We’re in the middle of a sermon
series called “Give it up!” It’s a sermon series about giving. Last
week we talked about why we give. We talked about how everything we have
truly belongs to God, not to us, and that when we go to spend some money, we
need to ask the question: “Is this a good use of God’s money? Would
God want me to spend God’s money this way?”
Today, we’re going to talk about how
much to give. Or, more accurately, we’re going to talk about how to
decide how much to give. And when we talk about that in church, it seems
like one of the first things we think about is tithing. Giving ten
percent of our income to the church.
Now, I don’t know how many of you
tithe. I’m sure there are some here who do. I’m also sure there are
some here who don’t.
Is it a salvation issue? No. We’re saved by God’s
grace and love and mercy and through our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior.
We’re not saved by how much we give. God is not in heaven with a
green eye-shade on, going through our books to see how much we’ve given to the
church. That’s not how this works.
So do we really need to tithe?
After all, tithing, giving ten percent, is a legal standard, right?
And the coming of Jesus set us free from the law. So, did the
coming of Jesus free us from the need to tithe?
Yes and no. As I said, it’s
not a salvation issue. We don’t need to tithe in order to be saved.
Still, I think tithing is a good thing. Wanda and I do it. I
think everyone should.
Why? Because tithing holds us
up to a standard. Tithing is one way of measuring how much faith we truly
have in God.
See, I understand why tithing is
such a hard thing for most of us to do. Wanda and I tithe now, but there
are a lot more years of our lives when we did not tithe than there were when we
did. And the main reason we did not tithe is probably one of the reasons
lots of people don’t tithe. We did not think we could afford it. We
were not making a lot of money. We had a lot of expenses. And so we
did not think we could afford to give ten percent of our income to the church.
But what Wanda and I were doing,
when we looked at it that way, was looking at it backwards. We were
looking at all the bills we had to pay, and all the things we needed to buy,
and then we were looking at what was left over after we paid all those things.
We were determining our giving based on our leftovers.
That’s probably the way most people
do it. And again, I’m not saying that you’re committing a sin if you do
that. But that’s not the way God tells us to do it. God does not
tell us to give out of our leftovers. God tells us to give out of what we
take in first. God tells us to give out of our best, not out of what’s left
over.
We read a passage from the book of
Leviticus today. We don’t read from Leviticus very often, but look at
what it says. God tells the people that they are supposed to take the
first grain they harvest and give it to God. They are supposed to give the
best livestock they have to God. They’re supposed to take the best flour,
the best wine the best bread. They are supposed to take the first and
best of everything they have and give it to God.
Why would God do that? Why
would God tell us to give God the first and the best of everything? I
mean, it’s like what we said last week about money--God does not need it.
So why does God tell us to give it?
One of the reasons we’re supposed to
give God the first and the best of everything is so we learn to trust God.
Think about it. If we take all the money we think we need first,
and just give to God out of what’s left, what are we saying? We’re saying
that we really don’t trust God to give us what we need. We don’t really
trust God to take care of us. We need to take care of ourselves.
And so we do. We take everything we think we need, and then, if
there happens to be some left over, we give some of that to God. Again,
we’re giving God our leftovers.
We don’t do that because we’re
terrible, horrible people. We don’t do that because we’re such awful
sinners. We do that because we’re scared. We’re scared that if we
give to God first, if we give to God out of our best, there won’t be enough
left for us.
Giving to God out of our first, and
out of our best, shows that we trust God. And that’s what we show when we
tithe. We show that we’re willing to take ten percent of our money off
the top and give that to God. And we show that we’re willing to trust God
enough that, when we do God will make sure there’s enough for us.
You know, this was not any easier
for the people of Israel to do thousands of years ago than it is for us today.
When they gave God the first part of the crop they harvested, they did
not know what the rest would be like. In fact, there were all kinds of
things that might happen before they even got the crop in. It was
possible that a storm would come up and wipe out the rest of their crop, just
like there is for us today. There were all kinds of things that might
happen before they got the crop in.
And it was the same with the
animals. If they gave their best animals to God, that had the potential
to really hurt the herd. They did not know if they’re next animals would
be as good. They did not know that a disease might not wipe out their
herd. There were all kinds of things that might happen.
But they did it. Not all of
them, probably. There were probably some who did not trust God that much.
But most of them did. And God blessed the Nation of Israel for it.
And God will bless us, too, if we trust God enough to give to God out of
our first and our best.
But it’s hard. I know it is.
I know what it’s like to look at a stack of bills and know I did not have
the money to pay them all. When that’s the situation, it’s hard to even
think about taking ten percent of our income and giving it to God. It’s
really hard to trust God that much. In fact, sometimes it’s hard to give
God any money at all.
So here’s what we did. This is
not my original idea--in fact, some of you have probably heard it before.
But it works. I know it works, because it worked for us.
At the time we started this, we were
giving about one to two percent of our income to God. And statistically,
that’s about the percent that most people give. So, what we did was say, “Okay.
For the next year, we’re going to give three percent of our income to
God. If we can make it doing that, fine. If not, then we’ll go back
to doing what we were doing.” We were not trusting God a lot, but we
decided to trust God enough to do that.
So, for the next year, we increased
our giving from one or two percent to three percent. And God came
through. We had enough. Not a lot extra, usually, but enough.
There were times when we wondered, times when it was tempting to cut
back, but we went through the year giving three percent to God. And it
worked out. We always had enough.
So, the next year, we went to four
percent. We still reserved the right to cut back if it did not work out.
We still had not made a total commitment. But we were willing to
trust God a little more. We gave four percent for the next year.
And again, God came through. We always had enough. Again, not
usually a lot extra. And again, there were times we were tempted to cut
back. But we kept at it. And it worked out. We always had
enough.
So, the next year, we went to five
percent. And the next year, six. Now, you’d think at some point I
might trust God enough to say let’s just go to ten, but I did not. We did
it a year at a time, and one percent at a time. It took several years to
get to where we were tithing. But we did it. And we’ve been doing
it for several years now. And God always comes through. We always
seem to have enough. Again, not always much extra. We still get
tempted to cut back sometimes. But somehow, it always works out. We
always have enough.
So that’s what I’d invite you to do.
Figure out what percent of your income you’re giving to God. And
for the next year, increase it by one percent. Trust God that much.
If it does not work, you can go back to what you’ve been doing. But
trust God that much. Trust God enough to give God a chance.
And if God comes through, increase
by one percent more the next year. And if God comes through again,
increase by one percent more again. Because I predict God will come
through. I’m not saying you’ll have a lot extra. I’m not saying you
won’t be tempted to cut back sometimes. But I predict that if you stick
with it, things will work out. You’ll always have enough.
And by the way, we’re not required
to stop when we get to ten percent. Tithing is a standard, but it’s not a
cap. It’s not a ceiling. We’re welcome to trust God some more and
go beyond that.
But try it. See what happens
when we stop giving God our leftovers. God deserves better than our
leftovers. God deserves our first and our best. So let’s give try
giving that to God. Let’s trust God. Because God always comes
through.
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