Tithing - Part 2

I want to be transparent about something up front.

Giving, and tithing, can be hard.

If generosity in general was easy - everybody would be doing it. But generosity is a learned behaviour, it doesn’t come naturally to us.

STORY - regularly hearing girls screaming over something

See, when we approach this idea of finances, and generosity in general, it sounds like we’re asking ‘what choices are you making with your money?’, but the real, heart question here is

Who is your master?

Jesus said this:

Matthew 6:24 NIV

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Secretly, we really wanted Him to put something else there. Like, some demonic entity - you cannot serve both God and satan.

Or at very least, something that’s obviously wrong, and we don’t REALLY struggle with - you cannot serve both God and a strong desire to murder.

But Jesus says, there’s these two things that will take the place of mastery over your life. One is God - and the other is money. and you can’t run after both.

If you pick one, you’ll reject the other one. If you love one, you’ll hate the other one.

Here’s another question to help you clarify it:

Does idea of giving cause you stress - or bring you joy?

This idea of turning around and commiting to giving away 10% of your income - does it worry you?

I get it, I get it. We need to buy food, we need to buy clothes. We need homes. I know that.

But Jesus responded to that, listen here.

Matthew 6:25–34 NIV

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

See, Jesus knows what’s going on. He knows that we’re chasing after security, because life can be so difficult. But

Jesus wants us to chase after the right kind of security - the security of being with Him

and not chasing after the temporary and broken security that worldly things offer.

STORY - Trampolining with my leg brace.

And it’s a crazy thing - when you put these two ideas together, that you can’t love both God and money, and that if you choose God He’ll take care of the money side for you- It’s a no brainer.

If you choose to chase after money, what you think you need - money isn’t going to take care of the God side. Not really. And when we die, all our money goes away from us anyways.

But if you choose God - he’ll take care of the what we need side.

It seems so easy, so obvious…

but why is it so hard?

STORY - Kids candy test. Give them one candy, if they don’t eat it for 5 minutes, they’ll get 5. A lot of kids fail.

Why do they fail? They’re shortsighted. Maybe they’re hungry. They’re greedy and they want it now. They’re impatient. Lots of reasons. It’s OBVIOUS that waiting is the better option. So why is it hard?

Generosity is a heart issue.

In talking about our finances, we get to observe, up close, an area where our priorities can be twisted.

And the trouble is, serving money brings problems.

We stress out, we worry.

We define our life by what we have

We miss out on the opportuntiy to contribute to things God is doing in the world.

But serving God...

It brings peace and rest, rather than stress and worry

We define our life by WHO, not what. God, not stuff.

and it aligns us with accomplishing God’s purposes in the world.

And Jesus warned us about protecting ourselves against the heart issues that come from greediness.

Luke 12:15 NIV

Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

A little later, Jesus calls this plainly what it is.

Luke 12:21 NLT

“Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.”

So this is why we push this tithing challenge.

We believe that our finances have the ability to master us - and that

We need to choose God as our master in practical ways.

It’s not just a verbal commitment we make. We have to show it with our actions.

So back to this challenge. We’re inviting you to commit to tithing for the next 3 months.

Now, what if you already tithe? Great! I’ll tack an extra challenge on for you -

Commit to extra generosity.

God asked for 10% - but he’ll accept more. I believe that 10 is the minimum we should aim for - but it’s definitely not the maximum!

I believe that when we’re truly following God, it should be continually moving us, continually stretching us. It should be regularly asking things of us - and showing things to us. I don’t believe we ever get to a point where we just coast through and say ‘ok, i’ve reached the end of the path, now I get to just kick back and do nothing’.