Seeking God's Direction - Giving

Well, we’re coming towards the end of our “Seeking God’s Direction” series; we’ve got this week and next.  

Just as a bit of a teaser of what’s to come, on March 8th, we’re going to begin a new series working through the OT book of Ruth.  As we study that book, we will see God’s redeeming love, and remarkably we will be pointed forward to Jesus and see just how much God loves the world and us through this little book.

We will finish Ruth after our Celebration Sunday (April 5) and Easter.

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So far in this “Seeking God’s Direction” series, we’ve talked about the mission of Trinity Bible Church, to see people transformed into fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. 

We’ve said that all we do here at Trinity is to see people transformed by Jesus working in their lives. We exist to see the hope of the Gospel transform lives. And we want to be willing to do whatever it takes to see that mission accomplished.  Everything we do is rooted in this statement, including the capital campaign and building project.  

We then talked about our vision to be something of a lighthouse, to be an embassy of Jesus’ light and glory to the Bow Valley and to the world.  We want everyone we come into contact with the light of Jesus.

We then reminded ourselves that God Himself is the ultimate giver.  As James writes: every good and perfect gift comes from God. We said that we can be generous because God has been so generous with us.  

We looked at four “proofs” that God is generous; creation, salvation, redemption and invention

Last week we looked at what the Bible has to say when it comes to money, and sorted it into four principles, each with a challenge/choice;  

The Ownership Principle: All that you have isn’t yours; it belongs to God.

And the Challenge: Because God is the owner of everything, I will faithfully steward the things he has given to me.

The Treasure Principle:  Where your treasure is, that’s where your heart is.

Because God wired my heart to follow what I treasure, I will put what He provides into what He treasures.

The Wisdom Principle: The Bible is perfectly capable of teaching us how to deal with our money.

because God has provided you with wisdom regarding money, you will practice what His Word says about it.

The Contentment Principle: God helps us learn to be content no matter our circumstances.

God is my greatest desire, I will find contentment in Him as the source of all I need.

Ultimately we said that We can deal with money our way or God’s way.  God’s way is far better.

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This morning we want to talk about making Kingdom investments, about giving.

As we get into it though we need to orient ourselves around two questions, otherwise, we will miss the crux of this morning’s message.

So let me ask you two questions.  How you answer these will shape the rest of the discussion this morning.

The first question is this:  Where is your heart?

See, Jesus talked a lot about money, and treasure and possessions, and he often didn’t waste any words, he cut straight to the chase.

Look at (which we touched on last week as “the Treasure Principle”):

'“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. 

Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.'

Even if we’ve heard these verses several times, we need to recognize this as a profound spiritual reality.  Where we invest the things we have is where we’re placing our heart. And similarly where you place your heart determines how you invest.

If your primary investment is in this life, in things, in money for money’s sake, if that’s what you value most - it will impact your decision making, which in turn impacts your heart.

Jesus is asking us to wrestle with this deep and penetrating question:

“Where have you taken your heart, and more important than that, where do you WANT your heart to be?”

If you want your heart to be with God, then your treasure will be with God.  You will follow His guidelines, His principles and His instructions.

You’ll look at the things you have and you’ll say “God what do you want me to do with what you’ve given me?  How can I first and foremost manage my things in a way that makes sure that my heart stays with you?”

See, it’s not bad to possess things, but it is bad to have those things possess you.

It’s not wrong to enjoy life; it’s wrong to live just for enjoyment.

It’s not wrong to have treasure; what’s wrong is to treasure the treasure.

That’s what Jesus is asking, Where is your heart.

Which leads to the second question: Who is your leader?

Here’s how Jesus put it just a few verses later:

'“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.'

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This is another profound truth, and perhaps one of the most fundamental truths of human existence: there is only one true leader in your life.  There is only one true God operating your world.

As one writer notes:

You can no more follow two leaders, or have two gods than you can walk in two directions at once.

     And when two things in your life are operating on different values, different priorities and taking you in different directions, you will have to choose.

Jesus says you can’t have it both ways, you will either love God or love money, but you can’t have it both ways.  He says that God and money are like competing gods.

And the reason is simple: they give different orders when they’re in charge.   They issue different commands if you will.

See, if you obey money alone, you can’t help but disobey God because they’re diametrically opposed systems.

See when money is in charge, the decisions you make are for more, richer, bigger, better…

And when money has more of a hold on you than God, it becomes a god.

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So, what does the Bible say about how we can keep our heart’s in check?

Turn with me to , where we see some foundational words in a kind of dialogue between God and the people:

'Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty. 

“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’ 

“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. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty. '

Now there are 5 key words in there, that we need to quickly define:

The word Tithe literally means 10%, it was a term used for the practice of taking 10% of everything you earn and giving it to God.  This is also talked about as the “First-fruits.” The first thing you did with your money; not the last thing you do with whatever is left over.

That’s the idea of the “whole tithe” here.  

It seems that what God is addressing here is that some of the people started to play around with this, in a sense trying to “get away” with less than the whole tithe.

For God, this is a heart issue, one that speaks to the reality that our very next breath is a gift from God, and that we are truly honouring Him as God.

So God says “Bring the whole tithe on everything you’ve been given, on all that you have received.”

So that’s the tithe, the first 10%

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The OFFERING is anything you gave above that.  

The tithe, the first 10%, was considered to be the bare minimum anyone would dream of returning to God.  It’s the floor not the ceiling.

Some examples here are things like our Thanksgiving offering, our Benevolent offering, or this capital campaign that we’re preparing for right now.

These are the above and beyond offerings.

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Now, the way you would give either the tithe or the offering was to give to the STOREHOUSE

The Storehouse was attached to the temple, and was the place where the temple funds, resources, and valuables were stored for use.

The temple was the designated place of the people for worship, it was the centre of the community of faith and the central organizer for ministry for the people of God.  Over time, the temple became the local church.

In the NT the Apostle Paul wrote to the church and Corinth and he said:

“[To the church at Corinth] Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple...God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.”

This is why throughout the NT, the tithes and offerings of the people went to the church that they were a part of.

Jesus too said that the tithe was still important.  Because when God’s people don’t do this, when they keep everything God gives them, or don’t use it the way God asks, it’s serious.  

As we read, we are told that it removes us from God’s blessing, in fact we’re told that it actually places us under a CURSE.

Now, in the Bible to be under a curse from God meant to be outside of his blessing; outside of his protection and provision.  It meant that you were operating independent of His supernatural oversight and intervention.

But what kind of BLESSING are we talking about?

There are two extremes people can take when it comes to teaching on this.

The first extreme is the “health and wealth” approach that says “Tithe and you too can have that new sports car because God will get you one.” 

And this is completely untrue and unbiblical.

But the other extreme is just a of-base, and that’s the idea that God doesn’t bless at all.

This other extreme says that there’s no relationship between what we do with our finances and what God does.

But the Bible does teach about the blessing of God, so what does that look like?

Well, it’s up to God.

It could be financial.  It could be the blessing of security, joy, depth of character, fulfillment, influence, or more.

There can be blessing from God on relationships, marriages, families, it could be finding contentment in any situation (which we also talked about last week).

But we can be confident that God will take care of us.

In the Malachi passage we read - where it made reference to protecting crops from pests and fruit from spoiling - God seems to be making it clear that those who follow him in this area will not have to worry about their giving taking away from their supply.

That they won’t lose ground because of their generosity.

One writer says:

It’s as if God is saying “Listen, trust Me enough and care about Me enough to do what I say in this area of financial money management.  And in return, I will become supernaturally involved in your life in a unique way, bringing incredible levels of blessing - including a specific blessing that you will never have to worry that your giving will leave you without enough for your own needs.  

Take care of your money in the normal ways - don’t binge, don’t go crazy with debt.  Do your part and I’ll do mine.”

Aiming for this tithe, this 10% isn’t about losing that 10%, but gaining what God has for you.

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Getting back to our questions, we need to wrestle with where we want our hearts and who is our leader.

Bit of a longer reference here, but Ryan Thomas has written that this is why charitable giving is different than faith-based giving.

He writes that with charitable giving, the recipient is a charity, a cause or a person.  You give because you believe in that particular person, organization or cause and can benefit from it.

Faith-based giving, the recipient is never a person, an organization or a cause.  With faith-based giving, you’re giving your money to God.

So you’re not giving TO your church, you’re giving THROUGH your church.

If you’re a faith-based giver, you give to God, and only to God, and not because of how the money will be used.  The church is a proxy for God himself.

Charitable giving is given to charities, out of charity.  It’s done out of generosity, altruism, philanthropy, benevolence, compassion, out of the goodness of your heart.

Faith-based giving comes from an entirely different place. 

Faith-based giving is worship.

It’s about the pursuit God, and the pursuit of a His promised reward, a reward so good that it puts you in an even better position than if you had not given at all.

David Platt writes:

The church gladly gives its money in worship to God because He’s more satisfying and more wonderful than anything money can buy.

I’ve heard one pastor describe this by using an analogy of taking his kids to McDonalds.

He said:

When my kids were little, and they’d get hungry, I would take them to McDonald’s and get some french fries.

I’d be sitting there, seeing them amply supplied with the fries I’d just bought and I’d say “hey can I have one?”

And from the depth of their well-formed character and Jesus-like hearts, they would say “No!”

I’d say “But I’m your Dad! Come on, just one fry!”

And they’d say “No! They’re mine!  I want them all!”

And then I would explain it to them, carefully, with feeling.  I’d say “Listen, you don’t understand - I PAID for those fries!  They were BOUGHT and you didn’t do the BOUGHTING.  

Second, not only did I buy them, but I can take them away.  I can force you to give me whatever I want, and however many I want, so you better be glad I’m only asking for one.

And third, use your head.  If you treat me right, I’m the one who can get you MORE fries.  I’m McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Five Guys all rolled into one.”

“You go up to the counter and try and get some on your own and you’ll find out just how it works without me.

“But I can go up there, and not only can I come back with more, but I can even say “supersize it.’”

He says “You know what God wants us to get?  We all have our fries.”

And all God is asking for is a small number to be returned to Him out of Honour, gratitude and acknowledgement that he is the one that gave them to us, to then be used for the extension of His work, His mission, His ministry.

And when we say “no,” He says, “You’re not getting this, are you?  I gave you those fries, and I can take them away. And if you’d listen to what I’m trying to tell you, you’d realize that I could bless you with more fries than you could ever eat!”

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So, how do we move step into this.

With our giving, the goal is to work towards the tithe.  And when you get there, to work towards even more.

It’s not an all or nothing, it’s not that less that the full tithe is unacceptable.  Start with were you are and work your way up.

This is actually a really biblical ida.

Many times in the Bible you will see God calling His people to do something, and it’s often a huge task.  But God’s first word isn’t “Accomplish this,” as much as it is “Begin this.”

For example, when God lead the Israelites to the Promised Land, He told them that they would have to take possession of it.  But this was a lot of land and it would take months or even years.

But look at the language God used when He put this to them:

“Begin to take possession of it…”

He didn’t say go do this all at once, as much as He said, START this at once, and I’ll be with you every step of the way.

It’s the same with us and how we handle our finances.

God’s saying “Start this, begin heading in this direction.”  The expectation is to arrive over night, but start.  

“Position your heart.  Reroute your treasure. Acknowledge me as leader, Honour me. Trust me.”

So start with where you are, “Test God” in this like he says in .

No matter where you’re starting from whether it’s aiming for 1% or 10% or 20%, start, and start gradually.  

But don’t expect this to just happen naturally, because it won’t.  You will need to be intentional about this.  

For some of us, even giving 1 or 2 or 3 % to God and His work might be the most stretching step of faith that you’ve ever taken.  It’s a step out into faith that God will honour you as you honour Him, that He will provide for you and care for you.

But getting back to , here’s how Jesus talked about this faith component:

'“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ ... your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God. above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.'

(NLT)

Kind of sounds like the blessing Malachi talked about doesn't it.

And if you’re already at that 10%, are you going to challenge yourself to get to 11 or 12?  

The tithe isn’t like paying off a bill, it’s a practice of faith.  It’s the floor, not the ceiling.

As we close, let me wrap with this.

If you consider yourself a follower of Jesus and money and faith and obedience are difficult issues; if you find yourself getting a little antsy or aggravated or even angry when it’s talked about, ask yourself why.

Really wrestle with that.

But you know why it might be a touchy subject?  Because maybe, you have some work to do on where you really want your heart and who really is your leader.  Maybe your heart is getting pulled in different directions, and maybe you want to lead yourself.

How we handle our money is a life-test, it’s a faith-test.

And consider, are you willing to trust your entire eternity to God, but not your money?

He’s asking us to trust him.

The one who knows us, loves us, gave His son for us, gives every good gift to us.

Trust Him.

Let me pray.