Tithing
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
February is going to be a unit on tithing - we are challenging people that, if you are not already tithing - giving 10% - to give it a try during february.
Teambuilding night - Tuesday feb 11th, 6pm on.
Plan to Protect - February 16th, immediately after church. Lunch provided!
Matthew 28:18–20 NIVThen Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
What does this mean - disciple?There’s a few words that translate to this concept of being a disciple. There’s concepts of..MemberPupil‘after’ or ‘go out’disciplineBut here’s the root concept - someone who follows another person or way of life, and submits themselves to the disciple or teaching of that person or way of life.It’s beyond ‘hey, let’s learn more about this, maybe pick and choose what i like.’ It’s, ‘I believe in this cause , and I’m going to live for this cause’.Being a disciple means Placing God and His priorities over our ownAnd that’s an easy thing to say, until our priorities don’t match.We are called to make disciples for Jesus - not ourselvesThis one might seem obvious, but I think we fall victim to it.Paul accused the Corinthian church about this one. You see in1 Corinthians 3:1-4
1 Corinthians 3:1–4 NIVBrothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?
What the corinthian church was doing, was that they were rallying around specific leaders and leadership styles in the church as their identity. It wasn’t enough that people were loved by God - they had to make sure they had the ‘superior’ style of being a Christian. Paul railed HARD against this idea.Paul even goes on later in the chapter to accuse people that were promoting this idea. He says this:1 Corinthians 3:16-17
1 Corinthians 3:16–17 NIVDon’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.
Paul’s basic idea here was that pushing people in the church to follow anyone but Christ caused great division, showed that we were still acting wordly, and actually ‘destroys’ the temple that God sought to build in the body of believers. And here’s the real practical way that this can manifest nowadays - how many times have we drawn a division between ourselves and other believers based on something like style, or preference, or attitude? How many times have we told people with our mouths to follow God’s discipline, and forced people by our actions to follow ours? Basically, how many times has God said to someone, ‘follow me’, and we’ve said ‘but make sure they follow me first’?And this is REALLY well intentioned. Because we’re often holding people up to or against systems that God built in us, built in our generations. Many of the systems we have in churches were born out of a faithful body pursuing Christ and asking the question, ‘What is God doing?’ and responding out of that same faithfulness. But I think we’ve missed THE essential next step that God wants us to follow.The essence of MAKING a disciple is asking a question.And I touched on that question earlier. It’s pretty simple. This is the question that should be the foundation of every decision we make as believers and as a church corporate. ‘What is God doing?’But when it comes to making disciples, that question isn’t enough. We’re missing two key words.What is God doing in them?Because what God did in us is great and should be taken very seriously. But we need to allow God the space to let the next and the new generation obey Him the way He wants them to. It’s our job to ask this question of the next generation - ‘What is God doing in them?’ and listen. And to do everything we can to build them up to be GOD’S disciples, not ours.I heard someone say once that there are aspects of your character and your personality that only other people know. There are aspects of our churches that only other people know, only other people see. I also heard someone say that if someone can’t tell what your church’s mission is by it’s budget, your budget isn’t good.The reason I say this, is because I feel like as a global church, we block the new movement of the Spirit because it doesn’t fit comfortably into our existing model. We don’t consider a person’s orientation and heart towards God, what GOD may think of that person - we only think about how they make US feel. And I will be positive - that’s probably because God gave us our existing model. But he gave it to US. The next generation, he may have something new in store for them.Have you ever held something really heavy for a long time? If you held a brick straight out for a minute or two, fine. If you did it for an hour, you’d probably have to go to the hospital.God’s given us each bricks to build up his church - He never wanted us to take our brick and start passing it around saying ‘hey guys, God’s given me the final bit, THIS is exactly what the church should look like!’ We take the piece that God gave us to construct HIS living church and we hold it up so high that it simply becomes a destructive dead weight.If you want a great saying to help drive this point home, tell yourself,I’m not building the roof over my church. I’m building the floor under the next church.We need to see our roles not as to preserve and protect exactly what we’ve been given, but rather to draw out and build up what God is giving other people.And there’s a second side to this truth that’s also a bit uncomfortable. Maybe God is raising up a new generation to do things differently to try and root out some ingrained problems that have arisen in our own models.I will say one thing about the newest generation growing up. For all of their problems, for all of the ways we may look at them as ‘the older people’ and point out things, they have this going for them; they hate hypocrisy in any form and they deeply value the worth of an individual person. You want to drive young people out, just be a church that prioritizes respecting a system over welcoming a person, and let your words on sunday not be an accurate reflection of your actions every other day. They will clear out for you.It’s not just ‘They’re coming and they won’t change, so we just have to suck it up.’ It’s a much deeper, much more humble response.It’s We NEED what the next generation brings to the table to build GOD’S churchBecause God didn’t perfect the discipleship process with us. God uses his spirit to drop things into us directly, he uses the fellowship of believers around us to support us in our growth and help fine tune us, and he uses the march of time and change to perfect this entity He calls His bride and drive out any weeds that may take root.So if we truly fear God, if we truly love Him and want to build His kingdom - let’s build HIS kingdom. It may be painful, it may be difficult, but it’s what God wants us to do. So that makes it the most important thing we could ever do with our lives.I want to end this series with the words of paul:Philippians 3:8 -9
Philippians 3:8–9 NIVWhat is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.
So let’s be this church - the church that considers everything on this side of eternity garbage and loss compared to the surpassing glory of simply knowing Christ and being found in Him.
Fear of the Lord part 2 - Perfect Humility
I wanted to highlight this next part, i call ‘Perfect Humility’ next, because of how strongly Jesus responds to a particular question in the bible.Prior to this part of the bible, the disciples had seen some pretty miraculous stuff. They had seen the transfiguration. They had seen Jesus drive out a demon that they could not. They had Jesus predict both his death and resurrection. Peter had even seen a coin produced from a fish’s mouth on Jesus’ command.So there’s a real power play here. They’re obviously starting to see the spirit move, they’re obviously starting to see the miraculous in the world. They’re starting to get glimpses of the future. And they’re starting to see their own inadequacies. All of these things happened (among other things) after Jesus had sent out the disciples and given them power and authority over sickness and demons, and they had seen God’s power in a mighty way.And if we’re honest with ourselves, we can really understand this mentality. Put yourself in their shoes. They had seen God’s power, God’s real, awesome power face to face working through them. But now, they are starting to feel disconnected from it. Jesus is teaching things that they don’t understand, or bring them grief. They are starting to encounter forces that they can’t drive out themselves. And it’s in that context that the disciples ask this question.Matthew 18:1-4
Matthew 18:1–4 NIVAt that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Now this word, greatest, it’s the greek word MEGAS. Could also mean ‘on top’, ‘complete’, or ‘largest’. Now, we’ve always understood this question to be them jockeying for position. But I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s a genuine response to how to become more, become greater in the kingdom of heaven. Because that’s what we want! Not for ourselves, not to serve ourselves or our own interests, or to look high and mighty. But to serve God even more.And it’s surprising how strong Jesus’ language is here. He isn’t upset, he isn’t mean. But he points out that there’s a negative spiritual reality that they’re missing, that they need to take seriously. And that maybe, what ‘greater’ in the kingdom means isn’t what they think it means.They ask the question, ‘How can we tell who is truly the greatest?’ and Jesus responds with ‘Unless you can humble yourself and become like a little child, you can’t even get in’. There’s a shot across the bow here, so to speak. It’s a warning. ‘Right now, you’re on a path that could take you to either being the greatest, or eliminating you completely. So make sure to pay attention to the warning signs and you’re actually on the right road.’And I want you to understand my heart here. I think we’ve all been in that position - that position of feeling like we’ve missed the spirit. That we’re sitting here, not seeing the kinds of things that we have seen before. Not seeing the power, and the miracles. And we ask ourselves - ‘how can we make our church great again? how can we make our lives great again?’ We see the powerplay going on - some people or churches having greater spiritual success in our own eyes than we are - and we’re unconsciously asking this question, ‘what do we do to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven’? And I believe that Jesus gives some answers here in this chapter that we’re going to go through. But he starts off with a warning - that right now, there’s a perspective change that needs to happen first and foremost. That we don’t know what ‘greatest’ means. Jesus is calling us to change how we see it so that we don’t risk missing the kingdom, and the key concept underlaying everything is this one idea: Humility.And we’re going to explore what Jesus has to say about this through a few following scriptures.
First, in regards to sin.Matthew 18:8-9
Matthew 18:8–9 NIVIf your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.
This is really strong teaching. And we’ve heard it before, and we believe it. But here’s going to be my question for the next few weeks - do we take it seriously? Now, I had a youth ask once, is this encouraging self harm. Is it literally saying, ‘cut your hand off’. Jesus was clear in other parts of the bible that it’s not the physical that is the origin of sin - he said, it’s not the food that we eat that makes us unclean, it’s the thoughts and ideas we let into our hearts, for example. So I don’t believe that there’s a scenario where our hands will cause us to sin. But sometimes, we hold onto things so closely that we believe they’re a part of us, and it FEELS like cutting off a hand to get rid of those things. I believe he’s speaking about how strongly we should react to sin in our lives - becausethere’s literally nothing worth holding onto if it causes us to disobey GodNow, understand the context here. He’s saying this in response to the disciples saying, ‘hey, all of this power that we see - how can WE tell who the greatest in the kingdom is?’. And Jesus turns it right on it’s head - you want to be the ‘greatest’ here? Take the lowliest position. Become like little children.Now, side note - I really believe that this is a lot easier to do when we give kids a much higher place in church than we do. It’s easy to want to be like a kid, when a child is the most loved, most accepted, most wanted person in the room. When we don’t jockey in our own buildings over who’s the ‘more important’ person in the room. But I digress.So it’s in this context of wanting to be greater in the kingdom that Jesus teaches about letting things go and getting rid of things that cause us to stumble. I had a conversation with someone earlier in the week, and they said in response to some concerns, that they wake up every morning and say ‘Search MY heart, God’. That’s a fantastic response. And I think it really really digs to the heart of the matter here - that so often, the problems arise from things we hold onto dearly, rather than things around us.Because remember the wording here - if anything OF YOURS causes you to stumble. He doesn’t say, ‘if anyone else causes you to stumble’. He says, if YOUR hand or YOUR foot causes you to stumble - cut it off. If you are stumbling, it’s often best to check what your holding first.STORY - walking with firewood onto the deck, bailed hard back into the firewood pile. Because i was holding something heavy.Now, it’s really fair to ask the question - what about the other guy? What about the other person that causes problems? And Jesus’ focus here is a little different. He shows his priorities first and foremost.Matthew 18:12-14
Matthew 18:12–14 NIV“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.
The stance we take on our lives, our own problems, our own wanderings, is supposed to be really serious. But Jesus shows us behind the curtain so to speak, and shows us this situation where there is greater rejoicing from the Father because someone who has gone astray has returned, than because of way more people who never needed to. Jesus tells us, we could miss the kingdom by trying to make ourselves too great. But we could also miss the party by trying to make other people too little.We should rejoice about bringing people in, rather than remorse about the difficulties they bring.And if you think about it, that’s really the heart of God there. Because however much anyone has inconvenienced us, they (and we) have done it a thousand fold towards God. And yet, He rejoices greatly when they turn back to Him. Churches should be a constantly warm, welcoming, joyful place towards the lost. We should be way happier about being the place that the next person comes back to than the place that the last 99 haven’t left.Now, Jesus does give some teaching on dealing with a brother or sister who sins. He gives a few steps - talk to them privately, then bring a few people along, then bring it directly to the church body itself. And after that point, understand that that person just isn’t interested in listening. But the goal is still restitution, the goal is still reconciliation.And then Jesus tells this story called ‘The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant’. STORY - two men, one who owes a king ten thousand bags of gold and had his debt cancelled, and another who owes the first man a hundred silver coins. First man was thrown back into jail after he heard about how he treated the second man.And after Jesus tells this story, he caps it off with this:Matthew 18:35
Matthew 18:35 NIV“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
So let’s try and summarize Jesus’ warning here. It’s basically three parts:1 - trying to fight to be ‘the greatest’ in the kingdom of God can be a really good way to miss it.2 - Treat the areas where YOU cause YOU or OTHERS to stumble very seriously3 - Treat the problems of others around you as chump change compared to the vast debt that God has cancelled on YOUR behalf.And you’ll notice a pattern here - that we take the focus off ourselves. And I think Jesus was really trying to dig into that idea time and time again. If you want to be the greatest in the kingdom, do whatever you can to make sure other people feel like THEY are the greatest. If you want to see the Spirit celebrate in your midst, do whatever you can to make sure you are welcoming back the most lost. If you want to do greater things for God, put yourself last in the order. And that’s a funny way to look at it, because if we’re honest with ourselves, when things start to go wrong in our faith, or our church, we often look at the other guy. And Jesus’ answer is, no, look here (HEART), at YOUR heart. As for everybody else - they’re treasure to rejoice over. And we can confidently say this - if we live this way, we will NOT be missing the kingdom of God. In fact, we’ll have even more to celebrate when we get there.
PLAY A SONG AT THE END OF SERVICE
PLAY A SONG AT THE END OF SERVICE
Fear of the Lord part 1 - Perfect Fear
STORY - Caleb getting me to run interference for himThroughout the bible, there’s this idea called ‘the fear of the Lord’.Proverbs 1:7
Proverbs 1:7 NIVThe fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
We’re not comfortable with this idea of being afraid of God. I talked with katherine, and she asked, ‘do you think this word is better expressed as ‘awe’?’Here’s the thing. I studied this word in this verse. And you know what I learned? It actually is best translated as this special word - called ‘fear’.And we see this concept all over the bible. Isaiah 6, Isaiah sees the Lord and literally freaks out. He starts crying ‘I am ruined! I have seen the Lord!’ Exodus 14, it says that the Israelites saw the great power God used to free them from egyptian slavery, and they feared himEven John in Revelation 1, he sees Jesus in a vision, and he’s terrified, he falls down as if he’s dead.I think we are really missing a lot of the fear of the Lord in churches. BUT - do we really understand what this means?I want to highlight some of the bible’s explanation regarding this ‘fear of the Lord’1 John 4:18
1 John 4:18 NIVThere is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Now, the bible SOUNDS like it’s contradicting itself here. It’s saying, ‘Fear the Lord’, and also ‘God’s perfect love drives out fear’. A few verses earlier, it even says ‘God IS love’. So often we equate this idea of ‘fearing the lord’ with ‘being afraid of punishment’. But if that’s why you act, does that mean you love God? Or that you just don’t want to make him mad?The bible literally tells us, fearing punishment means that God’s love hasn’t gone deep enough into us.And this is a CRAZY idea. This to me is literally the definition of fear ‘i’m afraid of what’s going to happen to me’.STORY - swimming in the lake in algonquinWell, the second idea we have to fall back on, is this idea that the fear of the Lord means being afraid of God as some high master, like a slave. He’s our boss, and when he yells jump, we jump. We HAVE TO obey God, he’s the ultimate God of the entire universe. We BELONG to him. Fear means, we’re afraid to ever cross our master.Romans 8:15
Romans 8:15 NIVThe Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
And there’s a difference between a son and a slave. I could beat my kids into obeying me - but I’m not going to. They’re not my slaves. They’re my kids and i love them more than anything.One day, my children are going to get in some kind of trouble. And I want to live my life so that when that day comes, my kids don’t say ‘Oh man, I’m in so much trouble, my dad is going to KILL me’. I want my kids to say ‘Oh man, I’m in so much trouble, I need to call my dad’.CALEB - Started telling me whenever he snuck something. The point here is this - the fear of the Lord creates complete dependence on God through everythingIt’s not ‘I HAVE TO’. It’s ‘I NEED TO’.So what does ‘the fear of the Lord’ mean? I’m going to read a scripture. Proverbs 2:1-5
Proverbs 2:1–5 NIVMy son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding— indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
So, the bible lays it out pretty clear - seeking wisdom, understanding, and insigh about God helps us to understand the fear of the Lord. And I have a working definition of how I think we’re supposed to approach this.The Fear of the Lord means taking what you know about God seriously.Following God is a BIG DEAL. He’s the almighty, all powerful God of the entire universe. Being who he wants us to be, doing what he wants us to do, that should be the most, MOST important thing to us. But if there’s areas where God goes ‘hey, this here, this is important’ and we go ‘ya, i know, i know’. and keep moving on like nothing happened - maybe we don’t fear God enough.Now, I want to give a warning here. Jesus accused the pharisees of something - he said that they ‘strained out gnats but swallowed camels’. They focused on the law side of things (tithing, ritual purity, etc), but neglected the really big deals for God (justice, mercy). It’s possible for us to obsess over the things God thinks are minor impurities, and ignore the things God thinks will straight up kill us.So I think the fear of the Lord involves also asking the question, ‘what are the things that God takes seriously? What are the really big deals to God?’ Because there aren’t a lot of areas that the bible straight up says, ‘If you miss this point, you’ve missed something REALLY BIG’. And I want to spend the next few weeks talking about those. Working through the bible is a giant, lifelong exercise in trying to understand the will of God. But I think, a great foundational is just looking at these areas where God has gone ‘You REALLY need to get this’ and taking them seriously. And I do believe that if we have this foundation - the other stuff will be a LOT clearer. I believe that a lot of the confusion and infighting over trying to make sure we’re not missing the will of God in the church is related to a lack of emphasis on some of these greater ideals.I want to take a bit of an aside here. I’m going to talk more in depth about this later on, but I want to jump back to 1 John 4. Because I think it’s a really, really good illustration of this.so in 1 John 4, John is talking about how God perfects his love in us, for the goal that ‘we will have confidence on the day of judgment’ - that’s verse 17- that is, that we’ll stand before God at the end of our lives, and be confident before Him that we served Him. This, this is the really big deal here. This is the end game - that when God comes in his full power and majesty to judge the earth, that we can stand before Him confidently.Then John says something really powerful.1 John 4:20 -21
1 John 4:20–21 NIVWhoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
When I read this, it makes me wonder - do we REALLY have the fear of the Lord? Do we really take this idea seriously? If we did, we’d say that ‘If I don’t love someone else - I can’t love God’. And that’s scary. Do we see our role towards the other people in this room as, ‘no matter what, I have to, I HAVE to make sure everyone here feels loved’. Because this is one that’s really easy to brush off. ‘But they’re not like me’ or ‘they’re really disruptive’ or ‘they are rude’. We have a hundred reasons to not have to do this. But if we really feared God - this would keep us awake at night. We’d desperately want to make sure this happened.And let me tell you - there are people in this church who feel unloved. There are people in this room who feel unloved. There are people NOT in this room who feel unloved. I don’t say this to condemn anyone, or to make us afraid that God will simply judge us - I say this to open our eyes - we are missing something REALLY big to God. All over the world, we are missing this one.If we really feared God, the reality of this verse would scare us - and consume us. Because following God is that important.And it absolutely breaks my heart to see this not happening in a church. The bible says that the enemy’s goal is as simple as getting us to turn on each other and hate each other. The enemy’s goal is to make us look at this verse and go ‘ya, that’s.... not gonna happen here’. Because he knows how big of a deal it is.
Perfect FearProverbs 9:10
Proverbs 9:10 NIVThe fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Proverbs 2:1-5
Proverbs 2:1–5 NIVMy son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding— indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
Proverbs 19:23
Proverbs 19:23 NIVThe fear of the Lord leads to life; then one rests content, untouched by trouble.
1 John 4:18
1 John 4:18 NIVThere is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Proverbs 3:7
Proverbs 3:7 NIVDo not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil.
Romans 8:15
Romans 8:15 NIVThe Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
Perfect Love Drives Out Fear1 John 4:16-21
1 John 4:16–21 NIVAnd so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
What is tithing?
First off, the definition:
,
“ ‘A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord; it is holy to the Lord.
“ ‘A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord; it is holy to the Lord.
Every tithe of the herd and flock—every tenth animal that passes under the shepherd’s rod—will be holy to the Lord.
And the second part, the destination:
At the time, everything from the land and every herd and flock - that was a person’s entire income and livelihood. The Israelites understood this to mean, ‘Everything you get, give 10% back’.
There’s a second part to this as well.
But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go; there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.
But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go;
But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go;
So basically, the central place where God has setup his priesthood and his building, that’s the place that we’re supposed to bring the tithe.\
Now, we as the church, while corporately and collectively we are known as God’s new temple, the NT church (and we’ll touch on this next week) still practiced this idea of the tithes going towards the leadership structure for the sake of use and distribution. Because the point was, God’s called a group of people to do this full time, with all the benefits and detriments that come with it, and that God intended this amount to be used by and for those people to accomplish the work of God they have been called to work out.
And
Now, there’s technically a second tithe I wanted you to know about -
“Speak to the Levites and say to them: ‘When you receive from the Israelites the tithe I give you as your inheritance, you must present a tenth of that tithe as the Lord’s offering.
teaches that even the levites and priests are to tithe a tenth of what they give - and we as a church practice this. We tithe 10% of our income towards the district for the work it provides as our overarching support structure.
Now, I want us to backup a bit and reframe the way we see this ‘tithe’. It’s easy to see it as a way of giving back to God, blessing God, doing something nice for God. and It’s not like I have a problem with that view per se- but I think we need to go a bit further, a bit deeper, and look at it really the way God does
That one is really easy. This word tithe, hebrew “ma-say-er” literally means ‘tenth’. So any verse that uses this word (Including the one above) is literally saying ‘A tenth of everything from the land...’
The response that ‘we should tithe food, not money’ - allowed for the exchange of the product into silver if tithing grain or fruit or animals was not ideal - if you lived far away, for example
The point was - giving what you have earned to provide for others. It’s not as if, your primary way of earning income was income, then you were off the hook for your tithe
And besides that - even if you wanted to push this one, i’ve never seen somebody say that to mean ‘therefor i’m going to tithe food’. It’s not like, ‘I want to tithe food…because I have all these chickens and I’d love to give them’. It’s about checking your heart.
“Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’
“In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. 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.
So one way that we can adjust our perspective on tithing is this - tithing is not our way to bless God, because it’s all God’s money in the first place. Giving our tithe isn’t us being generous - withholding our tithe is us literally ‘robbing God’.
And I think adopting this perspective is really key. Because there’s nothing wrong with wanting to bless God. But if we looked at an entire chunk of our finances and said, ‘God wants me to do this with it, and I need to, because I truly believe that this is all God’s stuff to do with as He sees fit’ - that’s an entire different kind of faith there. It builds in us the kind of character that God wants us to have.
Now, what’s funny is that, even though the real perspective on this is ‘I’m robbing God by NOT giving my tithe’ - God has still offered a blessing for trusting Him here
The first recorded instance of a tithe - Abraham tithing to Mechizadek ()
Because He knows how it is. It’s sure going to feel like we’re giving up our money, like we’re challenging our livelihood.
So God wants to remind us that while He’s given us all our wealth, He’s given us even the ability to produce wealth - and that one’s in the bible
You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.
So we don’t have any ground here to tell God, ‘but…this… this is mine.’
But even in that, God shows his great grace with a promise:
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.
This is an amazing, amazing promise from someone who is still basically asking you to give back the stuff he entrusted to you
Now we have an entire biblical perspective on this idea of a tithe -
giving a tenth of what we earn to the church organization for the sake of the work of God, with a blessing attached
a tenth of whatever we earn, given back to the priests and ministers for the sake of ministering the gospel (and so said priests and ministers can continue to eat!), with a blessing in response.
IF YOU HAVE TIME...
IF YOU HAVE TIME...
Now, a few questions I wanted to address about this theologically;
question one - where does it say it has to be 10%?
That one is really easy. This word tithe, hebrew “ma-say-er” literally means ‘tenth’. So any verse that uses this word (Including the one above) is literally saying ‘A tenth of everything from the land...’
Question 2: the bible says ‘we should tithe food, not money’ - allowed for the exchange of the product into silver if tithing grain or fruit or animals was not ideal - if you lived far away, for example. And allowed for the exchange of your goods for silver (at a 20% markup to yourself, though)
The point was - giving what you have earned to provide for others. It’s not as if, your primary way of earning income was income, then you were off the hook for your tithe.
And besides that - even if you wanted to push this one, i’ve never seen somebody say that to mean ‘therefor i’m going to tithe food’. It’s not like, ‘I want to tithe food…because I have all these chickens and I’d love to give them’.
If somebody gave me a whole live chicken as their tithe, i’d still starve for two reasons, one being how could you even suggest that I eat my little Cluck Norris here, and two, I have no idea how to actually prepare a live animal anyways. Pretty sure a standard sized chicken won’t fit in my instant pot.
It’s about checking your heart. This one’s always, ‘it says food, so i don’t have to give anything’. If you feel convicted that it has to be food, go out and buy food with the 10% of your income, and give that to the church. You don’t have to have that conviction theologically - by the NT times, tithing silver was very commonplace, and I’ll talk a bit about that next week - but i’m addressing the logic here.
A good rule of thumb is that any time we look at something God has asked us and we say ‘ya, but do I have to?’, then you should really check your heart. Because, even IF you’re right and you don’t (like food purity laws, for example), that perspective in your heart can still come out poisonous
Question 3: God’s called us to bring the tithe to the temple - we are the temple. Why can’t we all just use it?
Because it’s not just ‘Bring it to the temple’. It was more accurately, ‘bring it to the temple and give it to the priests and ministers, so that a) those who live FOR the gospel as a full time commitment can live BY the gospel and b) so that they can use it and distribute this specific portion as they see fit’. There was still giving by early church members TO early church members - but you also see the leadership (such as Paul) running around and also gathering up resources for use by the leadership proper.
Question 4: Why would God withhold a specific blessing except for people who tithe?
First - God can be generous to whomever he wants to be generous to. Let’s get that one out there first.
But secondly, that’s not quite the right way to look at it. Think about it like this - God gives us everything we have. He gives us the ability to get more. Basically - everything is His. So he gives us this little portion that belongs to us - and trust me, even the billionaire has nothing compared to what God has.
Tithing is saying, ‘I recognize this is yours, I want you to do with it what you want to do with it’. Then guess what - God does. And God doing stuff with you and for you - that brings blessing.
But if you’re holding onto your little bit, and saying, ‘No, I want this, this is mine’. God’s a gentleman. You can have your little bit.
Tithing isn’t about making God bless you, or God bribing you into being good. Tithing is about asking yourself the question, ‘Do I want to be plugged in fully to God with my finances? Or do I want just what I can do by myself?’ And understanding that God does, in fact, have a plan beyond just us for our own finances
Feb 9 - Tithing and the New Testament
Feb 16
Feb 23
HISTORY
Ancient practice - Abraham was the first recorded tithe when he tithed to Melchizadek - . Very ancient and widely practiced - “athens, arabia, rome, carthage, egypt, syria, babylon, and china”
All the tithes in the OT went towards the levites in return for their work in service ()
THEOLOGY
- a tithe of everything from the land belongs to the Lord
The OT also allowed for the payment of tithe in ‘silver’ - that is, currency -
Tithe = ten percent. The word literally means ‘tenth’. The root word
then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the Lord your God will choose.
OT practitioners were asked to tithe a tenth of their produce, crops, fruit, herds, flocks, etc - for the sake of food. If someone wanted to keep their produce and instead tithe money directly at the time, they had to add a fifth of the value to it (). So basically, if the person wanted to keep the food for themselves (IE, if they wanted to more directly benefit from their ‘wealth’), they had to provide even more for the care of the temple and the levites
Tithe = ten percent. The root hebrew word literally means ‘tenth’. So having the conversation ‘can i tithe less than 10 percent?’ isn’t logical - rephrase the question as ‘Can I give my 10 percent by giving less than 10 percent?’
The tithe was to be brought to the temple / tabernacle () - it wasn’t meant to be, simply do with it what you think God wants. It was ‘bring it to my house’.
The levites were commanded to give a tithe of a tithe as an offering ( ) and we practice this as a church - 10% of our church’s income gets tithed to our denomination, the PAOC, for further work that they perform
Jesus spoke out against those who practiced tithing but neglected justice, mercy, and faithfulness -
Justice, mercy and faithfulness WERE ‘the more important matters of the law’ - but jesus still recommended that they ‘should have practiced the latter (justice) without neglecting the former (tithing)’
Paul taught that tithing should still remain in the NT as a way to support those who live for the work of the gospel, in the same general function as levites and priests ()
Don’t you know that those who serve in the temple get their food from the temple, and that those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar? In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.
- God went so far as to accuse the Israelites of ‘robbing’ him with withholding the tithe. He wanted the israelites to tithe so that ‘there may be food in my house’.
God made a challenge here -
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.
The tithe was also to be used to provide charity to those in need -
Justice, mercy and faithfulness WERE ‘the more important matters of the law’ - but jesus still recommended that they ‘should have practiced the latter (justice) without neglecting the former (tithing)’
