Merredin Uniting Church

Texts: Malachi 3:6-12  2 Corinthians 9:6-15

(Audio Version: http://sermon.net/daviddekock)

This morning I want us to look at the scriptural standard of giving – what exactly does God expect of us? This is not the church’s or the congregation’s expectation based on a budget but God’s standard as determined through His Word.

It is sad that the Biblical basis of giving is seldom taught from the pulpit and perhaps its because the one who does the preaching is the one who receives the greater portion of the income. And yet it is God’s standard and not that of the preacher, whether he receives from that income or not.

I have certainly made every effort to distance myself from the financial decisions of any church of which I am the pastor and I encourage every minister to do the same.

This might seem strange in my case because my background before coming into the ministry was in finance. I have managed companies with budgets running into millions and I have two degrees in the finance field including a Masters in Business Administration. But my call is not to be the financial manager of the church but to be its pastor. That means I must teach about what the Bible says about all kinds of things, including our finances but always from the Biblical perspective rather than what the accountants and professors have to say.

So what does the Bible say about our giving.

The very first standard that we find is that we are called to give a tithe to the Lord. That is one tenth of our income.

In Leviticus 27:30 we read that, “A tithe of everything belongs to the Lord; it is holy to the Lord.” In effect this is saying that the first tenth of our income belongs to God and not to us.

It is holy … separated to God’s purpose. So when we tithe, we are merely returning to God the seed of the harvest … …… if a farmer were to consume his whole harvest he would have no seed to plant for the next season.

Paul uses this analogy in our text today … He (GOD!) who supplies seed to the sower (US!!!) will also increase your store of seed (THAT WHICH IS GIVEN TO BE THE SEED OF THE NEXT HARVEST) and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.

Very clearly Paul is addressing this situation in the context of giving … He says, “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.”

But we don’t give for a reward … in fact it is not even part of the equation. We give because God first gave to us.

In the apparently incongruous way of Christ in which we go down to be up and die to live, the reward of giving is in fact in the giving itself rather than that God will do something good for us because we have given. Actually, God is not going to do anything for us at all … the seed that we return to Him will yield a different harvest.

We were the harvest of someone else’s giving, and ultimately we are the harvest of God’s self-giving on the Cross and so the seed we sow, the tithes we bring, will yield a different harvest of souls. Perhaps from another town or another generation … God knows.

And so, does God then not reward us for our giving … well, the Scripture does say that in respect of giving that by “the measure that we use will it be measured unto us”  but it seems that God does not so much reward our giving, as our obedience to His word.

In 1 Samuel 15:22, the Lord says that “to obey is better than sacrifice” and time and again He says “I require mercy, not sacrifice.” God’s call to us is a call to obedience not to make sacrifices in search of rewards and in that obedience, according to God’s strange economics is found the true blessing of God.

Still on the subject of the tithe, we turn to Malachi 3:6-10. Here we have a sharp exchange between Israel and God.

“Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD Almighty.

“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’

 “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.

“But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’

“In tithes and offerings.  ⁹ You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me.  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.”

You see, God expects our obedience to the tithe … indeed lack of obedience in this, or any other area for that matter, can lead to a separation between God and us. But the Lord does not just expect the obedience and that’s that … He does also honour the obedience that comes through the giving of the tithe.

“Bring the whole tithe …. and see if I will not open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have enough room for it.”

In the Letter to the Ephesians, Paul addresses God as the One who “can do exceedingly, abundantly more than we can ever ask or imagine.” We must not have a low view of God. He invites us to test His greatness and His exceeding generosity to those who believe.

Some argue that the tithe is Law and therefore belongs to the Old Testament and so is not an obligation for us today. But against this view we must say, we worship the God who never changes. He is the Same, yesterday, today and forever. Tithing did not come with the Law at Mount Sinai … even Abraham gave a tithe to Melchizedek, the King and Priest of Jerusalem and who is, according to Hebrews 7, the antetype of Jesus.

“You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.”

In effect, Abraham was giving the tithe to the pre-existent Jesus …

Is tithing then still required in the New Testament Church?

First, we need to take note of the fact that it was never stopped. In the earliest days of the New Testament church the people gave much more than just a tithe. However, in our text we do see that Paul does say that a man must give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion. Some have suggested that this means that we give as we can, rather than to give a tenth of our income.

Without doubt, this is not true. Paul is, in the first instance speaking about a specific collection – money to be raised for famine relief in Israel … this is not the tithe. It is over an above the tithe. Second, he is talking about offerings … again, this is that which we give sacrificially over and above our tithe.

The tithe then, is the first part of our income and it belongs to God as the first standard of Biblical giving. We give our tithe – one tenth of our income – to God’s work through the Church … for the prime purpose of our tithe, must be seed for the next harvest of souls !

The second standard of Biblical giving is our voluntary giving. The Bible refers to this as offerings and collections.

This is what we give to the work of the Lord over and above our tithe – in a sense, this is the “secret” part of our giving where, as the Bible says, the “left hand does not know what the right hand does.” Offerings are what we choose to give out of our own volition, the collection is our response to a specific appeal. Both of these are included in our charitable giving ie giving to charity work outside of the church’s specific mission but the tithe is not.

Offerings and collections are, in the expectation of scripture, to be sacrificial because the implication is that we do without in order to make the gift. The tithe, by the way, is never referred to in Scripture as a sacrifice. 

There is a difference between “tithes” and “offerings” since the Bible often refers to both in the same sentence. And often when we read about “giving” in the Bible it is a reference to an offering … in the strictest Biblical sense, the tithe is not “giving” … it is returning “stock seed” to the Lord. It is giving back to God that which is already His.

The Lord loves us to make offerings … in 2 Corinthians 9:7 we read that “the Lord loves a cheerful (or hilarious) giver.

And He always rewards the giver’s obedience … in Luke 6:38, Jesus says, “Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Why don’t you test the Lord in this, as Malachi says. The Bible instructs us to tithe. Margaret and I have tithed for almost the whole of our Christian walk and we have seen it as an essential expression of our trust in our God who has given much, much more than we could ever ask or imagine.

Official offerings are taken by the church from time to time – but it is my understanding from Scripture that these are to be limited to special situations. If the congregation is tithing then there is usually no need to take up special offerings – there is always enough in the storehouse to meet these situations.

I do however believe that we should have a regular opportunity to take a collection to give support to needy individuals – often in churches today, this takes the form of a Retiring Offering. In the past it was often a box at the door of the church called the “poor box”. In my previous congregation my son-in-law made four wooden boxes that were permanently in place for anyone to make contributions.

The elders have felt that as a church we also tithe, that we should give one tenth of all our income for work outside the church. This is an excellent way of providing mission support and of assisting people who are out in the field with God’s work.

Finally, remember whatever you give to the Lord’s work is between you and Him. Please don’t think that I am trying to pressurise you, or attempting to do anything other than give you the scriptural basis of giving. Rather, go down on your knees and ask the Lord what you should give.

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