OPEN: Year ago, if you wanted a pair of shoes, you couldn’t go down to “Payless Shoes” or “Shoe Carnival”. You couldn’t even go down to Sears or J.C. Penney to pick a pair of ready made shoes to wear. There was a time when – if you wanted shoes or boots – you had to go someone called a “Shoe Cobbler.”
When Ronald Reagan was a young man, an aunt had taken him to a cobbler to have a pair of shoes made for him. The shoemaker asked the young Reagan “do you want a square toe or a round toe?”
Reagan hemmed and hawed. So the cobbler said, “Come back in a day or two and let me know what you want.”
A few days later the shoemaker saw Reagan on the street and asked what he had decided about the shoes. “I still have not made up my mind,” the boy answered. “Very well,” said the cobbler.
When Reagan received the shoes, he was shocked to see that one shoe had a square toe and the other had a round toe.
Years later Reagan commented: “Looking at those shoes every day taught me a lesson. If you do not make your own decisions, somebody else will make them for you!”
APPLY: God created us to be a people capable of making choices. And God has always given His people the power of choice
In the Old Testament, Joshua told the Israelites
“… CHOOSE for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua 24:15
God calls upon us to make a choice: to choose Him.
Because if we don’t choose Him - to serve Him and obey Him and love Him - then the choice will be made for us.
Someone else or something else will become more important in our lives and God will be shouldered off to one side.
I. So, we need to ACTIVELY choose God.
How do you know if you’ve really done that? How do you know if you have really “chosen” God.
Well… you’re here in worship this morning.
You CHOSE to get out of bed
You CHOSE to get dressed and drive to church
You CHOSE to worship Him and sing, pray and fellowship… because you wanted to please Him and to honor Him with your presence.
And most of you here are Christians
At one point in your lives you believed in Jesus Christ. You repented of your past. Confessed that you wanted Jesus to be the Lord and Master of your life. And you were buried in the waters of Christian baptism and risen up to a new life.
You took Jesus as your savior because you wanted to “choose” God. Someone has called this decision “giving your heart to Jesus”.
And that is one of the most important decisions you can make… giving your heart to Jesus.
A man once approached Jesus and asked Him what the most important command of the Law was. And Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with ALL your heart and with ALL your soul and with ALL your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)
But what does it meant to give Jesus ALL of your heart?
Jesus said: “… where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21
So, according to that Scripture, one of the ways I will know if I’ve given ALL of my heart to Jesus is based upon where my treasure is.
ILLUS: Years ago, Sharon E. Rosenthal, 59, left the Union she was working for and took more than $3,000 along with her. She wasn’t supposed to do that. So, she was arrested and brought up before the law. She was sentenced in Winnebago County Circuit Court on one felony count of theft. Judge Scott Woldt offered her the choice of either serving jail time or donating her family’s four seats in the Packers‘ three-game season package to the Make-A-Wish Foundation (the last report I heard was that there is a 20 year waiting list for tickets like these).
So the judge had offered her a choice. Her freedom for tickets.
She looked the judge in the eye and said - she’d have to think about it.
Where was Sharon’s heart? What was most important to her? Was it her freedom, or her Packer’s tickets that were her treasure?
It’s easy to measure isn’t it? Her treasure was tied up in those tickets - so much so that she might have been willing to do jail time for felony theft to keep them.
Likewise you can tell how much of your heart you have CHOSEN to give God based upon this. (I pulled out my wallet and opened it up for all to see) If you want to measure how dedicated you are to God… you need to start with your billfold, and your checking account.
That’s why Israel was being rebuked for their lack of giving. Their lack of giving revealed that something other than God had become a priority for them in their lives and God was telling them – CHOOSE ME with your money.
“‘Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this’ says the LORD Almighty…” Malachi 3:10
II. But, why does God ask us for money? Does He really NEED my tithe?
Noooo… of course God doesn’t need your money. The church might, but God doesn’t.
God owns the cattle on the 1000 hills. He’s rich beyond imagination. But God still asks us to make this choice in our lives.
There are three reasons why the tithe is important to God
1st = God knows that where our treasure is… that’s where our heart will be. Scripture talks about our giving God our “FIRST FRUITS” because it is that which we place FIRST in our priorities… that we really care about.
ILLUS: A missionary in Africa who received a knock on the door of his hut one afternoon. Answering, the missionary found a native boy holding a large fish in his hands. The boy said, “Preacher, you taught us what tithing is, so here. I’ve brought you my tithe.”
As the missionary gratefully took the fish, he questioned the boy. “If this is your tithe, where are the other nine fish?”
At this, the boy beamed and said, “Oh, they’re still back in the river. I’m going back to catch them now.”
That little boy had decided to put God first, before anything else he did and before anything else he received in this world.
2nd - God wants to see whether we trust Him… or trust our bankbook
Look again at Malachi 3:10 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 you will not have room enough for it.
God’s basically saying: Honor ME with your tithe and see if I don’t honor your sacrifice! TEST ME IN THIS. Show me that you really trust me!
ILLUS: Years ago, I heard a man give his testimony of coming to Christ after many years of alcoholism, self indulgence and waste. When he finally came to Christ, his family’s finances were in a terrible state of disrepair. One night, while attending a Revival at his church, he looked into his wallet for something to put into the offering plate. All he had was a $20. He and his wife looked at one another, remembering a significant bill that was coming due, she squeezed his hand in agreement, and, he placed the $20 in the plate. He said that they both experienced something like a lifting of a burden from their shoulders.
When they got home, there on the dining room table was an envelope containing the precise amount that they needed to pay their creditor. He marveled at the grace of God in supplying his need at the just the right time with just the right amount of money.
So, tithing reveals what is in our hearts
Because tithing reveals whether or not God is first in our heart as OUR main priority. And whether He is first in our heart as the One we trust.
But God doesn’t just want to reveal what is in our hearts…
3rd – God wants to change our hearts. Tithing changes us
ILLUS: According to a study done about 6 years ago… (6/27/02 issue of The Washington Times)
Americans who supported their congregations not only give more time and money than people working with secular causes, but they also provided three-quarters of secular charity as well
The study found that “religion-giving households” in 2000 gave 87.5 percent of all charitable contributions in the nation, for an average of $2,100 for each household.
According to the study: “Givers to religious congregations are dramatically more generous than others”
Giving to God changes us.
A man by the name of David Hill once observed: “Tithing is not God’s way of raising money...its God’s way of raising men!”
ILLUS: Dr. James I. McCord, then president emeritus of Princeton University Theological School, once told the story of a man who commented that he was never coming back to a particular church because all they ever talked about in that church was give, give, give.
Dr. McCord observed: I cannot think of a better definition of Christianity than that: give, give, give. I am convinced that unless you learn to give you can never learn to be fully human.
Think about this: If there was a dog walking down the street, healthy coat, obviously in good shape, and he had a bone in his mouth and along come a flee bitten mutt that was near starvation, what do you think that healthy dog will do?
Do you think the healthy dog is going to stop and drop his bone in front of the sick dog? Oh, no. He would clinch his bone that much tighter in his teeth as he passed by. That is the nature of animals. Only man can be taught how to be a giver.
In tithing, God does not ask us to renounce our possessions.
He asks us to renounce our spirit of possessiveness (Staff, www.eSermons.com, November, 2000)
Tithing is one of the tools God uses to teach us to be givers. And everyone who disciplines themselves with this practice grows in their faith.
III. God has always respected the tithe
In the book of Genesis, before the Law was given, God tells us that Abraham gave Melchizedek – the King of Salem - 1/10th of the spoils from a battle he’d won. The book of Hebrews tells us that Melchizedek was a type/ symbol of Christ. Thus Abraham gave the tithe to this priest that symbolized Jesus. So, you could almost say that Abraham gave his tithe to Jesus.
The tithe predated the Law. God has always honored and accepted this kind of gift.
God tells His people: “’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 you will not have room enough for it.’” (Malachi 3:10)
What is God saying here? He’s saying that if we’re willing to trust Him in the giving of the tithe… He’s wants to find a way of rewarding us.
ILLUS: One Sunday a preacher told his congregation that the church needed some extra money and asked the people to prayerfully consider giving a little extra in the offering plate.
He said that whoever gave the most would be able to pick out three hymns. After the offering plates were passed, the preacher glanced down and noticed that someone had placed a $1,000 bill in offering. He was so excited that he immediately shared his joy with his congregation and said he’d like to personally thank the person who placed the money in the plate. A very quiet, elderly, saintly lady all the way in the back shyly raised her hand. The pastor asked her to come to the front. Slowly she made her way to the pastor. He told her how wonderful it was that she gave so much and in thanksgiving asked her to pick out three hymns. Her eyes brightened as she looked over the congregation, pointed to the three handsomest men in the building and said, “I’ll take him, and him, and him.”
God wants to reward His people when they step out on faith. He says when we tithe He’ll open the WINDOWS of heaven and pour out blessings.
ILLUS: Someone once asked a preacher “Would God open the windows of heaven for 5 percent”
“No!” the preacher replied, “God doesn’t do windows for less than 10 percent!”
Now, I don’t know if that’s true… but the promise in Malachi is based upon the tithe.
(pause…) The New Testament doesn’t use the word “tithe”. I don’t know why that is but I’m willing to guess.
The tithe in the Old Testament was based upon the Law. You had to give the tithe, it was required. You had no CHOICE.
But now God tells us – giving is a matter of choice for us. 2 Corinthians 9:7 tells us “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, NOT reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
If our giving doesn’t come from our own choice - if we do it because we feel we have NO choice… then it would be like someone giving you a gift but then saying: “I didn’t REALLY want to get this for you… but they told me I had to. So, here.”
Can you feel the love from a comment like that??? You can’t… because it’s not there!
Our giving MUST be an act of love.
Our gifts to Him must reflect the love and faith we have in Him
CLOSE: A little boy was given ten $1 bills by his grandfather. His mother listened as the boy sat in his room and counted out the money.
She overheard him saying that first dollar belonged to God. And then she heard him say out loud that dollar was going to God as well. Thinking that he’d misunderstood the teaching about the tithe, she said: “Oh no, honey our tithe to God would only be $1 out of the ten.”
The boy looked up and said “Oh I know that… the first dollar I gave him because I had to... the last dollar I gave him because I wanted to.”
God is a giver. He gave us life itself. And his ultimate gift was that of his son.
He gave His son because He CHOOSE to…
He gave His son because He wanted to…
He gave His son because He loved us.
Tithing is our way of showing God that we choose to honor Him.
It shows that we want to become like Him
It shows that we want to learn how to give like He has to us.
SERMONS IN THIS SERIES
The Attitude of Ownership - 1 Chronicles 29:1-29:20
The Bondage of Debt - Deuteronomy 28:1-28:14
The Power Of Choice - Malachi 3:7-3:12
The Decision and The Promise - Genesis 22:1-22:19
