In 1979 the police in Rome uncovered a remarkable crime. Father Guido Antonelli, a humble parish priest, was discovered in the crypt of his church printing 1,000 lire banknotes! In his defence, he complained that he had to resort to forgery because his parishioners weren’t putting enough cash in the offering at Mass! I hasten to add that we are certainly not intending to take such a radical approach to the finances here. For a start, we haven’t got a crypt...
This is the last in our little series on money and giving. Some of the highlights of the eight talks (morning and evening) are these:
1) Remember that everything belongs to God. Sometimes people imagine that we have to resort to teach on giving from time to time because poor old God is short of cash again and we need to help him out a bit. No! In Psalm 50.9-12 God says, “I have no need... every animal of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills... If I were hungry I would not tell you.” The whole earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. That’s where to start when thinking about giving.
2) Enjoy what you have instead of dwelling on what you don’t have. Hebrews 13.5 says, “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have.” Jesus said, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; your life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions.” (Luke 12.15).
3) Understand that having much money can become a burden that blunts your spiritual cutting edge. Jesus said that “the worries of this life and the deceitfulness - note that word - the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word (of God planted in you) and make it unfruitful.” (Matthew 13.22).
4) If the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil (and it is because God’s word says so) then the reverse is also true. Love for God, expressed through a generous, giving heart, gladly releasing resources for the kingdom of God, lies at the root of all kinds of blessing and righteousness.
5) Living on credit is a snare. Incidentally, having a mortgage is not living on credit. Falling behind on your repayments is. J. John was right when he said how crazy it is that people spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need to keep up with neighbours they don’t even like! That’s the folly of credit. Proverbs 22.7 in the Message version says, listen to this now, “The poor are always ruled over by the rich, so don’t borrow and put yourself under their power.” When you see one of those ‘buy now, pay later’ offers, remember (before you get the credit card out), that by the time you’ve paid for it you’ll no longer want it.
6) Give God your first fruits, not your last fruits. 1 Corinthians 16.2 says, “On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income...” Notice he doesn’t say, give to God out of what’s left after you’ve covered all your outgoings. The term “first fruits” implies priority and precedence. And that’s the theme of this talk tonight.
1) Put God to the Test
The Prophecy of Malachi was written about 450 years before Christ. At that time, God’s people had returned from exile in Babylon and had begun to rebuild Jerusalem. There was a city wall with its gates crucial for security; there were new houses, there was a temple. All the signs of a society in recovery from trauma were there. A nation was miraculously back from the brink.
But not everything was going well. The harvest was failing – not just once but again and again. It was becoming predictably depressing. Why? Why were things not working out? It was because spiritually things had also become predictably depressing. Here are a few symptoms: In chapter 1 we discover that the people were ungrateful and the priests were doing their work carelessly and half-heartedly. Worship had become tired and stale. A season of spiritual malaise had become ingrained. In chapter 2 you find that people were getting married to unbelievers from idolatrous nations. Men were being unfaithful to their wives. Marriages were falling apart. In chapter 3 Malachi says that the people were oppressing widows, forgetting orphans, neglecting immigrants and overlooking the poor. The nation was in a state because it was becoming disconnected from God.
What single diagnosis does God give to this wide range of problems? It’s in v9: “You are under a curse - your whole nation - because you are robbing me.”
And what single remedy does God prescribe to lift the curse on the nation? It comes in the following verse; v10. “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.”
Here’s the background: The people of Israel, from the time of Moses onwards, had to give a tithe, that is to say 10% of their income. It was a compulsory tax and Deuteronomy 14 says it was levied for three reasons; firstly to celebrate the abundance of God’s provision; secondly, to give an income to the Levites in the temple who had no other way of earning a living; and thirdly, to assist the poor who had fallen on hard times. Everyone had to give 10% of their pay for those reasons.
But in Malachi’s day people were cheating on their taxes. They were trying to get away with 7%, 2%, 0%, 5%... They had fallen on hard times. When your harvests fail disastrously two, three, four years running, your economy falls into recession. I guess the people of Malachi’s day were saying, “Come on, you’ve got to be sensible, tighten the belt, make a few savings, cut back on non essentials.” But God says in v10, “Bring the whole tithe.” All of it. It’s precisely in these difficult times that I am looking to you for faithfulness in your finances.”
Time out! Isn’t God a bit severe here? Isn’t this a bit harsh, a bit insensitive? Well look what God promises to those who faithfully give back to him the first fruits, the first tenth. He talks about floodgates opening and superabundant provision and amazing blessing. He says you won’t have anywhere to put it all. And then God says something truly outrageous in v10. In case anyone was beginning to think “nah”, God says, “Come on then, try me! Test me.”
Now God had explicitly said in Deuteronomy 6.16, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” Do not do that. Time and time again God says in the Bible, “Don’t test me.” The one and only exception is right here. When it comes to money God permits us, indeed he actually eggs us on, to step out in faith and challenge him to deliver. He stakes his honour on this. You want to see if God can be trusted? Give back to the Lord to the radical limits of your faith. Give him back the first tenth even when it’s a struggle to pay the bills. Step out in faith even in hard times. Enter into God’s anointing of glad giving and see if he disappoints you in return.
I have never met a generous giver who said, “I am dissatisfied with God’s blessings in my life. I feel short changed by the Lord. I want my money back!” God delivers.
Mike Pilavachi, pastor of Soul Survivor, often talks about his own struggles in the area of faith and finances; and he used to be an accountant! I remember him talking once about the summer of 2000. He used to write a little piece every other month at that time for Christianity magazine. In July that year Soul Survivor was just about to launch a huge mission in Manchester. With weeks to go he was told, “Mike, we are hundreds of thousands of pounds short. Soul Survivor is days away from collapse.”
And so he thought, “This is it. This is the end of the ministry.” That same day in July was the deadline day for his article for the September edition of Christianity magazine. So, feeling very depressed and dejected, he sat down and started his column with these words: “By the time you read this, Soul Survivor will be bankrupt. The question I want to ask is ‘why’. Is it because of my sin? Is it that God withdrew his hand because I got proud? Is it because we just didn’t listen to him? I don’t know why.” And then he finished off the piece with a few platitudes and generally encouraging spiritual thoughts and then sent it off to the editors.
Within three weeks the Lord miraculously provided everything they needed. Every penny. From the jaws of insolvency Soul Survivor completely turned round and, what’s more, God abundantly blessed the mission in Manchester with many people converted and people healed on the streets. And people were going up to Mike Pilavachi and saying things like, “Mike, how do you do it? You’re just so full of faith. You step out boldly in the direst of straits and God delivers, you’re amazing!” And I love the way Mike tells the story, he would reply, “Well, I think it’s a gift from the Lord really. You know, what God orders he always pays for!” And just as he was considering writing a book on faith and finances - guess what? They published the September edition of Christianity magazine!
Now, my guess is that this whole theme is extremely challenging for some of us. Research done in the 1990s revealed that, in evangelical churches, 20% of the people cover 80% of the budget. 30% pay for the rest and 50% give nothing. My hunch is that All Saints’ is much healthier than that and that we buck the trend. I say it’s a hunch because you should know that I make it a point of principle, as a church leader, to never access the information on who gives what so as to avoid any partiality. But I would guess that in all likelihood some of you are sitting here listening to this and taking a deep breath and thinking, “Oh my” because money, more than anything else, is the area in which you most struggle to have great faith.
So some of you might be saying, “What is God saying here? Can I afford this? What should my giving look like? How much should I be giving?” 10%? Whoa! That’s impossible! Remember the widow in Mark’s Gospel? How much did she give? “Everything she had to live on”, says Jesus, who commended her for it. He didn’t say, “How irresponsible, how is she going to pay the gas bill now?” Everything she had; her salary, her housekeeping, her benefits, her retirement plan, her savings, her stocks and shares and her pocket money – the lot! C.S. Lewis wrote: “I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.” God says here, in v9, “You are robbing me” if you give anything less than a tenth of your earnings.
2) Giving from the Heart
Yes, but isn’t this Old Testament living? Aren’t we free from a mandatory 10% tax on faith? Didn’t Jesus do away with the Law of Moses? Some of you might be saying to yourselves, “If I’m a Christian, why should I have to give away a tithe?” Or put it another way, “If I’m a Christian, am I, like the Israelites in Malachi 3, under a curse if I don’t?” After all, tithing is part of the Old Covenant which no Christian is bound by because Jesus has fulfilled it. Isn’t that right? Giving ten per cent as a legal obligation or requirement or duty was abolished when Jesus gave 100% on the cross wasn’t it?
Yes, absolutely. We live under grace and not under law. I actually think tithing is one of the great secrets of living under God’s blessing. I have never earned big money but I can testify to God’s abundant provision whenever I have done so – and much more so than when I haven’t. I recommend it absolutely. But I want to say also that there is no compulsion from God over this. The New Testament angle on this is “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.” (2 Corinthians 9.7) Under Christ you are free to tithe. The difference is that under Moses you were not free not to tithe.
Under Christ everything you have is his and the more you give away, without counting, the more he seems to bless you - without counting. Under the Law of Moses everyone went around calculator getting the maths just right. They spent their weekends weighing the apples that they picked from the garden so they could give away exactly 1.2 kilos of the 120 kilos they collected. That is emphatically not what it’s about.
This is what Jesus commented on in our second reading. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices - mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law - justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”
The Pharisees tithed meticulously and methodically. But Jesus said they were under condemnation, that’s what “woe” means, it’s a curse. Their tithe was just mechanical. Terry was saying last week that you can’t love without giving but you can give without loving. These guys were giving without loving. They were the epitome of evangelical exactness but their hearts were cold and their devotion was centred on their own righteousness and self importance. They were faultless in giving 10.000% of their payslip, their grants, their benefits, their bonuses and every window box herb - but they were unmoved by the kids next door who had nothing to eat because their father had died last year. God deliver us from mathematical exactness and stone faced indifference.
So yes, I want to say that Jesus did fulfil the Law. In this age of grace we are no longer under its curse. Jesus, in his innocent life, his incomparable passion, his glorious death and almighty resurrection, has taken the curse upon him, has paid the price in full, has defeated the powers of darkness, has cancelled the written code that was against us and has opened the way to know God as Father. Wow! What a God he is!
Will our spontaneous response to him under grace be poorer and stingier than under law? Surely more grace and less law should result in abundant generosity that goes beyond mathematical calculations? How could living under grace ever result in half-hearted, close-fisted, self-centred lifestyles?
Let me give you an example - this is a true story - of what giving looks like under grace. Kathie and I know a couple who are planting an underground house church in the Muslim world. I’ll call them Marie and Hassam. One day, they needed a sudden cash injection of $1,000 for their ministry. So they contacted some Christian friends in the USA, Bill and Sue, asking them to consider loaning them that sum. The reply was “Yes,” but it came with a condition. The condition was that they would not pay the money back when they had the means to do so but instead they must pass it on to someone else who needed it, stipulating the same condition; that the money be moved on somewhere else in the kingdom of God instead of reimbursed. A few months later, Hassam received an unexpected productivity bonus from the bank he worked for of... $1000. So the money was passed on to someone else in need, who in turn blessed someone else when they had the means to do so, and so it went on. The gift kept on multiplying as God blessed the spirit of generosity in his people with overflowing blessing and plenteous surprises.
Did Bill and Sue reckon that $1000 as an obligatory tithe? No. They are not under the Law. They are free from it. They are under grace. Everything they have is God’s. They joyfully released that money and set up a virtuous chain that brought blessing to many and great gladness to them.
God’s economy does not work like the world’s. The world’s economy booms and then busts in cycles that last about 12 years. It is affected by interest rates and fiscal policy. But God’s economy expands through faith and love, and contracts through unbelief and selfishness. It runs on childlike trust in God’s provision and holy joy.
Ending
So, to end, let me commend giving in All Saints’ as a worthy investment.
What might God do if every earning person would tithe and seek ways of radical liberality? The work of God would accelerate so fast you’d feel the G-force! As it is, giving here releases resources for youth and children’s work. Over the last year we have had to sit down and ask ourselves “How are we going to cope with the record numbers of young people we are getting at 360?” Just last year we had to move Big Ted to two mornings because it was full. Now both mornings are full. Some of the parents from there are doing Journeys and Alpha courses. There were so many old folk at the Lunch Club service last week we didn’t have room for them. And there’s so much more. We can hardly keep up! That has happened because God has been good to us and because people have given joyfully and open-handedly.
We’ve planted Alan and Nicky out at Stockton. We’ve invested the lions’ share of our curacy ministry out there too because God has given us so much here and we believe we’ve got to give it away. Just over a decade ago Long Newton was a dead duck, now they’re getting geared up to invite the village to healing services and bring the gospel into the village pub. I was there this morning and it is now a vibrant community of faith. I believe God has more blessing to pour out on this locality and I believe he will continue to use us in that.
God is on the move. He has graciously stretched out his hand and healed the sick, some of whom had no hope. In the short time I’ve been here I’ve seen people delivered of demons too. The Lord has added to the church new people from the last Alpha course. The kingdom is advancing. This is an exciting time and I believe there’s much, much more to come.
“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. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit," says the Lord Almighty. “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land.”
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 18th January 2009
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