A Quarter Every Sunday Series

“A QUARTER EVERY SUNDAY” Malachi 3:6-10

FBCF – 10/13/24

Jon Daniels

INTRO – Some churches are really serious when it comes to getting their tithes & offerings collected. Business mtg minutes - Baptist Church, March 23, 1907:

“On motion all male members of the church who neglect or refuse to pay anything towards the actual expenses of the church on or before the first day of January following the year in which they are members in good standing, after having been duly notified, shall by such refusal or neglect be considered as excluded from the fellowship of the church without any further action, & the clerk is hereby ordered & directed to erase their names from the roll after a report has been made by the treasurer.” That might be a little overboard!

My parents were serious about teaching my 2 brothers & me about giving our tithes & offerings to the church. Every Sunday morning, put my Sunday “go to meeting” clothes on, walk up the hall w/ my Bible in my hand, stop at this secretary, get MY box of offering envelopes, take out the envelope that was dated for that exact Sunday, Daddy would give me a quarter, which I took to SS w/ me every Sunday.

Then when I got my first job & my first paycheck, Daddy took me to Cleveland State Bank to open my first checking account. Then taught me how to figure up 10% of my first paycheck so I could learn what the tithe truly was & could begin practicing the discipline of giving.

“Life on Loan” – Our entire lives are on loan to us from the Lord. He is the Owner & Master of it all, & we are the managers of all that He has blessed us with - &, man, are we blessed! – our time, our talents, our treasures, our families, our careers – It ALL belongs to Him, & we don’t want to waste any of it! We gotta get it right as best as we can for as long as we can in every way that we can. And we gotta get it right – right NOW!

EXPLANATION – Malachi 3:6-10 (p. 802)

2 men shipwrecked on an island. As soon as they got on island, one started screaming & yelling, “We’re going to die! We’re going to die! No food! No water! We’re going to die!” 2nd man propped up against palm tree acting so calm it drove other man crazy. “Don’t you understand? We’re going to die!” “You don’t understand. I make $100k a week.” “What difference does that make? We’re on a island w/ no food or water. We’re going to die!” “You just don’t get it. I make $100k a week & I tithe 10% on that $100k a week. My pastor will find me!”

Malachi 3 probably most well-known passage in Bible on tithing. Background: God’s people here in Mal. 3 had been set free & restored from captivity. God had been SO good to them! But we see Him saying to them in v. 7 that they were living in disobedience to Him. They were just going through the motions in the externals of their worship to Him, while their hearts had drifted far away from Him.

- Jesus said same thing in Matthew 15:8 – “These people honor me w/ their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

- Wrote prayer in margin of my Bible: “Father, I don’t want this to be said about me!”

Yet, b/c He’s a God of GRACE, He still gave them the opportunity to return to Him & be restored in their fellowship w/ Him. What an offer! They SHOULD have been consumed by His wrath, but instead, He lovingly said to them, “Return to me & I will return to you.” What an awesome God we serve & worship!

They then asked the Lord, “How shall we return?” And out of all the things He could have said to them, He said for them to return to Him in their tithes & offerings.

Let’s talk about these tithes & offerings today…

APPLICATION – Christ-followers need to be committed to supporting the Kingdom work of the Church through the giving of tithes & offerings.

3 ASPECTS OF GIVING TITHES & OFFERINGS:

THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE – We live in a world filled w/ greed & consumerism:

- Most of us have far more material possessions than we need.

- Consumer debt at all-time high in 2024

- Credit card debt in 2024 - $1.142 trillion

- Financial struggles & difficulties are listed as one of the top reasons for conflicts among married couples

With these points in mind, no wonder that God placed over 2000 passages of Scripture in His Word dealing w/ $ & material possessions. Some of the foundational principles that have spiritual significance: