Christ is Life Podcast

Well, today, as
we dive into God's word and continue in worship, we're we're continuing our summer message series that, of course, is titled, that's not what that verse means. And those of you have been here know that we've been looking at a number of passages of Scripture that sometimes get taken out of context, and we've been looking at the real context of those verse and seeing what those verses really mean and how, of course, they really do, apply to our lives once we truly understand the truth of those verses, and today, we continue with another verse that has yet caused a lot of confusion for a lot of people for a long time, and maybe even put some people in bondage. The verse is this, Malachi, chapter three, verses eight through 10, starts off and says, Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me, but you ask, how are we robbing you? In tithes and offerings, you are under a curse. The Lord says, your whole nation, because you are robbing me. 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 there will not be room enough to store it. There are many people who will take these verses and use them to say that we are all required to tithe, that we are commanded and must give a 10th of our income to the church. Oftentimes, when this message is given based on these verses, the saying will also be that not only are we required to give 10% of our income, but if we don't, then things will not go well with you, especially in the area of finances. Right? Your car's going to break down, and you're going to have to spend all of this money repairing your car. Your hot water heater is going to go out at your house, or there's something that's going to go down that's going to cause you a lot of money the IRS is going to come knocking on your door saying you thought you paid all your taxes, but you really didn't pay all of your taxes, and it's all going to be a result of you having not paid your tithe, because we are commanded to do so, if you don't tithe, then you're going to find yourself in those difficult financial situations. Why? Because you are robbing God. The verse says you're robbing him of what is rightfully his, therefore he will curse you. But if you do tithe, if you give God what is rightfully his in the first place, then not only will he not curse you, but he'll actually even bless you. You give that 10% and he might give you that 10% back. And even more, right? I mean, after all, the verse says that the floodgates of heaven will open, and he will pour out so much blessing upon you and your life. This is what many will teach that this verse means. This is what many of you may believe that that's what this verse really means. As a matter of fact, I was scrolling through social media and found this message all over the place. There was one particular video that I came across, and there was a pastor, and he was preaching on stage, and he was doing his sermon, and he got to this illustration in the middle of the message, and he called this member of his church up on stage, and he handed her an envelope, and she looked inside the envelope, and there were 10 $1 bills. And he said, This is an illustration on tithing. And he said, I gave you 10 $1 bills. God's is one of those 10% of that and so will you give God 10% one of those $1 bills? If you do, you'll get to keep the rest. And she pulled out $1 and gave it to the pastor, and she began to walk off, and he said, No, no, no, no, no, since you've been faithful to tithe in that way, then here's another envelope, and this time the envelope was filled with 10 $5 bills. And said, The Lord requires just one of those, a 10th, and if you give him that, you get to keep all of the rest. And she gave him one $5 bill and began to walk off. Says, no, no, no, no, since you've been faithful, to tithe with that, then I'm giving you a new envelope. And this time it was filled with 10, $10 bills. It was $100 the Lord requires one of those, and you get to keep all of the rest. And so she gave him the one. And then finally, called her back and said, since you've been faithful to tithe that then here's another envelope, and this time it had 10 $100 bills in it. And said, The Lord just requires one, and you get to keep all of the rest. And she took one out and gave it to him and walked off and left with all that money. Some of you wish i. Was doing that with you. I'm sure this morning, that would be a great blessing, right? But listen, that day, the entire congregation left thinking that if they give a 10th of their income, then they're going to be blessed in these particular ways, with just money that appears in envelopes and out of the blue, and it's all a result of these floodgates opening because you've committed the tithe. You didn't rob God of what is rightfully his in those ways. Now, some of you will listen to a verse or listen to a story like that, and you'll think, well, what kind of church was that? Right? I know there's some kind of wacko crazy churches, or they're preaching the prosperity gospel and some of those kind of things. Just some pastor trying to get rich and encourage them to give from that way. But in true gospel preaching churches, theologically conservative churches, they don't really preach it that way, necessarily, right? Well, wrong. I mean, as a matter of fact, I got a book in the mail this week. I didn't even order the book. You know, sometimes people just send books to churches, and it's addressed to whoever the lead pastor is. And I opened this envelope, and it happened to be a book about giving, and it was written by a theologically conservative pastor who went to a well respected seminary, and I went, you know what I'm teaching on this verse? I don't have time. It's a big book. I don't have time to read the whole thing this week, but I'll just open it up and start to get a feel for what this is. I couldn't even make it through page seven of the opening of the book before I read this. Every year, we have trusted God to help us take our giving to a new level, with few exceptions by His grace, we have met those objectives, often with astounding results. Listen to this time after time, we have experienced the reality of God's promise. In Malachi, 310, the reality of the promise. What was the promise? Well, if you don't give, you're going to be cursed. So he's experienced that reality of that and the curse or he's given, and when he has he's experienced the blessings as a result that were there, given to him by God. He earned them, right, because he did the work of tithing, and so God rewarded him. He had to give it to him in that way. And so he makes the conclusion that many believers are missing out on one of the most exciting adventures in life because they've never put God to the test. You're supposed to test God. That's what it says in this area, in a matter of generous giving. And so again, this is often what these verses are actually said to mean in a number of cases, that is this, just to boil it down again, we're required to give 10% of our income, and if we don't, then things will not go well for us, especially in the area of finances, but if we do, then God will give us back our 10% and bless us with even more. But I'm here to tell you this morning, as we've been doing all summer, that that is not what this verse means. I can actually show you this pretty quickly, and the sermon will be over, actually, not really, but you'll start to see it right here. In How Are you robbing God? He says in tithes and offerings, you're under a curse. Who's under a curse your whole nation? What nation is he talking about?
The nation of Israel.
Are you Israel?
No, you're not Israel. I mean, that's the first thing that we really have to start to see here. This was written to the nation of Israel. This Malachi is found in the Old Testament of our Bibles. We talked about this several weeks ago whenever we looked at a different Old Testament passage. But the Israelite nation, as you know, was under a covenant with God, an Old Covenant, a Mosaic Covenant. God had given them the law. They were, of course, expected to follow it and to keep it and to live the way that God was commanding them to live. Now, if they did obey, then they would receive blessings from God. If they did not obey, they would receive curses from God. It's spelled out in the covenant. We see that in Deuteronomy, chapter 28 we won't go through much of it, but you don't have to to just see it right here in the opening verses, God says this in the old covenant with the nation of Israel. If it's conditional, right, if you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you, if, again, conditional, if you obey the Lord, your God, under the Old Covenant, if you obey, you receive blessings. The opposite of that is also true. He said this in the same chapter just a few verses later, however, right conditional, if you do not obey the Lord your God, and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I'm giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you. So this was the Old Covenant. This is how it. Worked with this old covenant between God and the nation of Israel. This was a covenant where the Lord would bless them if they would obey, and they were cursed if they didn't. There were 613 Levitical laws that they were expected to follow and obey, and out of those 613 one of those that they were expected to obey was tithing, and if they were to tithe, then following the rules of the Covenant, they would obey, and they would receive blessings, and if they disobeyed and did not, then they would receive curses. This is the way it was written back all the way in Deuteronomy. Actually lied to you just now, there's not just one tithe that was spelled out in the Old Testament, but there's actually three tithes that they were commanded to give that supported different things. And that's important for us to see. If we're trying to talk about Malachi three, and we're trying to use that to justify that we are required to tithe today, then we better make sure that we understand and see everything that it says about the tithe in the Old Covenant, right that we were referring to the first tithe that we see in Scripture was used to support the priest in Numbers, chapter 18, verses 21 and then 23 through 24 I'll just read A portion of it. It says, I give to the Levites all the tithes in Israel as an inheritance in return for the work they do while serving at the Tent of Meeting. The Levites were the priests. They were the ones who were offering sacrifices. The Levites were different. They did not have the opportunity to own land like the rest of the Israelite nation. They didn't have the opportunity to produce crops and income. They were too busy doing all of the sacrifices, making all of the sacrifices, the things in the tent of meeting and later on in the temple. So the Lord had to find a way to provide for them. How did he provide for the Levites? By putting a tax, a tithe on the rest of the people to support the Israelites, or the Levites, right, the priests that were here, and really, whenever he said, it was a tie that was their their food and and produce and that kind of thing, which is why, even in Malachi, he said, bring the whole tithe to the what the store house, which was a portion of the temple, where temple, where grain was stored in that kind of thing, it was a way for them to have the food necessary to provide for them and their families. Now that was the first tithe that was mentioned under the under the old covenant. The second one was to support the festivals and the feasts in Deuteronomy 14, it says, Be sure to set aside a tent. There it is again, of all that your fields produce each year, eat the tithe of your grain. We see that again, food, new wine and olive oil and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always. So we know that the Israelite nation under the Old Covenant was commanded to participate in these festivals and in these feasts, what was the point to revere the Lord, to remember who he was for calling them out of Egypt, rescuing them from Egypt, building them into a great nation? And so He commanded them, if he was saying, you're going to have to participate in these festivals and in these feasts, then now he made a way for them to have what was necessary for the feast and the festival, set aside 10% of those things for these particular events that were outlined under the Old Covenant. So that was the second tithe. The third tithe under the old covenant that they were commanded to follow was used to support widows, orphans and the poor. It's a little bit later in Deuteronomy 14 that I just read from but it says this, at the end of every three years, bring all the ties of that year's produce and store it in your towns so that the Levites and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so the Lord your God, may bless you in all the work of your hands. So this one was only every three years. The other two was every year, 10% to support the Levites, 10% for the feasts and festivals. And then every third year there was another 10th that was taken up to support the widows, to support the orphans, to support the poor. So when you look at the three tithes that were commanded here, you see that ultimately they were not commanded to give 10% but 23.3% right, because they had one tithe of. 10% they had another tithe of another 10% which is 20. And then if you average out 10 over three years, that's 3.3% and so they were expected give 23.3% so then we go back to Malachi. If we're trying to say that Malachi is the reference for the reason that we are to tithe today, then when we're comparing those things, then what we ought to be teaching is that you aren't commanded to give 10% of your income, but 23.3% of your income come ultimately, right? I don't hear anybody preaching that, but that's what was commanded under the Old Covenant. But again, in context, this is what we see under an old covenant, and God is talking to the nation of Israel, right again, we see the nation referenced. When we come back to this, we see that they're under an old covenant. We see that we're talking about once again, just to highlight it all the way out curses, which was ultimately seen where Deuteronomy 28 under the Old Covenant, right? And then here, once again, we see in verse 10, what blessings,
which again is where Deuteronomy 28
what God is saying here in Malachi goes all the way back to what was spelled out under the covenant in the first place. It was no different. If you obey, guess what? You get blessed. That was the way it was with everything, not just the tithe everything. If you didn't obey, then you're cursed not just with not tithing, but with, once again, everything. All right. I mean, that's simply what God is saying here. But what we see is that this Old Covenant that we're talking about has been fulfilled when we get to the New Testament of our Bibles, once again, you and I are not the nation of Israel, and we are no longer under an old covenant. Paul tells us, in Galatians three Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, Jesus, so that by faith, we might receive the promise of the Spirit. There were all of these promises that God was making in the Old Testament, right? They were prophesied, I'm going to promise you that one day I'm going to make a new covenant with you. Can read about that in Ezekiel 36 and Jeremiah as well, all right. And through those promises, a new covenant was going to come, and the spirit was going to come. And you can even read about that in the Old Testament, that one day the new covenant would be initiated, and the Spirit would come to dwell in people. And through Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the curse, we've been redeemed, and we've been lifted out from the Old Covenant, and now under the new covenant, which is why again, and we looked at this verse a few weeks ago as well in Hebrews, the author could say by calling this covenant new, he who is He, God has made the first one. What's the first one? The old covenant. Obso leat no longer in effect. We don't live under the Old Covenant. So that's the first thing that we have to realize. We have to understand this in order to understand the command to tithe from Malachi that's written in the Old Testament and the Old Covenant of our Bibles, we've got to see once again, it was written to the nation of Israel, and we are under a different covenant today. Therefore, the blessings and the curses that were talked about in Malachi three were for the nation of Israel for their obedience or not, those blessings and curses do not apply to you today, whether you give or whether you don't. This is a New Covenant. Now the next question, then may be okay, we see what this says, and it was in the old covenant and what you're highlighting here, but now that we're under the New Covenant, is there any command that we see in the new covenant where we are required to tithe? Because that could be the case, right? We could say, alright, the one in Malachi is no longer affected. Was the nation of Israel. We can do all of that stuff. But now, if there's something that was mentioned in the New Covenant. Then now we've got a different story, and we've got to talk about how it applies to us today. But if you read through the entire New Testament, if you read through all the Gospels of everything that Jesus taught about, and then we have a record of him saying which, of course, was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write what they wrote and be preserved. For us today, you don't see Jesus teaching at all about us being required to tithe. There are a few instances of Jesus talking about the tithe, and he was talking to religious leaders, but a couple of things we have to remember. First and foremost, when Jesus was teaching in those settings, he was teaching people under the old or the New Covenant, still under the old, right, even though you're you have that little sheet of paper in between the last chapter of Malachi that says New Testament, and when Matthew one starts that says New Testament, and then it starts to talk about the birth of Jesus, we all know that the New Covenant was not initiated, didn't begin until the death and resurrection and sending of the Spirit in those moments. So he was teaching people who were still under an old covenant, who were still required to tithe or would be cursed or blessed. And he was saying, You guys are so careful to tithe and keep up with all this stuff to make sure you're following in all these ways. But then he would come back and say, but your hearts are not right. It wasn't about them tithing. He was trying to show them that the outside of the dish may be clean, but the inside was dirty, and that's what Jesus was coming to fix. What he was trying to get at was don't pay attention to tithing more. Pay attention to how dirty your heart is in your need for a Savior. And the whole reason that I am here. That's what he was highlighting when he referenced those things. Not only did Jesus not talk about the tithe and command us to tithe, none of the New Testament writers outside of Jesus, those who wrote the New Testament talked about it, either. And so again, Malachi three doesn't apply to us today, tithing does not apply to us today. We don't live under an old covenant, and we're not commanded to tithe under the Old Covenant, but we are still taught about giving under the new covenant, and what that looks like now, as new covenant believers. And here's the first thing that we see about giving from Scripture. Sorry, Grace giving. It's Grace giving. That's what was referenced right in Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Paul's letter to the church at Corinth, instructing them as New Covenant believers. Now on these kinds of things, he says, but since you excel in everything, in faith and speech and knowledge and complete earnestness and in the love that we have kindled in you, see too, see that you also excel in this grace of giving. Giving is a work of God's grace operating in us that motivates us to give. Giving, say this, again, is a work of God's grace operating in us that motivates us to give. The moment that we put our faith and trust in Jesus, not only are our sins forgiven, but the promise of the Spirit that we read about earlier comes to dwell in us. We're united to Jesus, and scripture says we're given a new heart. All right, we're given a new heart. Jesus's heart is a reflect, or our heart is a reflection of Jesus's heart, because this is Jesus, this is you, spiritually rejoined together and have a new heart that comes into being. We're born again. So the heart of Jesus in union with you is what becomes a reflection of your new heart. So anything you can look at and see with line with the character of Jesus is also a reflection of your new heart that you have in your new spiritual union with Jesus. And what do we know about Jesus? All throughout the Gospels, he was a giver. I mean, he just gave and gave and gave and gave over and over and over and over again, until ultimately, he gave his entire life. And so if Jesus is a giver, and you're in a spiritual union with Him, then you've been reborn into a giver. It's who you are. He's recreated you into a giver. So this is the grace giving. It's a work of God's grace in our lives. The second thing that we see from a New Covenant perspective is that giving is a privilege. When Paul was writing this also to the church at Corinth, he says they referring to the Macedonian church through an offering that they were trying to take up urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service with the Lord's people. What we see there is that the church at Macedonia saw giving to be a privilege. It was not a duty. It's a duty under the Old Covenant, you're commanded to do it equals duty. You're going to be cursed if you don't do it, duty. You're going to be blessed if you do duty, I've got to do it right. That's not the way it is under the New Covenant, Jesus had changed the church at Macedonia. They were New Covenant, born again. Been believing Christians. They've been adopted into God's family. They had those new hearts that we just talked about in union with Christ. And so now, their perspective on giving change, they didn't see it as a duty. They saw it as a privilege,
and that's the way he's done a work in your heart. This is true of you as well. And be an outworking of this grace that we just talked about. The third thing that we see according to the New Covenant is that we give out of our means. Again, talking to the church at Corinth Paul is teaching them, says, Now finish the work, talking about this offering that was being taken up so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means, according to how much money you have, according to how much you're able to do for if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable, again, according to what One has, according to how much money one actually has. You don't see anything about 10% mentioned here. What's mentioned is you give out of your means. So what we see is it's not the portion we give, but the proportion that we give, right? I mean, a simple example would be somebody making $50,000 right? We're talking about tithing, even though we just all the things about it. It's just easy math. So let's just go with the 10% thing for now, right? So 10% of that, if somebody wanted was going to give, that they would be giving $5,000 per year if they made $50,000 and they would have how much 45,000 to pay their bills and to live on the entire rest of the year. Now, you take someone who makes not $50,000 but add a zero to it, and they make $500,000 a year, and you take the same percentage of that, then you go, wow, they're giving $50,000 of their income to the church. That's way more than that measly little $5,000 that those other people were given there. But how much do they have left? $450,000
not 45,000 to live on the rest of the year. 450,000
to live on. Their means are way above what someone else has in that way. And so in the latter situation with having more means, they had the opportunity to give way more above and beyond 10% many of you several, several years ago, were familiar with Rick Warren, and read The Purpose Driven Life and all of those kind of things, and know that he even talked about how the Lord blessed him according to his means To be able to give out of that to where he reversed tithes, and he gave 90% of his income to the church and lived on 10% because he had so much money, he was able to give all of that and still have enough to live on and do what it is that the Lord called him to do outside of those things, and that's because that's what we see according to the New Covenant. And once again, this is a grace where he motivates us and gets us excited about and joyful about having the opportunity to give out of what it is that we have, what it is that we've been blessed with, what he's provided for us. And although we've kind of said it in different ways, I'll just spell it out and say it here. The fourth thing that we see is that we decide what to give from our heart as New Covenant believers, Paul says each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. In your heart, you have a new heart. This union with Christ gives you a new heart. With that new heart, and him being able to be your guide, he's going to guide you from your heart, from that spiritual connection that you have, and the way to influence your mind and your emotions and the choices that you make to lead you to a certain number or a certain percentage, on what it is that he's leading you to give again, out of what it is that you have to give, God will show us those things and get us excited about it. So just to see it in one chart, all the way through one slide, New Covenant. Giving is a giving. Giving is a work of God's grace. Giving is a privilege, a work that he does in our hearts to see that way, and then give according to your means. And then decide what to give from your new heart, this new heart that we have in Christ, that may still be 10% for you, I don't know. For some people, it may be way less than that according to their means. For others, it may be way more than 10% but that's between you and the Lord. The thing I want you to see today is do not fall for the lies. Do not fall for the guilt. In shame based teaching when it comes to tithing that you sometimes see, do not fall for that religious teaching whenever there's so much grace and truth involved in this that we see Malachi three once again, to say it for the 400th time is written to the nation of Israel. Under an old covenant, you live under a new covenant, you are not the nation of Israel. And if you put your faith and trust in Jesus, then again, he's graced you with a new heart. And he desire. He will create new desires in you to give, and he's going to lead you a certain amount to be able to give and do the work of getting you excited and joyful about contributing to his kingdom work. So don't fall for the bondage and the religion and all the things that comes to the teaching tied to Malachi three or requiring you to tithe, or things won't go well with you, or maybe they will if you don't, we give out of what it is that the Lord has done in our hearts and whatever he does in our lives based on our situations or circumstances after that are up to him as a sovereign God, and we just experience his life in and through us, regardless of the results that happen on the other side of that let's pray Amen.