I remember the first time I
taught on money at my church. I was
slightly manic so that certainly helped my cause. Whenever I’m a little bit manic, I can think
pretty clearly and am on a natural high that can be quite engaging to a
congregation or a room full of five-year olds.
Either way I can choose to exploit it for good and represent Jesus well
or choose to exploit it to instead bring the focus onto myself. With that in mind, allow me to relay what I
shared that Sunday, at least part of it.
Basically, I challenged some
preconceived notions in the church that I had come across while growing up in
the Christian subculture. People have
often said that tithing was an Old Testament teaching, to this I respond Jesus
not so subtly alluded to the command to tithe in the New Testament as
well. Let’s say you don’t agree with
that as a pretty undeniable implication in that passage. Even so, where does it talk about money in
the New Testament, in the gospels or any book, in which case it states you should
give less than a tithe or 10%? Pretty
sure it argues that 10% is a basement, not a ceiling.
I also shared how some people I’ve
come into contact with have shared they don’t give because God loves a cheerful
giver and He wouldn’t be happy with my gifts because it wouldn’t be with a
cheerful heart. To this I simply
responded, out of love for this person and because I had the right relationship
to speak this into her life, “Well, don’t you think that has more to do with
your heart being in the wrong place then?!”
All this to illustrate the fact that using the cheerful heart argument
is simply and utterly a total cop out of having to actually obey God. Do you think the first time you give 10% you’re
really going to be overjoyed? Is that
really realistic? Or is it just as
likely and I would even argue more likely that it takes a while for you to feel
the joy. It takes a while to see how God
is going to use your alms to serve Him.
If you stick with it though, He is faithful and you will indeed become a
cheerful giver.
Finally, I wrapped up with a
challenge to sacrificial giving. My
preacher growing up was amazing at this.
He used Malachi where it says to “Test God” as his usual text and I
chose to use the same. You do know that’s
the only place in all of Scripture where God says to test Him, right? That should probably stick out to us on
account of that, don’t you think? For
some people 5% is a sacrifice, others it’s 10%.
My main concern here is the people who have grown comfortable in giving
10% to where it’s just something they do now.
If it doesn’t even register on your heart when you give, if it doesn’t
hurt at least a little, are you really giving anything at all?
What’s funny is that people never
want to talk about money in church.
There’s a good reason for this in that it has often been abused and
misguided people to be sure. However, we
do the gospel a great disservice by neglecting to preach on the subject of
money. I don’t know the stats off hand
but I’m pretty sure Jesus Himself spent quite a bit of time teaching on money,
right? It seems to me like it was a pretty
consistent thing He taught about in the Gospels if I remember correctly. Again, I could be way off base there as I
surely don’t have a Bible college degree, please correct me if I’m way off in
thinking Christ spent quite a bit of time talking about money, okay?
In short, what does the New
Testament teach about money? Is it
mainly about a percentage or about the state of your heart? It’s plainly obvious it’s much more about the
state of your heart, right? Some of us
need to start giving something, even a little bit is better than nothing. Others need to step up their games to give
10% because that’s what we’re called to.
Still others need to give a far greater percentage of their wealth or
perhaps, dare I even suggest it, all of it.
Maybe we would do well to trust Jesus that when He says where your
treasure is there will your heart be also that He actually meant it and furthermore
knew what He was talking about.
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