerned about the will of God as he or

she manages his personal resources.

3. God is concerned about a full relationship with Him in all areas of our

lives.

B. A return to HIs priorities

1. When the Lord talks about His ordinances, He then in the next verse

talks about tithing. The call to return is a call to prioritize our lives.

2. Our relationship in obedience and surrender to God is what He is

commanding.

3. This surrender impacts all of our lives by realigning our lives with God’s

priorities.

4. When we submit our lives to Him, much like Israel, we are called to

revive our personal relationship with HIm.

This passage is about priorities, and the central priority is God himself.

N. T. Wright

God is wanting and asking for us to have a relationship with HIm first and foremost. Do you know Him as your personal Savior? It begins when we realize we are sinners and we need a Savior. He died for us and rose so that we can be forgiven.

2. Priority of managing our money

Malachi 3:8-9

To misuse our finances is to rob God of His rightful place in the decisions we make financially. I do not believe anyone in this room or in our church has any desire to rob God what is rightfully HIs. This is a direct statement on what we are doing when we don’t return what is God’s.

Priorities is about making Biblical decisions with the proper use of money. There are financial matters we cannot control like insurance costs, groceries, gasoline prices, or taxes. However, we can manage these uncontrollable expenditures by making right choices with that which is controllable. Some will call it discretionary expenses.

Some have more discretionary expenses than others, yet managing properly what God gives us is what a good steward does.

Here are some examples of how we can mismanage our discretionary funds. This is not to say spending it is wrong but merely want to show you how we can mismanage what God gives us.

Average cost of Starbucks 5.07-3 times a week+15.21 x 52l=790.92X2=1581.84 At home-drip coffee 29 cents-nothing wrong with an occasional treat of coffee but it can etch into your budget quickly.

Average cost of burger, fries, and drink $15 2 times a week 30 (for 2)=$1560.00

 Average cost of professional sporting events 173=865 (doing 5) x 2 1730

  Average cost of youth sports 883.00 per child per year x 2=1766

 Average cost of owning a dog per year can range from 1,000 to 5,225. Food, flee and tick,  treats, annual check up

Total: 6889.50-nothing wrong with any of those things but they do add up in budget.

Here what is wrong: according to Dave Ramsey report the average weekly donation per US church is $17 a week. They give more money towards nonessentials in their budget than they give to God which is essential.

I am not suggesting we don’t do those things but we should give to God first.

So many Americans today are up to here in debt. And somebody has described the average American as a person who drives a bank-financed car over a bond-financed highway, with gasoline that he bought with a credit card. He’s on his way to open a charge account at a department store, so he can fill his house, that he owes the Savings and Loan for, with installment-purchased furniture. That’s an American for you. We’re buying things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like. That’s Americans for you. We’re in financial bondage, so many of us.[1]

Let me show you two of the leading credit card company office buildings. They are charging us 24% interest and here is where our money is going.

CEO of Visa’s salary Ryan Mclnerney $23 million

[1] Adrian Rogers, “Faithful in Stewardship,” in Adrian Rogers Sermon Archive (Signal Hill, CA: Rogers Family Trust, 2017), Mal 3:7–12.

3. Priority of our trust in God

Malachi 3:10

Our giving is a great reflection of our spiritual health and relationship with God. When we don’t give faithfully we break a trust in God.

A Biblical steward will seek the mind and will of God on every decision.  God not only expects that we return a portion of what He gives us as tithes and offerings, He expects for all that we have to be used in ways which please and honor Him.  He expects that we, regardless of vocation, will exercise responsible stewardship, on His behalf every day that we live.  One day His eternal kingdom will come. In the meantime, we are to live as if it has already come.

There are five types of Givers:

Don’t give, First Time, Regular Giver, Tither, Extravagant (Generous) Giver

God promises us here when we give He will give us a double blessing-end of v. 10. Giving to God is a test of our faith which encourages us to trust God with our future. We don’t know what unexpected expenses are coming up. It may be a refrigerator or water heater. A car repair or electrical problem.

I do believe when we are faithful to God in our giving, He will cause our appliances to last longer, our cars to go further, our repairs to be much less, and even our clothes to last longer. I have often wondered how many unexpected expensive repairs are ways in which God is getting His money back from our mishandling. This is not always the case certainly but God does have a way to get our attention.

Our spiritual health is directly connected with our commitment to managing our life based on Biblical truth.

4. Priority of our blessing from God

Malachi 3:11-12

Our obedience to God brings a rebuke to the devourer. The remnant that returned to Judah after the exile had a great opportunity to trust God and bear witness to other the nations that their God was the true and living God.

When God enables us to finish this parking lot, it will be a witness to the people in the high desert that God is well able to provide for this project.

Obedient stewards will be used by God to expand His kingdom.

What are your priorities? If God is first, this means we surrender our finances to Him and trust Him with our giving? Maybe today it will be your first time to give or maybe it will be time for you to become a regular giver or become a tither or extravagant giver. What is God speaking to you about?

If you are here today and have never received Christ as your Savior, will you start your stewardship life with Him? Will you turn to Him today?