Giving Malachi 3

Malachi 3:7-12 (NRSV)
7 Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, “How shall we return?” 8 Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, “How are we robbing you?” In your tithes and offerings! 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me—the whole nation of you! 10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. 11 I will rebuke the locust for you, so that it will not destroy the produce of your soil; and your vine in the field shall not be barren, says the Lord of hosts. 12 Then all nations will count you happy, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.

There is a thief in the church. Turn to your neighbor and ask them are you the thief?  There is a thief in God’s house.  Of course none of us will want to admit it, but still there are thieves among us. Who are they? You may never know. But God will know, and there will probably be someone in the church who will know but they won’t tell because they don’t want to make anyone angry. You know even Christians believe in the dim witted notion snitches get stitches.  They don’t tell so they live in fear.  That is the same way in the church.  I don’t tithe because it’s no one’s business what I do for the Lord.  There is a thief in the house.

God knows whether you are stealing from Him or not. The average Christian is not honoring the Lord in their giving.  We have a lot of people who have not committed themselves to the study of the Word of God, won’t come to Bible study, won’t frequent Sunday School—but when it comes to the issues of giving, then they become deep theological, biblical, and ecclesiastic scholars.  They make their excuses on why they are not giving and cannot give like God demands. There is a thief in the house. When we are disobedient in our giving we are robbers.

I.                   You rob God

a.     When we are disobedient, here is our favorite theological premise that we like to hold on to: GOD UNDERSTANDS.  It’s been a long month, got great bills to pay, got a large family, overwhelmed with debt, got goals to reach…God understands. Well, I don’t know because God gave you what you started with. And because of your mismanagement of the 90 in your finances it ain’t God’s fault when you don’t have anything left at the end to give to Him in return.  Something gotta give!!! And when it comes the mistakes you’ve made and the blessing from Him that you NEED and can’t live without—you can’t afford NOT to give back to God what He so graciously gave to you to begin with.

II.                You rob the church

a.     I’m so tired of people coming to me telling me what the church could or should be doing.  And they themselves aren’t doing what they should be doing.  Giving is a matter that ensures that the church has all she needs to witness to the world about Jesus.  You see the tithe includes your time and talent as well as your treasure.  There are 168 hours in a week.  God asks for 10%.  16 hours and 90 mins.  If you went to Sunday school and church almost half of that would be met. Add bible study and it would be.  That leaves 8 hours over six days that you can’t find time for God.  90 minutes a day.  That means if you spent 9 minutes in prayer 10 times you’d be doing the church a great service.  You know why because most people say they want more out of the church but don’t know exactly how to get more. Spend sometime in prayer and I believe God will lead you in the path that He and you desire.

III.             You rob yourself

a.     Do you not understand it is because of God’s grace that you have the breath of life?  It is because of His mercy that you arrive safely everyday back and forth to work.  It is by his grace that you are able to comprehend, understand and process the amount of pay you are suppose to get for the amount of work rendered.  It all belongs to God to begin with.  You and I are stewards.  If you are in a bind than I am 100% sure you are either mismanaging the 90 or God is preparing to use you be a blessing. 

We are managers of God’s world and His resources.  The question is what kind of management are you providing?  There is a restaurant in Brooklyn that serves some of the best southern soul food in NYC.  Yet I have seen the restaurant go from a large building with banquet hall and sit down dining to take out from a window.  Not that the food was bad.  The food was and I guess is still good.  The issue was poor management.  You see they weren’t doing what they were supposed to do with the money they were receiving. 

So the more money they made, here is the tragedy, the larger their mismanagement.  They were poor stewards.  They didn’t do what they were supposed to do they were obligated to pay taxes, they were obligated to pay decent salaries.  They were obligated to do the right things.  Instead they did not.  So their thriving business went from a large banquet hall to a take out window.  What kind of management are you providing with the resources God has entrusted to you?

When we don’t give like we ought to give God does not understand. And the reality of my not giving back to Him is conceived as spiritual robbery. I am afraid that God does not understand.

c. Result ‘…you are cursed with a curse…’He says that every Sunday morning, you march right up into my house in my face driving cars that you drove with stolen money/wearing clothes that you purchased with stolen money/shoes that you bought with stolen money…right in my face…you are cursed with a curse. 

In Israel there are two different body of waters but they have the same water supply—the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. Actually it comes from Mt. Hermon when it is snowcapped; when that snow begins to melt on Mt. Herman, it rushes violently down Mt. Herman into the Northern inlet of the Jordan River; and then it flows straight through the Jordan River out through the Southern outlet of the Jordan into the Northern inlet of the Sea of Galilee; that same water keeps flowing through the Sea of Galilee out its Southern outlet into the Northern inlet of the Dead Sea; but once it gets to the Dead Sea, there it stands stagnant because the Dead Sea has no Southern outlet. The Dead Sea has a Northern inlet but no Southern outlet so the same water that flows INTO the Jordan and OUT the Jordan, INTO the Sea of Galilee and OUT the Sea of Galilee, INTO the Dead Sea, the cycle is suspended and aborted and there it stands and remains in the Dead Sea. But yet, the waters of the Sea of Galilee and the waters of the Dead Sea are different because the Sea of Galilee is rich and refreshing—things grow in it and flow in it; but the Dead Sea is cited as the Dead Sea for a reason. Why? Because nothing can FLOW there and consequently nothing can GROW there. Why? Because it is DEAD. Now how can these two different bodies of water get their water supply from the same source and one is rich and refreshing and the other is dead? That is because the Sea of Galilee receives and releases and therefore it GROWS and FLOWS there. But the Dead Sea has a receptive mentality but no release—it takes in but doesn’t let anything GO; and that’s why it is dead.

Now I’m bringing this up—because, more than likely, there are 2 different Christians in here today. And of course, you get your blessings from the same supply and the same source because, according to James 1:17, every good and perfect gift comes from above—from the Lord our God Who is our Maker, Sustainer, Savior, and Redeemer. Then how can one Christian’s life be rich and refreshing with things growing and flowing and then the other Christian—getting their blessings and ‘good gifts’ from the same Sovereign Source—but their life is DEAD and meaningless where nothing is FLOWING and GROWING. Why? That’s because if you have a receptive mentality but no release—if all you want to do is RECEIVE God’s blessings but do not RELEASE God’s blessings—I don’t care how long you’ve been coming to church, how big your Bible is, how cute you look when you get to church—things will not work, flow, function and grow in your life. Why? Because if God can not send it THROUGH you, God won’t waste His time sending it TO you.

Get this—When God is meeting your needs He’s really on His way to meeting somebody else’s needs.  A lot of times when God is blessing you, He’s really on His way to blessing somebody else.  The modus operandi of God works this way: He’s sending it TO you, hoping that is channels THROUGH you to bless somebody else that He’s trying to touch. But when you STOP the flow of what God is DOING—then God stops sending it your way. When you stop the flow of what God is doing you miss out on the blessing of being a blessing.

As Christian believers, we don’t live our lives the way that the world lives theirs. As Christians, we don’t have the same mentality that the world uses to think the way that they think. There is a way to get into the FLOW of God.  There is a way to be USED of God There is a way to GROW in God.  And it is connected to a fundamental, theological, biblical truth and here it is: God’s glory is connected to OUR giving.