Putting God First: Tithing

I understand if you’re leery about a sermon on generous giving. People complain that churches always want money. Full disclosure: Crosspoint gives me a biweekly paycheque so I can devote myself to prayer, preaching, and pastoral care full time.

But tithing isn’t really about money for Crosspoint. Tithing isn’t about my salary. First-and-foremost, tithing is a spiritual discipline. Tithing is about faith and your relationship with God.

Let’s be clear: You’re not obliged to donate to Crosspoint – especially if you are a visitor. Tithing, that’s giving 10% of your income to the Lord, might include a gift to Crosspoint, but there are lots of solid Christian ministries you can support.

We can all be glad Canada doesn’t do it like Germany. If you’re a member of the Church in Germany, when you submit income tax, the government collects 8% for your church. There are historical reasons of course, but it doesn’t seem right.

The government shouldn’t use its power to collect money for Christian ministry. It runs counter to Paul’s instructions to the Christians in Corinth:

Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. II Corinthians 9:7 (NIV)

Same thing here at Crosspoint, we want gifts to be voluntary, or as the Cadets would say: cheerful!

Last week we talked about the spiritual discipline of fasting. It’s a spiritual practice in which what your body experiences affects your spirit, your soul. Specifically, fasting helps Christians battle the sin of gluttony.

Tithing is also a spiritual discipline. It’s a spiritual practice in which our faith shows up in our financial decisions. Tithing tackles the sin of greed, which is a form of idolatry. When we are greedy or ungenerous with God’s gifts, we risk making God’s good gifts of possessions or money #1 in our life.

That’s a problem. Greed chokes our relationship with God and neighbours. Greed is a barrier to love and grace. God can’t wrap his arms of love around me if I’m stained with sin.

The only way to bask in God’s love is if the filth of sin gets removed, washed away, atoned for. I can’t do that myself. We can’t do that. God’s forgiveness is a gift. At the Lord’s Supper, we’re vividly reminded how God extends his grace to us through Jesus’ life, suffering, and resurrection.

Jesus took the punishment for sin at the cross to rescue us from sin and death. After he died, Jesus arose so we can live a new life with him: a life of joy, generosity, and obedience. God the HS comes on believers in power to transform our sin-stained life to a life of love, grace, and generosity.

Four Reasons to Tithe:

1. Grow Generous like God

If you were here for our sermon series on Genesis, you might recall how we marvelled at God’s creation. The Bible describes God as the creator of everything: sun, moon, stars, and earth.

Yet, when God made humankind, he put people in charge of his creation:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Genesis 1:26 (NIV)

He let us name the animals and everything. God is generous.

We’re created in God’s image, so I’m supposed to be generous. You’re supposed to be generous. But like any other skill, generosity takes practise. If you want to get good at swimming, reading, or crocheting: practice! When you practice sports, you develop muscle memory and reflex reactions.

That’s what tithing is all about: when God gives us stuff, we practice generosity by giving 10% back to God. It’s an exercise to build our generosity muscles and create a regular reaction of giving, so our natural reflex when we have stuff is to be generous with it like God our Creator and Saviour.

If your goal is to be like Jesus, you’ve got to train in generosity. It’s the kind of thing Paul and Timothy write about to the Christians in Corinth. Ordinarily people in Corinth wouldn’t care about a famine in Jerusalem. But because Christians are suffering from this famine in Jerusalem, the Christians in Corinth ought to share with their brothers and sisters in faith. They describe it this way:

This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. II Corinthians 9:12 (NIV)

They’re saying your gift shows love for people in the family of God and is an expression of thanks to God.

2. Keep God as #1 in your Life

The Bible talks about firstfruits giving. It’s the practise of worshipping God as #1 in your life in agriculture by giving God the first part of the crops you harvest and the first offspring of every animal you breed. In obedience to the first 2 of the 10 Commandments, we don’t want to worship anything as god besides the Lordand we don’t want images taking God’s place.

You know how our household spending goes. Even with the best of intentions to glorify God in our finances, it’s tough to make the dollars stretch. The pie is only so big. After we pay for housing, food, clothing, transportation, entertainment, school, hydro, phones, internet … by the end of the month, we only have crumbs left for God.

The idea of firstfruits-giving is that the first hay or wheat or beans you harvest, the first calf or foal, the first kid, lamb or puppy from each female animal is given back to God. If you’re not in agriculture, I wonder if we can follow this principal with our income: after your pension or paycheque is deposited, the first money out of your account is 10% to God.

When Paul wrote about the collection for Christians in Jerusalem in his first letter, he made a similar suggestion:

Now about the collection for the Lord’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.

I Corinthians 16:1–2 (NIV)

It’s an act of faith, trusting God to give you all you need. It’s an act of faith built on your determination to put God 1st in all of life, incl. your finances. It’s a confession that the whole pie comes from God and belongs to God. Everything you own is declared “holy to the Lord” by giving 10% off the top.

3. Grow in Faith

Speaking of faith, the elders, deacons, and I have been working over the last few months, talking about how to help people at Crosspoint grow in faith. Giving is something that stretches our faith. Giving of money is an act of faith. Once you give money away, you don’t have it anymore. When you give money today, you’re trusting that God will provide everything you need tomorrow and next week.

When talking about tithing, my colleague Scott VanderPloeg quotes how Malachi presents God’s faith challenge. Talking to God’s covenant people, the last prophet in the OT says,

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. Malachi 3:10 (NIV)

It takes faith to believe God’s promise. It sounds risky to give money away to God through the church.

But when you try it and discover how, after several weeks and months of giving, that God faithfully provides what you need, day-in and day-out, it makes you more likely to trust God and obey his commands about generosity and all sorts of other instructions on holy living.

4. Participate in Ministry

Another reason for giving God a 10thof your income through tithing is to participate in the work God is doing through the church. Let’s be honest, it takes money to have church staff, to run ministries, and just to keep the lights on, the grass mowed, and the air conditioning running.

Because our congregation is covering those expenses, we get to gather weekly to worship God, we have programs and ministries that help people come to faith and grow in faith. Not everyone is a musician, a teacher, or a preacher – by tithing your income to God through the church, you’re a vital participant in Crosspoint’s ministry.

It’s a great ministry to be part of! Neat stuff is happening at Crosspoint. I’ve never seen a more exciting time in ministry! People are coming to faith and growing in faith.

I showed a version of this graph at the congregational meeting in March.

Transfer in,

Baptism of Covenant Children,

PoF & Baptism by Evangelism,

PoF of Covenant Children.

It’s not just here at Crosspoint. We received a newsletter from Ly & Navy Chan. They tell the story of Miss Mab Sreypich, a young woman they’ve mentored for several years. She’ll be baptized soon. It’s only one story of many. In a separate email, Navy said they witnessed 26 baptisms in the last 3 months.

At Crosspoint, we offer financial support to Ly & Navy through Resonate Global Mission. You help Ly & Navy make more and better disciples in Cambodia by tithing your income to God.