September 29, 2024, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
All right, so this is our last, as we’ve gone through the Bible. And it makes sense, right? About 70-75% of the Bible is Old Testament. September, 75% of the year is over.
This is our last Old Testament sermon tonight, and it is in Malachi. And it is the. Yes. Drum roll, please. The tithing sermon. Ah, run away. Run away. The dreaded tithing sermon.
And I just want to let you know the two sermons people hate to come to church for are the tithing sermon and the evangelism sermon.
And I just want you to know I struggle with preaching the tithing sermon. We’ll get into that in a second, but let me read the passage. It’s a famous passage on tithing from Malachi 3:7-12.
Ever since the day of your ancestors, you have scorned my decrees and failed to obey them. Now return to me, and I’ll return to you, says the Lord of heaven’s armies. But you ask, how can we return to you?
7 Ever since the days of your ancestors, you have scorned my decrees and failed to obey them. Now return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “But you ask, ‘How can we return when we have never gone away?’ 8 “Should people cheat God? Yet you have cheated me! “But you ask, ‘What do you mean? When did we ever cheat you?’ “You have cheated me of the tithes and offerings due to me. 9 You are under a curse, for your whole nation has been cheating me. 10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test! 11 Your crops will be abundant, for I will guard them from insects and disease. Your grapes will not fall from the vine before they are ripe,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 12 “Then all nations will call you blessed, for your land will be such a delight,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. (Malachi 3:7-12, NLT)
God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, o Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer. Amen.
All right, why preach on giving? Why preach on tithing?
I am always hesitant to do so, and here is my hesitancy. And I think, hopefully this doesn’t apply to you, but in case it does, it can come across as appearing as self-serving. Right?
I make my living from this. And therefore, preachers can really put the screws down on people because they want a raise. They want to live better. They want their church to be bigger. And you all need to pony up and tithe. And if you don’t, there’s a curse on you and all that kind of stuff. And then people go to church.
We had a first-time visitor this morning in Bremerton. I love first-time visitors in church, except when I’m preaching this sermon, right? Because it’s like, oh, gosh. And I just called her out. I got her name. I said, listen, Sharon, come back next week, and I won’t be doing this. You know?
She was very gracious, actually. She was fine with it. But I don’t want to appear to be self-serving. On the other side, it is my job. It is my job and all of our jobs to make disciples.
And if you avoid discipling people around the issue of finances, you avoid discipling people.
The Bible talks a lot about money and about our stewardship of money and about what we do with money. And money is a spiritual issue. It’s a much bigger spiritual issue than most of us realize.
Many people are deeply held back in their faith and their walk and their prayer lives and everything simply because they do not have open hands toward God. And God wants to fill their hands with answers, and they don’t put themselves in a position to receive.
And so this is. And you don’t grow. Listen, there are a few stopping places for Christians, right? You become a Christian. One of the stopping, one of the places where people stumble is church, because they become a Christian and they go to church, and they expect that everybody there is a mature Christian and almost just as close to Jesus as they can be.
And then they find out that people in church have feet of clay, right?
People in church gossip, and people in church are hypocrites, and people in church are mean, and people in church are snide, and they get so disillusioned.
And the irony and the tragedy of that disillusionment is they’re disillusioned with the church because people in church are like them, and they wanted to go someplace where there were people who were better than them, and they’re not all better than them.
But another place people get hung up is. It’s like, God, I’ll follow you. God says, good, give me money. God, I’ll follow you.
Good, give me more money than you think you can afford. God, I’ll follow you. Yeah, yeah. Give me more money, God, not that.
And then you’re stuck in fear and unbelief, and it’s a point of growing. And so preaching about money for preachers can be very self-serving, but on the other hand, it can be very servant-oriented.
If it’s my job, and if it’s part of my job, to equip you to be all that God has called you to do and to be, then one of the things that’s necessary for that to happen is giving.
And so if you want to be a disciple of Jesus, pay attention. The Bible says a lot about money.
Now, I want to say this. Tithing is not necessarily a New Covenant commandment. It is in the Old Covenant. And Malachi is preaching from an Old Covenant perspective. But I also want to say this.
We tend to say, those of us who are New Covenant Christians, we tend to say, because the Old Covenant is no longer binding on us, that the Old Covenant is irrelevant. Well, no, it’s not. In fact, the Old Covenant is incredibly relevant. It teaches us the heart and the mind and the purposes of God.
And Jesus tells the Pharisees this. He says your righteousness must exceed that of an Old Covenant hero. your righteousness has to be better than somebody who obeys the Old Covenant. you’re supposed to be better, not less than.
Less than is simply cheap grace. Oh, you know, easy believism. I said the prayer. I gave my life to Jesus. He’s filled me with amazing grace. Zippity doo dah, zippity day, I skip along on my merry way.
So, no, Jesus says, follow me. And when you follow him, you exceed the Old Covenant. I mean, the Old Covenant says, don’t commit adultery. I got you, Jesus. I’ll do that. I won’t commit adultery. Don’t even look at a woman in lust. Shut up, Jesus. Doggone it. Why’d you say that? I was good at just, you know.
You know, I’m not going to go chase other women. But, you know, I live in a day and age where there are computer screens, TV screens, and magazines and all sorts of images that assault me every day.
I’ve got to exceed the righteousness of the Old Covenant according to Jesus. If I really want to be like Jesus, every once in a while, my wife, she drinks her diet Pepsi, and I’ll have. I’ll bring her a cup, and I say, you want some ice? And she goes, yeah. And so I’ll fill the cup with ice.
And I hand her the cup and I say, honey, I only have ice for you. But that’s what Jesus says, right? Only have eyes for her.
Exceed the righteousness of the Old Covenant. The tithe is an Old Covenant commandment. But Jesus endorses the tithe. He tells the Pharisees who were tithers, but in their tithing, they thought that they were righteous. And in their tithing, they thought that gave them excuse. Since I’m giving to God, I don’t have to give to care for my parents in their old age. And Jesus says, that is horrendous.
You’re using a tradition to violate the heart of God. But he doesn’t say, don’t stop tithing so you can care for your parents. He simply says this: you ought to do both. You ought to do both. And so in that, Jesus doesn’t condemn the tithe; he endorses the tithe.
Paul doesn’t speak of tithing. Paul talks in 2 Corinthians of generosity. And he also talks. And I tell you, evangelicals who aren’t cares about charismatics and Pentecostals, they love this. But evangelicals who just are so aghast with the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel, listen, I get it.
When you baptize greed, that’s a sin. When you make people false promises about their offerings, that’s a sin.
But I’ll tell you, everywhere the New Testament, it seems to me, everywhere, the New Testament and the Old Testament talk about generosity and giving. God promises rewards. God promises rewards.
We’ll get to that later. But Paul says, give generously. And then he says this, and God will give generously. So sparingly, God will so sparingly.
Paul talks about things like proportional giving. Well, though that’s not specifically mentioning the tithe, that’s exactly what the tithe is. It’s proportional giving.
You make $20,000, you give $2,000. You make $200,000, you give $20,000.
By the way, let me tell you something. If you want to practice the discipline of tithing, start when you’re poor. It’s actually easier. You think, no, it’s harder. I got less to live on. Yeah, but the check, or the. Who writes checks anymore? But the magic voodoo payment you do electronically over your phone is so much more painless when it’s so much smaller.
Train yourself in the small amounts so that when you have big amounts, you’ve already developed the discipline.
Dear ones, you’re not going to lose your salvation if you don’t tithe, but you’re hurting yourselves.
I remember when I was a young Methodist pastor and I had no money, and the Methodist contributed to my pension, which now at 65, I’m very grateful for. I only had eleven years of it. But it’s something. It’s going to be something, you know, it’s going to be some help. But they also had an amount that they asked me to contribute.
And I felt like, with my three kids and my pastor salary and all that, I just felt like my budget didn’t allow it. And, you know, I didn’t contribute. I asked one of my friends, I said, is that a sin? Am I required as a Methodist pastor to contribute that?
He said, no, you’re not required. But he said, you’re only hurting yourself. you’re only hurting yourself by not adding on to that. And, you know, now, at 65, it’s like, well, he was right.
He was right, you know, and so, dear ones, you’re only hurting yourselves if you do not follow this pattern.
What is the tithe used for? Well, in the Old Testament, there are three things. It is used to maintain the temple and to maintain the feasts and festivals. In other words, the maintenance of worship.
And here’s where, again, the Old Covenant is not specifically applicable to us, but yet the principles and the things the Old Covenant teach are the tithe was for the maintenance of the temple and the maintenance of the feasts and the festivals and Israel’s cycle of worship.
Guess what? Today, same thing. Empowered church very graciously allows us to use this space. But not for free, right? Not for free. And we have. We have you. you. We have insurance payments. We just got robbed at the Bremerton church. And guess what? We have to pay.
You know, we pay insurance, and, you know, there’s all sorts. We. There’s all sorts of things that you don’t even notice or realize that, you know, Sunday school supplies, cameras, websites. There’s all sorts of things that maintain the right music equipment, and we pay for the right to use those songs, and there’s just. It’s like, there’s a ton of stuff, you know, this.
You run a household, right? I remember when my sister-in-law, young, got out of college. She started working, and she was living in San Francisco, one of the most expensive places to live. She had a nice job, and she was single. I remember she said the most profound and obvious line that every kid out of college eventually says. She said, if it weren’t for all these bills, I would have a lot of money.
Yeah, if it weren’t for all these bills. We got a lot of bills. We got a lot of bills. And so it pays for the maintenance of worship.
The second thing it did is it provided for the Levites. And the Levites were required not to own land, not to grow crops, not to have cattle. And so they made their living off the tithe.
The New Testament says the same thing. He who preaches the gospel, the one who preaches the gospel is worthy to make their living from the gospel. And don’t muzzle the ox while he’s treading out the grain.
Dear ones, I’m an ox treading out the grain right now. All right, so go get them, ox. Kevin. He even says that that preacher is worthy of double honor.
What does double honor mean? It means you ought to get paid twice as much as anybody else. That’s us. Preachers ought to be making athletes’ salaries, for goodness’ sakes. I don’t need it. I’m not asking for it.
And there’s also the illustration of Paul, who is bivocational. And there are many preachers who are bivocational. But you and your giving, you supply for people like me. Not only people like me.
In Bremerton, we try to pay our worship leaders. We’ve got some nursery workers. We pay Ats Kagawa for the work that he does for us. You provide for the Levites. I’ll tell you, that’s about 50% of our budget. About 50% of our budget is to pay for people, all right? Which actually is about right on mark for churches, all right? Some churches up to 60%, even up to two-thirds. Other churches down to about 40%.
But we’re right in that kind of middle range for churches now. If we can’t afford that, I’ll go be bi-vocational. And I came up here, I just told the Lord, I told the Lord, I’ll be bi-vocational. And the Lord said, no, I’m going to show you. I’m going to provide. And he has, for 17 years with small churches, he has provided for my wife and I.
My wife has a good job, but I’ve been paid, and I appreciate it. I appreciate that you give and you supply that. It’s very interesting.
I’ve told you the story about the pennies before, right? That, you know, years and years ago, I prayed, Lord, because, you know, there have been many times. There have been times where I haven’t gotten paid, too, and there have been times in the fluctuation of the life of the church where it’s like, oh, we’re running out of money. We don’t have any money left.
One of those times I was praying to the Lord. This was years ago, early 2010, or something like that. I’m saying, Lord, are you going to provide?
Do I need to go out and get a job? Are you going to provide, Lord, give me a sign or are you going to provide?
And I got home and I opened my car door, and there on the ground was a penny. I felt like the Lord said, yeah, I’m going to provide. I kind of picked it up. I kind of laughed. I said, thanks, Lord. You know, we’ll stretch it. We’ll see what we can do with this.
But every day that week, I found a random penny on the ground. And since that time, it has been assigned to me. All right? It has been assigned to me.
I find random. I don’t look for money, but I find random money on the ground all the time. Let’s see. Let’s see if this one has any more wisdom to say than me.
Sherry, we are not the slick church. And we are. Yeah, see, we’re the church. We don’t. Yeah, you were. You were. And you know, and your red face is delightful right now. you’re good. You are good.
All right, so back to the penny story. If I can find my way back. So ever since then, you know, there are times and we go through ebbs and flows and, you know, there are times. It was interesting.
I just let you know, The Firehouse Church, you know, during COVID everything was down and our numbers were down. We didn’t have people. We always had money during COVID And now we actually have more people coming to church again. We have more people coming to church in Bremerton than we did since before COVID But they’re all new and none of them are giving.
And so we are now broke again. All right, so we’re broke again. That’s not the reason I’m preaching this sermon. It was just a coincidence that it happened to come at the same time.
But it was funny this morning as I’m thinking about preaching about tithing, and there’s a sweet little old lady who we share that church with, Discovery Fellowship. They meet at nine, we meet at eleven. And I’m preaching about tithing, and I was praying to the Lord about provision again for the church. And it’s like, Lord, are you going to provide?
You know, and you know, we’re at that point again and been at that point a dozen times. We’re at it again and I’m praying, Lord, are you going to provide? You know?
And this little old lady is leaving church as she does every Sunday. Little Marcy, she walks out of church and she stops. And she picks something up and she walks back. I’m standing at the door and she says, oh, I found this. A penny. A penny. God is faithful. God is so faithful. Marcy’s penny. There it is. There it is.
You supply for the Levites. Number three, you care for the poor. Number three. The tithe was in the Old Testament, the Old Covenant. The tithe was to care for the poor. Again, the church does that. Churches do that throughout the world. Churches give money to the poor.
You know, people always say, oh, these megachurches. I know, you know, there may be a lot wrong with certain megachurches and all that. I get tired of people bashing megachurches. I think a lot of it is just petty jealousy and envy, and there are problems.
I know there are, and they make the headlines. But, you know, I just heard the other day of a mega church and churches far and away traditionally the biggest giving month every year.
What do you think the biggest giving month is for ministries and churches? Oh, it’s not even close. Yeah, December. You know, a lot of people do end-of-the-year gifts, and December is just a big giving.
And I just heard of this mega church in Florida, and 100% of their December offerings go to missions, which I’m sure is more than a tithe.
You know, it’s one-twelfth if every month is equal, but every month is not equal. And so I’m sure it’s more than a tithe. We do that at our church. We do that at our church. We tithe. And we more than tithe to ministries and missions beyond our local church.
And so, a lot of that goes to the poor. There’s a feeding ministry in the Dominican Republic that we support. There are benevolence ministries in Africa that we support.
And then just in our own community, sometimes we give to the Kitsap Rescue Mission or Salvation Army.
The other thing is, we care for one another. I don’t know if you know this, but if a family has need in our church, we have a benevolence fund. We’ve paid people’s power bills. We’ve paid their light bills. We care for people in our church.
Had a lady recently. She was living with a friend, and all her stuff was in storage, and she’s looking for a job, and she can’t afford.
She got behind in her payment for her storage facilities, and she came to me and she said, you know, I’m $500 behind in my payment for my storage facility, you know, and I’m just trying to help pay that. And y’all paid her bill completely off.
She was amazed. She thought she, you know, she came in, she thought, maybe give me, you know, $50 or $100 to help. And I gave her a check for $500. I said, she attends the church. She’s one of us.
I said, we’re not going to have a family member lose all their stuff. And we just, we gave her a check for $500. And here you go. Here you go.
She was living with a friend who wasn’t a Christian believer and said Christians are a bunch of hypocrites, and they only care about their programs and their ministries and all that stuff. And this friend was blown away. It was a witness to Christ, to this unbelieving friend, that you were so generous with the poor.
That’s what the tithe is there for, all right? We do that on a regular basis. And you know what? I’ve never been burned by that. I’ve never had somebody who’s just a taker. Taker, taker. Almost everybody. Almost everybody that we have done that for, pressed down, shaken together, overflowing, have already given previously or give back way above and beyond that.
But in those times, right? Galatians says, carry your own burden, and then it says, bear one another’s burdens. What does that mean? We all do our job, right? Get up. You know, my wife and I, we’re, we’re grumpy old baby boomers.
You know, we just want to, we just want to tell people. We. I’m. I didn’t say, I didn’t say you, Kathleen, but I said my wife and I were grumpy old baby boomers. you’re a cheerful young baby boomer.
But, you know, my wife and I were having dinner today, and she was talking about some people at her work, and she’s talking about this one lady who’s always late, and she always has excuses. Oh, the traffic was so bad today, or this or that was happening. I just hate Moines.
And my wife’s like, the traffic’s bad for all of us. She didn’t say this to, you know, I get to hear from her what she wants to tell other people, right? Any other husband, you got that situation. You get to hear from her what she wants.
Yeah, she just tells me, and I just looked at her and I said, here’s what you want to tell her, right? Show up to work on time and do your job. That’s what we all have to do. That’s what grown-ups do, right?
You show up to work on time. You do your job. If the traffic’s bad, here’s a clue: leave earlier. If you’re running late, don’t stop at Starbucks and get your caramel frappuccino. Just show up to work without it. We got black coffee at work. You can get your caffeine without all the fluff. All right?
You bear your own burdens, but when a brother or sister falls, you help them carry their burden. And that’s reciprocal. Right? Because there might come a time in your life, it’s like, oh, it’s my turn.
I’ve given time and time again to help others, but, oh, my gosh, now it’s my turn. Now something happened to me, and then you just graciously say thank you. We get back up. And that’s how it works in a family. We help one another out. We care for the poor. We care for those in need.
And finally, in the New Covenant, there’s an additional use for the tithe, and that is the expansion of the gospel. One of the things that you do is you allow me to leave.
Go on mission trips to Africa, go on conferences to Grace Covenant. You pay for that time that I’m gone. Those people, you know, they’re not paying me to go to Africa. You know, I’m paying for that.
And I go down to these. And the last time I was at the Grace Covenant conference in August, I preached at Living Hope Christian Fellowship, the church we planted in 1996 or 1998. My brother-in-law is the pastor there, and he always asks me to preach when I go down there.
I preached a sermon and I gave an altar call, and three people came to Christ. The expansion of the gospel.
All right, you’re a part of that, right? You weren’t. You didn’t. You didn’t sit here and say, you can’t go, Kevin, you have to preach at our church. We’re paying you. You know, I’ve had people come into me and say, you know, you work for me, buddy. I pay your salary. You know, it’s like, yeah, I work for Jesus anyway. But you make that possible.
We lead people to Christ every year at both. At Pauldenne, there are new believers every year. And then again, our mission is giving around the world.
I’m going to go preach at the pastor’s conference next week in Ghana, West Africa. Pastor Sante from Togo is an amazing evangelist. Pastor Sante converts whole villages at a time. All right? And you’re allowing me to go, and therefore you are going to. To what? Bring Pastor Sante encouragement and equipping to do it more.
We’re expanding the kingdom. We’re expanding the gospel by your tithes and offerings. That’s what it goes to. Some of it is very exciting.
Some of it is very sexy. You know, it’s like, oh, we’re leading people to Christ in Africa.
Other parts of it are very mundane. They’re very boring. Oh, we’re paying the light bill. Guess what? It’s all part of a family, right? It’s all part of a family.
Like I said, we just got all our stuff stolen. We pay insurance every year, and so we’re going to get that back. We’re not going to get all of it back, because even though we pay insurance every year, they still charge us $1,000 per claim. It’s called a deductible.
All right? And so it’ll cost us $1,000 to get new sound equipment instead of three. But that’s instead of $3,000. Of course, we’ve paid that insurance. Oh, nevermind.
Up to this point, they’re winning. They’re winning. That’s all I want to say. All right.
New Covenant. Reasons for giving generously: love. You give generously because you love. God so loved the world. He gave. He gave. You cannot love without giving, and that’s just not financially. That’s time. That’s service. That’s all these things. You cannot love without giving. You can give without loving.
You can give with bad motives, but it is impossible to love. At the very heart and essence of love is sacrifice, is giving.
If I told my wife, honey, I love you, but I’m not going to do anything around the house, she would go, what do you mean when you say those words? Her love language is acts of service.
I love you. How do I know? Because when you came home from work, there were no dirty dishes in the sink, not a big deal.
Or when you were sleeping because you worked all night and your car was on empty because you happened to think that “E” means enough. I took it to the gas station and got it up to “F”.
It is a mystery to me how, in 43 years of marriage, that woman has only run out of gas once. She brags about it. She goes, you know where it says 0 mile left? She goes, I’ve gone beyond that. Great. Proud of you. All right.
You grow in your faith. Of course you do. Of course you do. Faith is spelled R-I-S-K.
What is the number one false god in our culture? And by false god, I mean that which we are tempted to put our faith in, our reliance in for our security and our hope. It is our money.
And unless you start giving away more than you think you can afford, you are stuck in your faith. You are stuck in your faith. Most people don’t think they can afford 10%, and you’re stuck in your faith.
By the way, we’re in the richest culture in the history of the planet. People a lot poorer than us throughout the history of the world have tithed. We think we’re poor because we can only afford a $15,000 car instead of a $70,000 truck.
Go on a mission. Strip. Get out of your context. When people tell you Toyotas never die, they are telling you the truth. They go to Haiti and live a miserable existence for another 30 years with duct tape.
You will grow in your faith because you will discover God’s faithfulness as you step beyond. Listen, don’t make common sense your God.
Common sense is great, and it ought to be followed until God tells you not to. And nobody in the Bible ever did anything great without defying common sense.
I do not speak against common sense. I pastor in downtown Bremerton. I am surrounded by people who want to sleep on our property who have ruined their lives because they have defied common sense. They were told, don’t do drugs. It’ll ruin your life. No, I can handle this. And it ruined their lives.
And in their ruined lives, they ruin other people’s lives, or they make other people’s lives harder.
So I’m a. You know, I tell my kids, you know, don’t be a knucklehead. Follow common sense. But if you’re gonna follow Jesus, he’s gonna tell you to defy common sense. Leave your boats. Follow me.
Oh, wait. I got a family to feed now. Leave your boats. Follow me. Wait. I got a wife. My fishing business is booming right now. Why would I leave my boats and follow me and follow you?
Because you have no idea who’s asking you to follow you. But when you do, you’ll never regret it.
Hey, Abram. Leave your comfortable retirement and go where God is so vague, to a land I’ll show you. Like, I mean, are there beaches? Are there condos? Where are we going? We going to Hawaii? Where are we going?
Moses, remember when you thought you were going to deliver Israel and you failed? Yeah. And you quit and you ran out to the desert.
Now, a bush that is on fire, talking to you is saying, go back and confront the most powerful man in the world with a stick and a brother who doesn’t have much of a backbone. Lead 2 million people across the desert? Yeah. No, I stutter. I can’t do that. That doesn’t make any sense.
There will come a time in your following of Jesus, if you seek to grow in your faith, where he is going to challenge you around the area of finances. He’s going to challenge you to give more than you can afford. He’s going to challenge you to step out on the water.
When I left the Methodist church, I knew I had to leave the Methodist church, and it was the very. It was. Now it’d be easy. Jill and I, yeah, we’re fine.
We had three little kids at home, and I was leaving a nice middle-class, guaranteed-income job for who knows what. When I came to Washington, I left that nice job for who knows what.
I live in a wonderful house, drive cars that work, that run. I prayed for years, just as a treat, and said, God, I’d really like a red Camaro. I got a red Camaro. It’s not a brand new one, but it’s a red Camaro.
I don’t know if you know this about me, but I do not struggle with hunger. Easy now. Be kind. I’m what they call a full gospel preacher. I’m my father’s son. Hey, where are them M&M’s?
Grow your faith. You spell faith R-I-S-K. You honor God with your tithe, with worship, and obedience. When you give your tithe, you are worshiping God, you are humbly submitting to Him, and you’re obeying Him. If you don’t obey God with your money, what do you obey God with?
I used to be hardcore when I was young. I used to preach tithe or go to hell. It’s like, oh, pastor.
But here’s what I meant by that. And it wasn’t really telling people they don’t tithe, they were going to go to hell. But here’s what I meant by that. If God doesn’t own your wallet, does he really own your heart? If God doesn’t own your wallet, does he own your heart? That’s a good question to ask.
Now, I’m much nicer in my old age and I’ll get to this at the end of the sermon here. Never met an unhappy tither. I never met an unhappy tither.
People who give and who trust God and who are out there are the happiest, most blessed people on the face of the planet. Again, you’re doing yourself a favor. I ain’t begging you for money.
Oh, by the way, here’s my disclaimer back to the very beginning of my sermon. No, he’s starting over. Don’t worry, I’ll get back here.
Two things. I do two things. I don’t hear many pastors do this, but I do two things. One, if you think I’m trying to get into your pocket, then I’ll just tell you this. Give to another ministry.
You need to give more than we need to get. Just give to another ministry. All right? It’s about discipleship, not about supplying for the church. God will take care of us. God will take care of me. So there.
Now, if you think I got a problem with money because I’m asking you to give, and you’re like, oh, he just said, give to another ministry. Well, I don’t want to do that, either. Now, who has a problem with money? Just give to somebody else.
And here’s the other thing I do. I so believe God. Again, I’m getting ahead of myself. But I so believe that God blesses those who tithe and who give generously that I actually tell people who are just stepping out on this and going, I don’t think I can do this. The numbers don’t add up. This is scary.
Do it for one month, and if it doesn’t work and you’re not blessed and you don’t see the goodness of God in it, and you’re not, just come and go to Ats and say, hey, I want my money back, all right?
This is the only church I know that gives a money-back guarantee on tithing. We are like, we have a service center. You know? I’m telling you the truth. This is for your benefit. I’m being nice to you tonight, and it sets you free from the sins of greed and worldliness.
The older I get. Here’s something else that’ll set you free from worldliness. Growing old. Growing old will set you free from worldliness. Why? Because you realize, hey, everything I dream for in this world ain’t going to happen. All right? It’s not going to happen.
I gave up bucket listing a long time ago. You know why I gave up bucket listing? Because I get to go to the new heavens and the new earth. I got all eternity to fulfill my bucket, and I got a great God who fills buckets better than I can dream, hope, or imagine.
But one of the ways to worldliness is a sin. Living for the things of this world is a sin. The Bible is very clear on that. It quenches your faith.
One of the ways to free yourself from worldliness is to give the means that you wanted to use to achieve those worldly dreams. And it is amazing how many of those dreams God turns around and fulfills in other ways in this world and the next. It frees you from the sin of greed.
Karen, you asked earlier, is a pastor disqualified because of addiction? I did a quick look there in 1 Timothy, and there are three specific things that he mentions. One is be the husband of but one wife.
And so if you’re a sex addict out there chasing other women, you’re disqualified.
The other said, do not be addicted to much wine. If you’re using drugs or alcohol addictively, you’re disqualified.
And another one, it said, was not a lover of money. If you’re greedy, you’re disqualified.
And then it covered a whole bunch of things when it said, be self-controlled. So if you’re a pernicious gossip or if you just really can’t stop yourself at the M&M casserole or whatever, you’re disqualified.
All right, so, yeah, but be set free. If you want to be set free from greed, give your money away. That’s a great way to be set free from greed.
I’m a lover of money, but I really want to be a lover of God. Well, separate yourself from the thing that separates you from God, all right?
There are great blessings to tithing. Oh, no. you’re going to be a prosperity preacher. You bet you I am. You know why? The Bible’s a prosperity preaching Bible. God is amazingly over the top, a promiser of rewards.
Now, I’m not going to be a prosperity preacher in this way. I’m not going to tell you that if you give to this church and this ministry, God’s going to make you rich.
I’m not going to make you any false promises that if you give $10 today because God gives 30, 60, or 100 fold, tonight’s the very special night. God has an offer. He’s giving 150 fold. I’m not doing that. That’s manipulation. It’s garbage. It’s wicked. It’s evil. Not in that sense.
And neither am I going to be a prosperity preacher by saying, if you tithe, your whole life will be blessed and nothing bad will happen to you. But I am going to be a prosperity teacher where the Bible is a prosperity teacher, and it is a prosperity teacher all over the place.
God promises reward. Test me in this. The Lord says, try me and see what he talks about. Material bless. See if your barns aren’t full. See if your crops aren’t abundant. You cannot outgive a generous God. You cannot outgive a generous God. It’s impossible.
You got a rich daddy. You got a daddy who provides. Paul says God will richly supply all your needs. Was Paul a prosperity preacher? I don’t know. He said, sow sparingly and you’ll reap sparingly. Sow generously and you’ll reap generously.
I’ll tell you what, if Paul was on TV today, YouTube would be lighting up about that terrible prosperity preacher, Paul. Did you hear what he said? He said, there’s a reciprocity. There’s almost like spiritual laws in giving, that if you give generously, God’s going to give generously back to you. How dare he say that?
He did. God inspired it. It’s in the book. Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then all these things will be added unto you.
Oh, that’s spiritual blessings. Read the context, knucklehead. He’s talking very specifically about what? Food, clothing, and shelter. Seek first the kingdom of God. Give into the kingdom of God. Sow into the kingdom of God. Make the kingdom of God your priority, and your good Father in heaven will do what? He’ll give you food, clothing, and shelter.
The rich young ruler comes to Jesus and says, what do I need to do? He had a big problem with greed and worldliness. So Jesus, by the way, Jesus might not call you to tithe. He might call you to give 100%. That’s what he told him to do. Give it all. Follow me.
I can’t do that. Really? you’ll settle for the paltry little life you have in first century Palestine. you’ll trade all the blessings of eternal life and the glory of God for that? You walked away sad.
Then Peter goes, I love Peter. Hey, hey, hey. What about us? We left everything and followed you.
Here’s what Jesus says. Oh, no. That terrible prosperity preaching phrase: 30, 60, 100 times more. What? Brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, relationships. The richest thing in life. But then he says, fields, foods, housing, houses. He says, houses. You follow me, I’ll give you houses. Even though he says, foxes have holes, the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.
And then he says, and here’s where he’s not a prosperity preacher. He says, and persecutions. It costs you to follow me.
But then he says this: in this world and the world to come, I think God fiscally—there, I said it—materially blesses generosity. I think reciprocal theology is true. Here’s the thing about reciprocal theology: it’s true. It’s just not always true. It’s not a formula.
All right. There may be instances where you give generously and it doesn’t immediately or quickly come back to you. You were just called to give generously and trust God. Do it. But I’m saying that the Bible teaches. Malachi certainly teaches it. You think, well, that’s Old Covenant.
Guess I had a friend who said, you know, the New Covenant promises prosperity for obedience, but the Old Covenant promises prosperity for obedience, but the New Covenant just promises persecution. That’s the sign that you’re obedient. You’re being persecuted.
The New Covenant does promise persecution. It also promises blessing in this world and the next. In this world and the next. It’s there. It’s in the Bible. People read it. Freedom from sin. We already talked about that. You want to get free from greed? Give your money away. Greater joy is in giving than in stuff.
I’m 65. I live in the biggest house I’ve ever lived in. There’s just two people. We raised kids in a smaller house. My wife and I look at our house and go, we could have used this.
Now our house is so big, and we have TVs at opposite corners of the house. She rarely enters my world in TV land. Somehow, she does not like watching sports. Journalists yell at each other in arguments, and I think it’s the greatest thing ever. I yell back at them because they’re both wrong.
And she just thinks that’s just stupid. So she watches cooking shows, and I’m fine with a few cooking shows, but actually, cooking shows make me hungry. I’m wondering why she’s watching those cooking shows. And I’m like, well, yeah. The kitchen is 20 steps away. I’ll go to the grocery store and buy the stuff. What are we doing here?
So we live in a house. She’s downstairs watching her cooking shows. I’m upstairs. And every once in a while, we try to find something together that we’ll watch.
And instead of, like, walking toward each other, I get a text, hey, whatcha watching? I text back, hey, SportsCenter. What you watching? Bobby Flay. Want to meet for a rom.com or a mystery in a while? Yeah, sure. I’ll come down.
And you know why? We have a big house. We need all that space to hold a lifetime of accumulation of stuff that now, at my age, I desperately and passionately want to get rid of.
I heard. I don’t know if this is true. It could have been just an urban rumor, but I heard that the gangs in Bremerton and Port Orchard were renting U-Hauls, and they would steal just an assortment of garage door openers.
And I guess what I heard is there’s only a limited amount of garage door opener code. So your garage door opener, chances are if you go down to enough houses, it’s going to open another garage door.
I don’t know if that’s true or not, but this was the rumor anyway. The rumor was that they were opening garage doors, just driving up the U-Haul and putting everything in and heading out.
And when I heard that, you know, my initial thought is, that’s horrible. Crime’s horrible. My second thought was, do they take appointments? Man, if I could get somebody to clear out my garage, bring a U-Haul and clear out my garage, I would leave them a tip, man. I’d be like, here’s another hundred. Here’s a $100 for your trouble. Thank you. Thank you.
My grandchildren, right? I’m grandpa. I loved Christmas, you know, I love Christmas. And I remember being a kid and it’s December 20, and it seems like December 25 is never going to get here.
And now I’m going. Summer’s over already. Christmas is coming. What’s happening? The year is just zoom, zoom.
But I had great joy as a kid with Christmas gifts. But I also remember the huge letdown, and I also remember how many of those gifts I played with once or twice on Christmas Day and never played with again.
And any of you can, can agree with me on this, I know it’s true. I have so much more joy now on Christmas, watching my little grandchildren tear open gifts that they’re going to play with for one day. But seeing their delight at that initial deal, you know, it just delights me with a much deeper and satisfying delight than I ever got as a kid.
For that new ten speed, it is better to give than to receive. However, God won’t let you do that because he’s a generous God. And if you give, you will receive.
It’s a promise. All right. Start with the tithe and grow from there.
If you’re a young person, here’s my financial advice. This is Dave Ramsey Light. Give 10%, save 10%, live on 80%. How do you live on 80%? Make a budget. Make a budget.
When I say save 10%, I don’t really mean save. Don’t put it in a savings account. That’s stupid. Invest it. Invest it in America. If you invest in. Listen, it’s not rocket science. There are two things that appreciate historically in America at an incredible value.
One is the stock market and the other is real estate. Pick them. Pick one and invest. Do them both, whatever. And then once you invest, don’t look at it. Leave it alone. Let it grow. It’ll do this. And if you look at it, you’ll freak out when it does this. All right, but it’ll do this again.
I just sold our house in California. I left in 2008. It was up here in 2010. It was down there in 2023. It was more than it was in 2010. It got back, and we had a renter in there.
Every time it was that big real estate crash was fake depreciation for us. Didn’t cost me a dime. Didn’t cost me a dime. All right, just leave it alone.
Live on 80%. Give 10%. Now, I’ll say this. I didn’t do that. I do it now, pretty much. But I didn’t do it back then when I was raising a family on an associate pastor and pastor salary. Never felt like I could invest 10%. And I broke the other rule, man. I spent more than I made. I’m sorry, Brian. Forgive me. Can I have your absolution?
I mean, I wish you’d have been my financial advisor. You wouldn’t have let me do it, but, yeah, we got into credit card debt. We did all the mistakes. We did everything wrong.
And I’m still living in a big house, texting my wife because it’s too far for us to walk. And probably got an. I watch these programs now on retirement, you know, I watch these YouTubes on retirement. Do I have enough money? I go to my wife. You know, I go, I go. I can’t believe this, honey.
But according to such and such person, we’re doing just fine. And, you know, being the female optimist when it comes to financial concerns, instead of saying, yippee, great. Thanks for doing such a good job, she just hits me with, like, ten what ifs.
I like. Fine. If we’re, you know, if the. If the hundred year, I don’t even talk to her about it anymore. Just too depressing. You know, what if a dragon comes and eats our house? Okay, we lose it. Sorry.
Anyway, and I’ll tell you, here’s the deal. I didn’t follow the rules. Except one. When we were in our twenties and starting out and didn’t have very much money and had kids and had bills, we tithed. We tithed, taught our kids to tithe. And somehow, as I approach retirement and I can’t figure out how we got enough, probably more than enough, we’ll make it to the end of our days.
Unless, of course, one of those obvious catastrophes that my wife foresees happens, then I’ll come knocking on your door and say I need a place to live. You know, got an extra room? Can I go to the basement?
I’ll help with the maggots. I mean, whatever you want me to do. Ooh, Joy. All right, all right. We’ll do it. We’ll do it, Mark. I sing all the time. Just want to let you know. All right.
Dear ones, John Wesley said, earn as much as you can so you can give. Work as hard as you can to earn as much as you can, so you can give as much as you can.
By the way, the 80-10-10 rule is great, but if you make billions and millions of dollars, why not live on the you know, 10-80 rule? You know, why not live on 10% and give 80%? How much money do you need to live in this world to the end of your days?
What joys are there? I mean, travel a little bit, whatever, but I mean, really, you got food, shelter, and clothing. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. All right.
And this is a condition for spiritual leadership. All right. I just read through 1 Timothy.
There’s all sorts of conditions for spiritual leadership, but we have a leadership team at The Firehouse Church. And, you know, I am absolutely committed. As a church planter, you’re desperate sometimes, and I have compromised on the I call it the two T’s of, if you’re going to be in leadership at The Firehouse Church, you got to have those qualifications in 1 Timothy. You got to have the two T’s. You got to be a Timer and a Tither. You got to have skin in the game.
You got to invest your time, and you got to invest your money. Now, those aren’t the only qualifications. We still got the qualifications of 1 Timothy. If you’re a timer and a tither and a drunkard, you’re disqualified.
All right, so. But I’m just saying, I’ve had tithers who weren’t timers, and I’ve had timers who weren’t tithers, and I’ve been burned by both, and I ain’t going there again. Not going to go there again.
It is a qualification for spiritual leadership. A condition for spiritual leadership, dear ones. Give your money away. I dare you.
God dares you. Test me in this. Test me in this, he says. And see if I don’t pour out my blessings. See if it doesn’t make you happier, richer, more abundant, more satisfied, grow in your faith, and, yes, there will be persecutions.
And I’m not saying if you give your money that you’re never going to get sick and your life’s going to be, you know, unicorn sparkles. No, it’s not. You live in a broken, fallen world. Bad stuff’s going to happen. All right. But I say this.
Teach yourself now to trust in God, because he is your eternal hope. And again, I’m just going to say it. Whether people get mad or not, he will bless you in this world. It’s in the Bible. Read it. He will bless you in this world as you open up your hand to him.
On the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took bread and he broke it. He gave it to his disciples and he said, this is my body which is given for you.
In the same way, after supper, he took the cup, gave it to his disciples and said, this is my blood which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. It’s the blood of the New Covenant.
And I’ve said this often, but the forgiveness of sins is the entry point in the new Covenant. You step into the new Covenant with the forgiveness of sins, but then you live a New Covenant life. And all along the way, you are blessed abundantly by his presence, his guidance, his goodness, his mercy, his empowering grace.
So take this meal tonight as a New Covenant believer. It’s the sign and the seal and the food of the New Covenant, and be strengthened in your walk with Christ. This is the food of God for the people of God. I invite you to take it and to be grateful in Jesus’ Name.
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