Sermon Tone Analysis

Illustration: Rightnow Media - Offering Plate

Aren’t you glad that we did not show this video clip just before the offering?

If we had shown it, do you think it would have changed the way you gave during the offering?

Do you think it may have changed the motives of your heart?

I am glad we didn’t show it prior to the sermon and I am glad we had the offering before the sermon.

Guilt or forced conduct is a terrible way in which to love someone.

I want you to think about someone who is incredibly important in your life.

Who is that person in which you would say I love you?

Now imagine if your current relationship with this person was built on how you can leverage them to meet every desire in your heart.

Every decision that you made was to manipulate them into fulfilling an inward selfish motive of your heart irregardless of how that action made them feel or if it caused negative consequences in their life.

How long would this relationship last?

How do you think they would feel knowing you were using them only to fulfill a selfish desire?

How long; a day, a week, a year?

At some point do you not think that they would figure out that you were always putting yourself first?

Do think you could honestly conclude that you were in a loving relationship with another person if you always made yourself first?

I want to share with you today our first principle.

Our outward actions are an expression of our inward motives.

Now some of you will immediately try to disagree with me on this point based on the video clip we just watched.

You will say that everyone was doing the same thing , placing money in the offering plate, but having different motivations for why they were giving.

This would be true if we based it off of the dollar amount given rather than a percentage of their wealth.

You see, if we really wanted to get to the motivation of the giving we would ask them to open their check register.

We would ask them what percentage are you giving based on the amount of your wealth.

I believe their outward actions would then betray their inward motivations and we would have a better understanding of why they were giving.

Around 500 B.C. we see this same scenario playing out in the construction of the second temple of Israel.

In 538 B.C. King Cyrus of Persia had released the Israelites to return to the Jerusalem area to rebuild their city and the temple of their god.

Through the ancient text of Ezra and Haggai we learn that edict to rebuild the temple of the god of the Israelites was reissued by King Darius I around 522 b.c. and the temple was not completed until March 12, 516 B.C. as stated in .

The math sounds like a Baptist Church building program.

It took them 22 years to complete a building that took them 4 years to physically build.

How many times have you heard of a building or a gym to be built by a church only to take 10-20 years for its completion?

So it took 2 or more prophets and a king to move the people to complete the work of the temple.

We read the following:

;

Haggai 1:

Yet even after they completed the work of the temple they again returned to their old ways.

Around 450 B.C. in the book of Malachi we read in chapter 3 today which will be our main text the following:

Malachi 3:

Again doing a little math and this is rough in years since we are using references to kings to decide the time of the writings but basically the temple was built in 516 B.C. and this complaint was given by the prophet around 450 B.C. so in about 70 years we have reverted back to self interest and not providing tithes or contributions as stated in verse 8 to the maintaining of the temple.

In which the prophet states that they are robbing God.

So the prophet asks the question in which he believes the hearer or reader would ask in protest; how are we robbing God?

This leads us to our second principle in answering this protest.

God blesses us so that we might be a blessing to others.

Let me rephrase this.

All of you have been blessed by God so that you may be a blessing to others.

Let me say this differently.

All of you “haves” have been blessed to give freely and generously to the “have nots” of this world.

If you do not believe me that you are a “have” rather than a “have not”, let me provide you with a few statistics to drive home the point.

In the United States poverty is defined by a family of 4 under $25000 per year.

If you have more or less members in your family subtract or add $4200 to that base number.

Of this amount about 13% of our population live at or below this level.

Some of us may actually be close to that number but let us do a comparison.

I want you to think of someone else who you believe is rich.

Now if it is someone sitting next to you please do not jab them in the side.

This is only for you.

How much do you need to feel rich in which you could give generously?I many really, how much would it take to be a true blessing to others?

So now that you have that name and figure we are going to do another comparison with someone who you do not know but of someone who I have spoken to face to face through a translator in another language.

Someone in which I had to walk down a dirt trail littered with human feces.

A person in human God created in His image.

A person who had five children and lost her husband to an electrocution accident.

A person who leaves her five children alone during the day to sell carved wooden masks to the local tourists in order to survive.

This local Guatemalan mom earns even less than what is considered poverty in Guatemala.

So here is our comparison.

In Guatemala the poverty line for a family of 4 is $2800 and over 50% of the people, 1 in 2, people live at this line.

There is no getting ahead.

If a Guatemalan was sitting here today to answer a question of how to be rich, she is already starting at 22,000 behind you just to be considered poor in this country.

Think about your poverty versus her poverty.

It is all a comparison game.

We can do this all day long comparing who is rich and who is poor.

It is a game played in the heart.

It is a game played poorly when we believe we deserve more or when we own what in reality has been given to us from the beginning.

Check out this video of what I mean.

RightNow Media video of Tithe (donuts).

Coming back to our text God did not give the people of Israel a box of donuts by sending them back to their country for them to keep and eat all of the donuts.

He sent them back to be a blessing to the nations around them.

He sent them back to rebuild the nation and his temple.

Instead they like us believe all the donuts were for them and not to give back some to bless others.

How do you rob God?

When you believe all that has been given to you belongs to you.

Being rich is a moving target that you will never hit.

There is never enough to be satisfied for our hunger for more is insatiable.

Yet one act of generosity is to be a generous person.

How do you kill greed and the need for more in your life?

Try to out give God.

Generosity is the antidote to our selfishness.

It starts with us believing we have more than enough in order to bless others.

When we live our lives out of this principle, it changes us.

It lifts our thinking to a higher level.

It lifts us from thinking of ourselves to others.

It gives us a new perspective.

A perspective that leads us to another principle.

The church just like the temple is to stand as a beacon of hope to the world.

God accommodates himself to us through physical objects in this world as a reminder that we can redeem the image he has placed in us.

The temple and the church stand as reminders that we are beacons of hope of changed lives.

The temple was not just not for sacrifices for the Jewish community to take away guilt.

It stood as a symbol of blessing.

Malachi writes that temple will be a blessing if the people make God first by giving back to him.

Malachi

The principle in this passage is further teased out by Paul in .

2 Corinthians

If we read without the context of we will turn the passage into a heavy handed law of nonsense.

We will begin to conclude that blessings will magically fall out from heaven as we give 10% of our earnings to God.

Instead of a motivation of love it will become an act of compulsion.