TITLE: TITHING
Text: Luke 16:10-13
"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. [11] So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? [12] And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?
[13] "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."
TAKE NOTE
"if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property who will give you property of your own"
INTRODUCTION
Those things that are entrusted to us by God are not really ours
They are the Lords,
and he has seen fit to place us in Charge of them.
I Corinthians. 4:2 "It is required in stewards that a man be found faithful...
Notice it is a requirement...not a request
There are many verses in the bible that are requirements
We call them imperatives
They are Gods expectations for us
We as people of God......are stewards... that is a fact we can not ignore
• Some people only want to give partial service to God
• They only want to give partial stewardship to the Lord.
Is it not safe to say that if you give half hearted service to the Lord you are robbing him of something.
It is robbery to withhold from God things that belong to him.
1. It is robbery to withhold from God our Love.
2. It is robbery to withhold the time that he wants us to devote to him.
3. It is robbery to withhold from God Money
or anything else of which we are a steward.
I would like us to concentrate on the money aspect of our stewardship,
rather then time or love, though we might deal with them another day
I want to share three Biblical Principles about Tithing
I. Tithing is an Aspect of old Testament law that we are still required to obey
• The ceremonial things of the Law we don’t observe any more..
• We are not required to do so
But the aspects of the Law that we are required to observe include
1. Holiness - The law of holiness is an OT law we did not throw it out when we entered into this new covenant.
In the NT (Romans 12) says: present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and expectable unto the Lord, which is your reasonable service
We are not freed up from the OT admonition to Be holy.
2. Nor are we freed from The Law of Obedience, both the Old and the New Testament teach that "TO KNOW GODS WILL IS TO BE ACCOUNTABLE TO IT"
Jesus says "If you love me you will obey what I command"
3. Tithing also is an OT command that has not passed away.
and
A. The Old testament has significant things to say concerning the law of finances
1. Tithing did not originate under the law
some people say "The Lord doesn’t really care if I tithe or not, because that was under the law, and the Old covenant has passed away"
2. It is true that tithing is under the law, but it is not only under the law
Nor is it where tithing began..
Tithing of resources to the work of God started, before Moses was even born.
The patriarchs were tithers before the Law was ever given
++ Genesis 14:20 ++
3. Deuteronomy 14:22 "A tenth of everything belongs to God"
From old to new testament we discover that everything really belongs to God, and that we are stewards of the things that he has entrusted to us.
Everything we have belongs to God, and we have been made stewards of it.
B. Now The devil is a sly old fox, and he comes up with all kinds of ideas why we don’t really have to pay any attention to that,
He gives us all kinds of reasons why we don’t have to tithe.
1. There was a time in my life when I believed his lies and stopped tithing for a short time.
I assume that everyone here desires to obey God
and everyone has good intentions to tithe
January - Christmas bills are due - (lie) You cant tithe "you have bills to pay"
February - Fuel bills, the car needs maintenance "I cant tithe then"
March - taxes are coming up "can’t tithe"
April- You have to have Clothing for Easter
May - There may be too much rain on the crops, and you have to be careful about giving,
June - not enough rain "Can’t Tithe"
July- vacation
August - vacation expenses have to be paid, because you used a credit card
Sept. - can’t tithe because the kid’s need new school clothing
Oct.- You need some winter clothing, you probably are going to have some doctor bill
Nov. - That trip to grandmas house for thanksgiving costs - so you can’t tithe
Dec. - you have Christmas shopping starting all over again.
The enemy will give you an excuse all the time for not giving to the Lord what belongs to the Lord.
You have to ignore the Devil and his arguments and his lies
how do we do that....
Colossions 3:2 " Set your affections on thing above not on things on the earth"
and the Devil will not have an opportunity to lie to you.
and Don’t worry about the future so much
Let me take you to a second Biblical principle
II. Tithers avoid the curse of God
A. The word of God warns us of failing to Give to God what is due to him
*Haggai 1: 4-10
Very simply the message is: You need to be careful to take care of the things of God to avoid the curse of God upon your life
*Malachi 3:9 "You are under a curse, the whole nation of you, because you are robbing me"
The warning to us there is that we are guilty of robbing God the tenth of our increase
B. Tithers have promise of God’s blessing
Malachi 3:10 ---
• As a pastor I am required to Give my ministry tithe to the denomination
• and you give to the Local church
• There was a period of time in our life when we felt that we could not afford to pay our tithe because there was just to many bills
• and we began to get behind on what we owed God
• and it seemed like the more we used that tithe for our self every week the worse off we were.
• and then we realized that we were missing the boat.
• We could not avoid doing Gods will because we were having a hard time financially
• We decided that we had to start tithing and be faithful in it no matter what it cost us.
• And what we have experienced is that God has blessed us financially in miraculous ways
• God rewarded us for our faithfulness
Many people have been Tithers and have been blessed for it
JL Kraft was a tither "the only investments that I have eve made that have paid constantly increasing dividends is the money that I have given to the Lord
J D Rockefeller was a tither He said "I never would have been able to tithe the first million dollars If I had not tithed my first salary which was $1.50 for a weeks work.
William Colgate was a faithful tither....and more then that he gave 25% of his income away
Tithers have a promise from God concerning the blessing of the Lord
B. Another blessing of tithing is the Joy of being trusted by God
I am a steward of what God has given me
And it is good to know that God trusts me
He gives to you and me an entire check... every month or every two weeks
"every good and perfect gift comes from the Lord"
He gives you your entire check and he trusts you to give from that check your tithe and your offerings
He trusts you
The federal government probably trusts you to, but manages somehow to take out its share before you get your check
I am sure that you are wishing that they would not do that so that you would have a chance to prove to them that you can be trusted to send in every penny of tax dollars without them telling you that you have to do it.
There is joy in realizing that God trusts me
And I don’t want to betray his trust.
I want to be faithful with small thing and big things
thirdly
I would like us to consider that are stewardship relates to the kingdom of God
how many of you know ---
The parable of the pearl of great price
" a fellow saw it and he wanted to sell everything to posses it"
I want to share a parable on that parable
Matthew13:45
The bible says that the kingdom of God is like a merchant looking for fine pearls, and when he finds the pearl of real worth he sells everything he has to buy it"
Traditional thinking says that the pearl of great price is man
and that Jesus is the merchant who sell everything in order to posses it.
he did give everything by pouring out his life to purchase us by his precious blood.
I have come to understand that parable in a different way
Jesus is the pearl of Great Price and I am the Merchant
Why would I look at it that way
Because when we find Jesus and we come to him and we accept him and receive him, it cost us everything
Jesus has happiness for us
Joy
Peace
security
eternity
and we marvel at such a pearl
Jesus has offered everything to me
why shouldn’t I want to have it
How much does it cost
Seller says it is too costly-
Its to dear
YOU SAY - HOW MUCH IS IT.
S- VERY EXPENSIVE
Y- DO YOU THINK I CAN BUY IT.
S- YOU CAN BUY IT! ANYONE CAN BUY IT!
Y- BUT YOU SAID ITS EXPENSIVE, HOW MUCH IS IT?
S- WELL IT COST EVERYTHING YOU HAVE
NOTHING LESS NOTHING MORE
Y- I’LL BUY IT
S- WELL WHAT DO YOU HAVE, LETS RIGHT IT DOWN
Y- I HAVE $100.00 IN THE BANK
S -OK LETS WRITE IT DOWN, WHAT ELSE DO YOU HAVE
Y- I DON’T HAVE ANY MORE!
S -YOU MEAN YOU DON’T HAVE ANYTHING ELSE
Y- WELL I HAVE SOME DOLLARS AND SOME CHANGE
S- WELL HOW MUCH IS THERE.....
Y- IVE GOT ABOUT $23.00
S- FINE I’LL TAKE THAT, WHAT ELSE DO YOU HAVE?
Y- I DONT HAVE ANYTHING ELSE, THATS ALL, I’VE GIVEN MY LAST PENNY
S- WHERE DO YOU LIVE?
Y - I LIVE IN A HOUSE
S - I’LL TAKE THAT TOO
Y- YOU MEAN I HAVE TO LIVE IN MY GARAGE
S- OH YOU HAVE A GARAGE, WRITE THAT DOWN TOO
Y- THIS MEANS I HAVE TO SLEEP IN MY CAR
S- YOU HAVE A CAR,
Y- WELL I HAVE TWO CARS
S- WRITE THAT DOWN, ANYTHING ELSE?
Y - NO NOTHING ELSE, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE
S- WELL ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY ALONE IN THIS WORLD?
Y- I HAVE A SPOUSE, AND TWO CHILDREN
S - WELL MARK THEM DOWN,
BECAUSE YOU WILL HAVE TO GIVE THEM TO ME ALSO......
FINALLY HE SAYS DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING ELSE
AND YOU SAY " NO I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING ELSE
I’m ALL ALONE THERE IS NOTHING MORE
I WANT YOU TOO EVERYTHING
EVERYTHING BECOMES MINE....AND YOU TOO
AND THEN GOD DOES THIS WONDERFUL THING FOR US
HE SAYS " ALL OF THIS STUFF "ITS MINE YOU HAVE GIVEN THEM TO ME"
DON’T YOU FORGET THAT THEY ARE MINE,
AND WHEN I NEED ANY OF THEM,
WHEN I NEED ANY OF THE THINGS THAT YOU ARE USING
YOU MUST GIVE THEM TO ME
BECAUSE I AM RIGHTFULLY THE OWNER,
YOU HAVE TURNED THEM OVER TO ME.
FOR THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE
DO YOU GET WHAT IS BEING SAID IN THAT PARABLE
DO WE TITHE BECAUSE THE LAW OF MOSES SAYS TO TITHE
OR BECAUSE THE PASTOR SAYS SO
YOU MUST WANT TO BE FAITHFUL IN GIVING TO THE WORK OF God BECAUSE YOU HAVE A VERY CLEAR UNDERSTANDING THAT YOU MADE A DECISION ONE DAY TO PURCHASE THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE
AND JESUS GAVE EVERYTHING BACK TO US AND SAYS
"HERE I TRUST YOU WITH IT, JUST BE SURE THAT AS I HAVE NEED OF THEM THAT YOU GIVE THEM"
WHEN WE GIVE TO GOD’S WORK WE FEEL MORE A PART OF IT BECASUE OUR INVESTMENT IS THEIR
JESUS SAID WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS THERE YOUR HEART WILL BE ALSO.
JOHN 3:16 SAYS THAT GOD SO LOVED THAT HE GAVE
AND THAT IS THE SPIRIT OF EVERTHING GOD DOES.
HE LOVES HE GIVES
CONCLUSION
MOST OF US HERE HAVE DONE WHAT IT TAKES TO PURCHASE THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE
LET US CHECK UP THIS MORNING TO MAKE SURE WE ARE DOING WHAT WE AGREED TO WHEN WE BOUGHT THE PEARL
