Grace Giving
Malachi 3:6-12
One day a man called his church and said, “Can I speak to the head hog at the trough?”
The secretary thought she heard right but asked,
“I’m sorry. Who would you like to speak with?”
The caller repeated, “Can I speak to the head hog at the trough?”
The secretary answered, “Well, if you mean the preacher, then you may refer to him as ‘Pastor’ or ‘Brother,” but I prefer you not call him the ‘head hog at the trough!’” The man replied, “Well, I was planning on giving $100,000 to the building fund…”
To which the secretary quickly responded,
“Hang on. I think the big fat pig just walked in.”
As we begin this morning, let me acknowledge that the church has gotten a bad rap for the perception that it is always asking for money. Would you agree? Pastors are often characterized as talking about giving too much and making people feel guilty about giving.
I want you to know that I wrestle with speaking about giving because I realize the stakes are high. Maybe even now you’re looking for an excuse to head for the exit. Please, especially if you are visiting today, please don’t feel like we’re after your money because we’re not.
I do want to mention that our study in Malachi has really messed with me, as I’m sure it has with you. If you feel a bit beat up and guilt-ridden, let me remind you that the very first message of Malachi is that God loves you. We must never forget that!
God sent His Son to deal with our guilt and shame. As we come to our theme today, let me say that the elders or church council have not put me up to this. I’m not trying to manipulate you to give to any plan or program of Lakeview Bible Church, ok? As we’ve been going through this last book of the Old Testament verse-by-verse, this just happens to be the next topic.
Even though I feel some awkwardness about preaching a message on giving because it has been abused by so many before, I’m not apologizing about the subject matter today.
How we manage money is directly linked to our discipleship.
In fact, there are more verses in the Bible about money and giving than about Heaven and Hell combined!
Of the 38 parables Jesus told, 16 of them are about money!
The Bible has fewer than 300 verses on prayer, less than 500 on faith and over 2,000 verses that deal with money and possessions! The inescapable conclusion is that how we deal with finances in general, and what we give in particular, is a big deal to God.
And so we need to focus on our funds, no matter how uncomfortable we may feel about it.
Last week we concluded by establishing the fact that Jesus is a refining fire. He cleans us up because we’re dirty.
And He does His work in us so that He can see His image reflected through us. I want you to notice that one of the reasons He refines us is so that we can give offerings to God with pure motives.
Look at Malachi 3:3-4: “Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.”
Instead of giving their injured, crippled, and diseased animals, once they honor God’s name, they will offer acceptable offerings. They will bring their best, not their worst.
My guess is that most all of us could stand a little refining in our attitudes toward giving as well. What do you think?
We need some refining in our attitude about giving so that we come to realize that:
We don’t give in order to get.
We give because of what we’ve been given.
With that in mind, let’s focus on Malachi 3:6-12 where we will discover Features of Grace Giving.
We will discover 5 features of grace giving in our passage this morning...
Features of Grace Giving
1. Refocus on God’s character (v. 6)
As we’ve been learning in Malachi, our view of God determines everything else about us.
If we consider Him weighty, we will live and give accordingly.
If we see God as out to get us, then we’ll be afraid and give only to appease His anger.
And, if we don’t think much of God at all, chances are we won’t give much either.
Verse 6 helps us get refocused: “I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.”
God is speaking in the first person here.
The word “Lord” literally means, “He who is” and refers to His immutability, or unchangeableness. It is the word, “Yahweh.”
The next phrase repeats and emphasizes this fact:
“I the LORD do not change.”
To “not change” means that God can be counted on.
He does not waver or falter because He is faithful.
Our only hope in life is this: God never changes.
He is the one constant we can count on while everything around us moves and turns and shifts. Here’s a working definition:
“God does not, and cannot, change in His basic character.”
Nothing that God has ever said about Himself will be modified; nothing the inspired prophets and apostles have said about Him will be rescinded. All that God is, He has always been; and all that He has been, and is, He will ever be!
We could use the word “always” to express this truth about God. God is always wise, always sovereign, always faithful, always just, always holy and always loving. Whatever God is, He always is! There are no “sometimes” attributes of God.
All of His attributes are “always” attributes.
There are many verses in the Bible that teach this truth.
Here are a couple: 1 Samuel 15:29 and James 1:17
1 Samuel 15:29: “He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man, that He should change His mind.”
James 1:17: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
I want you to notice that because God does not change, we can count on Him to keep His covenant with us.
The immutability of the Almighty is the guarantee of His grace!
Look at the last part of verse 6:
“So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.”
God could have legitimately wiped out His people because they had broken their part of the covenant.
I wonder...do you see God as gracious and merciful?
I’m convinced that many of us do not fully understand the depth of God’s love. He does not change! You can count on Him!
Psalm 78:38: “Yet he was merciful; he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath.”
Because God does not change we can count on 3 things:
• His promises never change
Romans 14:21: “Being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised.”
• His purposes never change
Isaiah 14:24: “The Lord Almighty has sworn, ‘Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand.’”
• His personality never changes
Hebrews 6:18: “God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie…”
That leads to a 2nd truth we find in this passage:
Because God does not change, God’s people can change.
2. Return wholeheartedly to God (v. 7)
The first part of verse 7 is a summary statement of the fickleness of the followers of God down through the centuries: “Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them.”
They, like us, have turned away, which literally means:
“to turn off.”
The warning God gave them in Deuteronomy 31:20 had proven true: “When I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, the land I promised on oath to their forefathers, and when they eat their fill and thrive, they will turn to other gods and worship them, rejecting me and breaking my covenant.”
When our needs are met we often turn away from God, don’t we? Instead of keeping God’s Word in front of us, we try to push it out of the way as was done in Nehemiah 9:26: “But they were disobedient and rebelled against you; they put your law behind their backs.”
And yet, despite how we live and what we do, God graciously calls out with words that show us His longing for relationship.
Look at the next phrase in verse 7: “Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord Almighty.”
To return means “to turn back to what we know is true.”
The door to blessing starts when we turn back!
You can hear God’s desire to have all of us in Hosea 14:1: “Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God. Your sins have been your downfall!”
And, when we turn back, even if it’s just a small step, God promises to meet us.
James 4:8: “Come near to God and he will come near to you.”
Jeremiah 3:22: “Return, faithless people; I will cure you of backsliding.”
You would think they would want to return to their Redeemer!
Especially since He promised to restore the relationship and even cure their wandering hearts. But, once again, God’s people haven’t changed much over the centuries, have they?
Instead of returning wholeheartedly, they deny that they even have a problem!
Look at the last part of Malachi 3:7:
“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’”
They are not asking for some practical ways that they can step it up spiritually. No, this is a smart aleck response to God.
This is now the sixth time in the book where they have responded like smart alecks!
The New Living Translation captures it this way:
“How can we return when we have never gone away?”
They don’t think they’ve done anything wrong!
How can they come back when they’ve never left?
How can they repent if they’re not guilty of any sin?
The first step back is to ask, like the prodigal son did when he was in the pigpen, “How did I get here?”
Listen carefully. The first place to start is to admit that you’ve left!
You might not have left on purpose.
Maybe it’s just been a slow drift.
Most of us don’t decide to rebel, but over time, we neglect this and neglect that and start doing something that isn’t good, and after awhile we recognize how far we’ve fallen.
Do you want to return wholeheartedly? Really?
If so, then admit that you need to.
The second step is this: “How do I get back home?”
What do I need to do? What changes do I need to make?
What path do I need to take?
Malachi’s message was a call to return.
One way to return is to step up our giving.
3. Realize the importance of giving (vv. 8-10a)
Look at verse 8:
“Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ In tithes and offerings.”
The word “rob” here means to “take forcibly.”
The people didn’t like this accusation.
How could they be stealing from God?
The reason God says that they are robbing Him is that they had begun to take what belonged to Him and kept it for themselves. They had lost sight of the fact that God owns everything! Deuteronomy 10:14: “To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.”
As a way to recognize God’s rightful rule and omnipotent ownership of all things, God’s people in the Old Testament were I told to give tithes and offerings.
This word literally means “a tenth,” or 10%.
I believe that this subject is so important, that I will devote a whole message to it next week when we discover the truth about tithing. We will look together at what the Bible really says about tithing.
Failure to tithe properly could have included not giving at all, withholding part of it, or not giving at the proper time.
Whatever the reason, because they had been robbing God, verse 9 says that the whole nation was under a curse.
That reminds us of what God said in Amos 4:9.
Even when He sends problems, it’s in order to get us to return to Him wholeheartedly: “Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards, I struck them with blight and mildew. Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you have not returned to me, declares the LORD.”
When we grovel about giving or withhold what is His, we are robbing God of His right to use us to propel His purposes in the world!
Look at the first part of verse 10: “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house…”
The storehouse was the chamber in the Temple where the tithes and offerings were kept.
I don’t have time to give a full picture of what the entire Bible teaches about giving but let me quickly draw three principles from just one verse in the New Testament: 1 Corinthians 16:2...
1 Corinthians 16:2: “On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income…”
• Giving should be punctual. The Bible says that believers are to give on a regular basis: “On the first day of the week.”
• Giving should be personal. Giving is something that is inherently individualistic. It’s between you and God what you give. At the same time, the Bible makes it clear that every believer is to give: “each one of you.” Giving is not just a suggestion. God expects each of us to be givers.
• Giving should be proportional. We are to give according to how God has blessed us. The believer is to set aside “a sum of money in keeping with his income.” Proportional giving means that the more God blesses us, the more we’re able to give. That’s grace giving! According to Malachi, the more you give, the more you are blessed. 1 Corinthians teaches that the more you’re blessed, the more you can give. Someone put it this way: “Give according to your income, lest God make your income according to your giving.” In the New Testament the command becomes a model as we’re urged to practice proportional giving.
Ultimately, when we give we are saying that we trust God to take care of our needs. That leads to the next feature of giving from the middle section of verse 10: “Test me in this, says the LORD Almighty…”
4. Relinquish control by trusting God (v. 10b)
Jesus’ words: Matthew 6:33: “But seek first His kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Researcher Sylvia Ronsvalle, after studying giving patterns among Christians, concluded this: “If you want to know what we learned in 25 words or less, giving is down because we don’t love God as much as we love a lot of other stuff”
(“Salt of the Earth,” July/August 1997).
Malachi 3:10 is the only place in the Bible where God tells us to test Him. Did you realize that?
To “test” means to investigate or prove something as true.
It doesn’t sound right, does it? We’re warned about not putting God to the test and yet when it comes to giving, God invites us to test Him. Why? Because the real issue is not money, but trust. When we decide to give to the Lord, we then have the opportunity to trust His faithfulness to meet all of our needs.
Or, we could put it like this: When we first give ourselves to the Lord, all other giving is easy.
God wants what my money represents – me. When giving to God, we’re just taking our hands off what belongs to Him in the first place. My use of money shows what I think of Him because my giving is a thermometer of my love for Him. Joe Stowell writes,
“it’s not so much what you have but, rather, what has you that makes all the difference”
God is saying, “I dare you! Test me in this way to see if I really exist or not.” Listen to the New Living Translation:
“Try it! Let me prove it to you!”
This is one of the most amazing verses in the entire Bible!
God allows Himself to be put on trial.
He didn’t have to make this promise.
He could have simply told us to give and that’s that.
But He wanted us to get to know Him in a much deeper way.
Is God alive? Is He real? Does He love you?
Will He keep His promises?
One of the best ways to find out is to start giving.
And when you do, you will discover a 5th feature of grace giving:
5. Rejoice in God’s blessings (vv. 10c-12)
Look with me at the last part of verse 10 through verse 12:
“…and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit, says the LORD Almighty. Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land, says the LORD Almighty.”
God says that He will open wide the river of heaven and will blow us away with His blessings!
The phrase “floodgates” is used in Genesis 7:11 where we read what happened when God started to flood the earth with water: “…on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.”
The phrase, “so much blessing” means that God will give us more than enough.
The world says the more you take the more you have.
God says, the more you give, the more you are.
Corrie Ten Boom put it this way:
“The measure of a life is not its duration, but its donation.”
Proverbs 3:9-10 sheds some additional insight into how God rewards those who honor Him: “Honor the LORD with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.”
The word, “pour” in Malachi 3:10 means to “to make empty.” When we trust God with our giving, He will empty His bucket of blessings on us and we’ll barely be able to stand it!
We’ll feel like we don’t have any more room to hold everything that God gives us.
Proverbs 11:24: “One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another man withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.”
Proverbs 22:9: “A generous man will himself be blessed…”
God is saying, “I dare you to try and exhaust me with your giving.” “I dare you to outgive Me!”
Blessings come to those who give! And, amazingly, Malachi 3:11 says that God will keep certain bad things from happening when we give to Him. When I give, I put myself in a position to trust God to meet all my needs. Look at v. 11...
And then in verse 12, God says that we will experience God’s blessing as we give. We’ll be able to rejoice in God’s blessings!
Application
1. Audit your giving
Take some time to sit down and determine how much you’ve been giving to the Lord.
Too many of us have a disease: “Cirrhosis of the Giver.”
According to researcher George Barna, believers give less than 3% of their income to the Lord and His work!
Take an honest assessment of your giving. Tax time is a good time to reevaluate and honestly assess how you’re doing.
2. Get out of debt
I know that some of you want to give more but you feel strapped because of the mountain of debt that you’re under.
If you need some help in this area, I’d encourage you to avail yourself of the many resources available from Crown Ministries at www.crown.org. You can find a budget calculator on their web site and they can put you in touch with a financial counselor. Or maybe consider getting help from Love INC’s New Hope Program.
Ron Blue gives some helpful advice in his book called, “The Debt Squeeze: How Your Family Can Become Financially Free.”
He offers 5 steps to help get out of financial bondage:
1. Transfer ownership to God
2. Determine where you are
3. Make a commitment to stop going into debt.
This may require “plastic surgery.”
4. Develop a repayment plan
5. Establish accountability
All good advice, don’t you think?
There’s so much more we could say about grace giving, but I believe I will conclude with this verse:
2 Corinthians 9:15:
“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!”
