Tithing

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,