Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: Here's what I will do if you give, he tells the people of Malachi's time. You'll be blessed. I'll reward you with blessings, so much that you won't even be able to contain it.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador points to a true and sure source of blessing to those who give back to the Lord. And it was Billy Graham who coined that phrase, "you can't out-give God." The scripture promises material and spiritual benefits to the man who gives to God. I challenge you to try it and see. And I would challenge you to do the same thing.

When Jesus said, "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you," he was promising to meet our needs if we put him first. Yet many of us have short-changed ourselves by neglecting God in various ways, including with our finances. And that's the challenge Pastor Brett Meador draws for us from our study in Malachi on Today's Word.

Brett Meador: Today, I'm going to talk about tithing. Malachi chapter three is arguably the epicenter of the topic of tithing. That's why we're going to talk about this. We live in a world that is understandably weirded out by the whole topic. We've seen a lot of wacko stuff coming from the church in this area of giving and tithing. It's just gotten weirder and weirder. I understand the abuses, and hopefully I'll be able to clear up some of that, how it's really supposed to be according to the Bible.

So let's see what happens here in Malachi chapter three, verse seven, is where we'll pick it up. "Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, 'Wherein shall we return?' Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, 'Wherein have we robbed thee?' In tithes and offerings.

"Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts."

Radical statements here. What an important topic. First of all, the Lord points out the need of the people. In verse seven, he calls them out. He says, you need to return to me, and I will return to you. And then they say, "Wherein should we return?" Do you sense a little bit of an attitude from the people here? We're in chapter one, the Lord says, "I have loved you." And the people said, "Wherein have you loved us?"

Most of us, even if you're a nominal Bible student, you can say, how about when the Lord opened the Red Sea so that you could go through and get away from the Egyptian's army? How about when he delivered you from being slaves in Egypt? I could list a hundred things that the Lord did lovingly toward the Jews. But here the Jews in Malachi's time at the end of the Old Testament period are saying, "When did you love us, God?"

Then the Lord says, "And you've dishonored and despised my name." "Wherein have we despised your name?" And that's the attitude of the people. This sort of discourse goes on and on through this book. The Lord says, "I want you to return to me." "How do we return to you, God?" The Lord says, here's how. And he gives us this whole dissertation on their tithes and their offering. The need of the people was to return to the Lord.

That's what we read in verse seven. Return to me and I will return back to you. Isn't it interesting that the idea of being with the Lord and returning to the Lord, one of the measurements that's associated with that is this idea of your money and giving? The Lord calls them out on it and he says you need to give of your tithe and offering. That's how you return to me.

If we're looking at the tithe in the Old Testament, what part of their stuff were they supposed to give? Were they to look at all their stuff, if you had to pick out the stuff you were going to give out of the tenth, what was your part that you were supposed to pull out? The first fruits, the best fruits. But Brett, that's my blue ribbon prize-winning 4-H sheep. Exactly. That's the one you give to God. Of the best of your fruit, the best of your crops and your herds and flocks.

Can I remind you of the people of Malachi? The Lord said, you bring your lambs, Malachi chapter one verse eight. And he says if you offer, speaking of the sheep, the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if you offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? Offer it to your governor. Will he be pleased with thee or accept thy person? Saith the Lord of hosts. He's saying, if the governor came to your house, you wouldn't even give him the lamb that you're giving to me as a sacrifice.

But they gave begrudgingly. That's where the people of Malachi's day were. They not only were robbing God of the tithe and offering, but when they brought their sacrifice they'd find some old cripple broken down old lamb and let's give that one to God. They were giving begrudgingly. That's not the way we're supposed to give. It should be that joyful, "I get to give the best to the Lord."

That's why Second Corinthians chapter nine verse seven says, "Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver." That should be the heart behind giving. When you give of your substance to the Lord, it's supposed to be cheerful. I love this. This is a fun translation. The word cheerful is the Greek word hilarion. Can you imagine what word we get from hilarion?

Hilarious. The Lord loves a hilarious giver. Brett, we need like a comedian to come to church? No, the idea is that there should just be a hilarity when you're giving, like, "I just love that I get to do this. This is awesome." Not, "Oh, I've got to give to the Lord again." I would say if that's your attitude, you might as well keep your money because you're messing with the whole purpose of giving as an act of worship and something that should be joyful and meant to be a blessing.

Some people, if you're stuck on that, Brett, I think tithing is of the Old Testament law and I don't want to give because I'm not under the law. Well then that's great. I would say that's correct, you don't and you shouldn't give. And if it's something that's begrudging, don't do it. It should be driven personally by your relationship and your love for the Lord. It's not a "got to," it's a "get to."

Brett, I'm more of a New Testament kind of Christian. I like the New Testament. Oh, let's see what the New Testament's model of giving is. Let's go to Acts chapter four. Check this out. It says there, "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.

"And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked." They weren't missing out on anything. "For as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need."

There's the New Testament model. Sell everything and you bring it to the church leadership's feet and drop it down. Do you guys want to go with that model? Why don't we do that model? I'll tell you why we don't do that model, just to be honest with you, because the church was in a unique situation back in those days. By the way, there's a name for this. Socialism or communism even. This is communism.

By the way, I'm going to say something that's going to freak some of you guys out. Communism would be a wonderful, amazing form of government. It really would, except for one problem: sin. You put communism with people who happen to be sinful and then you get massive corruption and evil. But that's true with any form of government, by the way, even capitalism. It's funny how wherever you add people in the mix, it makes things ugly.

Why was this working? The answer is it was working because they were under massive persecution at this time. The Roman Empire and the various emperors that came through, ten waves of Roman persecution on the church, and the church was running for their lives. There was a day where these Christians, for just believing in Jesus and saying Jesus is Lord, they would dip them in hot wax and burn them to death and then hang them on the street like streetlights and light them on fire.

That was a tough day as being a Christian back in those days. So the church, they were living in very scary times, so they had all things common, they sold all their possessions and brought it all together and they survived by loving for and caring one another. Wherever you see persecution, you oftentimes see purity, interesting enough.

Along with this chapter, we also have the story in Acts chapter four of a little couple named Ananias and Sapphira. They were seeing this go on where everybody was giving of their possessions, so Ananias and Sapphira said, "Hey, let's do that. We'll sell our possession but we'll keep some for a rainy day for us. But we'll tell them we're giving all of our possessions."

Ananias comes walking into Peter and sets down all of the stuff and says, "Here's our possession." And Peter says, "All of your possession?" And Ananias says, "Yep, everything." He falls down dead. And they drag him out. Sapphira comes walking in a little later wondering where Ananias is, but she brings and sets hers. "Here's the rest of it. Ananias and I we sold all. Here it is." Peter says, "All of your possession?" "Yes it is." She kicks over dead.

Aren't you glad the Lord doesn't move like that in his church today? That was a good lesson for us, but can you imagine on a Sunday us all singing, "I surrender all," and then people start falling dead? "I surrender most." That would not be so good. But that's what happened in that day because they were not being honest before the Lord about their giving.

God wants to develop in his people an obedience, especially in the area of giving. How does the church do with this generally speaking? As it turns out, the studies, the average Protestant, he gives only 3% of his income to the church who attends church regularly. 3% is the typical average. This starts to introduce something that's interesting about some things that some of you're not going to like, but I'm just going to say it anyway.

After we see first of all the need of the people, they needed to return to the Lord. The sin of the people, they were keeping their money from the Lord. Then the Lord gives the remedy to the people about how they fix this problem. The first thing that he says is right there in verse ten, the first part, "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse." This is where the tithe goes.

In the Old Testament, the storehouse was a place where the food was kept. And then the people would divvy out the food from the storehouse and take care of the community from the storehouse. That's the Old Testament model. In the New Testament, the Bible calls the word of God the food if you would, and it's the place where people are fed.

The storehouse, in this context, meant the temple. God's house. If you read verse ten, "Bring ye the tithe into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house." That means the temple. So in the New Testament, that temple ministry moved to more of a church context where the church was where the tithe was supposed to be.

The storehouse in the Old Testament was the temple, the storehouse in the New Testament was the church, even as they would lay their tithes and their money down at the apostles' feet. Now this is important because what is the church? Some of you say the church is all people who are Christians in the world. And there's a certain truth to that.

But you also have to understand God recognizes three institutions in the world. He recognizes government, he recognizes the family institution, but he also recognizes the church of Jesus Christ. And the church has leadership according to God, and leadership is elders, deacons, and bishops. The word bishop is episcopos in the Greek.

It's an elder in the church who's also probably pastor, but more of an administrative kind of elder, the episcopos. So there's three major roles, and a church is made up of those leaders, a group of episcoposes and elders and deacons leading the congregation. That's the organization that God recognizes. When it comes to bringing your tithe, you need to make sure that you're bringing your tithe to a place where the church is structured, organized.

Brett, I'm not into organized religion. Well, you're not into what God actually said needs to happen. You're actually rebelling against God's plan when you say I don't like organized religion. I understand there's been abuses of organized religion, but there's a lot of interesting thing that's happened in these last 100 years or so with a lot of wacko churches and the prosperity gospel and all that. People just kind of said we're going to give our money wherever we kind of feel like it.

A lot of nice, wonderful organizations, para-church organizations are getting people's tithe and offering. I don't think that's actually the biblical model. I believe the model goes: the tithe goes to the storehouse. That's the church, the organized church. The church where you're fed is where your tithe I think belongs. Your offering is that free will, and you can do whatever you want with that.

Then the Lord says something interesting about once you give of your tithe. He says, "Put me to the test." He says here in verse ten, bring the tithe into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house, and he says, and prove me now herewith. I love the ESV on this one. It basically says, and thereby put me to the test, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there's no more need.

This is what the Lord promises he should do. So we've got the where should we bring our tithe, the storehouse, that's the church. And the Lord says, test me on this one. He also tells us in the Bible when we should give, interestingly enough. You can jot this down in your notes, First Corinthians 16, verses one and two. "Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come."

Paul says, I don't want to see a collection plate going by when I'm there. But do that on the first day of the week. Now for you guys that know this, what was the first day of the week of those people in those days? Sunday. Saturday was the Sabbath for them. And that's when the synagogues were full, Sabbath day on Saturday.

But the church started meeting early in their forming on Sunday morning. Why did they switch from Saturday to Sunday? The resurrection of Jesus. Jesus rose on a Sunday morning. So he says the first day of the week when you gather together, that's when you collect the tithe and offering. The reason I point this out, this idea of the first day of the week and why that's important, is because it's part of the worship that we do when we gather together.

When you give, make sure that you're giving with a heart to say, "Lord, this is an act of worship because I love you." You can just have joy when you say, "Lord, this tithe it goes to you." Make a point when you're doing your budget or your finances or whatever, make sure and just use that as an opportunity to worship the Lord when you're giving to the Lord. I think sometimes people miss out on some of the fun of giving.

The first day of the week, which is Sunday, they were giving their tithe and their offering. You say, but Brett, what if we're struggling financially? Well this is again where Debbie and I, from the very beginning, that 10% was never mine to begin with. So your budget kind of has to reflect that. And also, we've found and so have you, that the Lord says in Philippians 4:19, "My God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory."

That's a promise from God's word. And you know what's funny about this is I remember years ago when I first taught this, for months I had young couples come up. "Pastor Brett, you're not going to believe it. We didn't see how this was going to work out giving of a tithe, but we started doing it and we changed a few things in our budget but it was still, we didn't see how it was going to work out. And then over and over the Lord just kind of blessed. Grandma sent a check, or they got a raise at work."

I've got that story a hundred times over. And it was Billy Graham who coined that phrase, "You can't out-give God." I think he's the one who kind of first said that. You can't get around it, the scripture promises material and spiritual benefits to the man who gives to God. You cannot out-give God. I challenge you to try it and see. And I would challenge you the same thing.

The Lord says, I'll open up the floodgates of heaven. The remedy is just to do it, give and see, and prove and test God on this to see if this is actually going to be true. How many of you know this to be true and you've tested God on this and every time when you think you're not going to do it, somehow God works it out?

But what I have found is there's a lot of people who are still trying to scrimp and save and trying to figure out, and I'll see if I can pay my tithe if I can pay my Netflix bill. But it's funny how we prioritize. And the tithing gets to be the blind, lame, crippled lamb like the people of Malachi. You've got to give the Lord the first if you're wanting to do it with a biblical attitude.

And then when you do give with a biblical attitude, that's the fourth point of our lesson today, and that is number four, God's blessing on the people. And it starts at the third part of verse ten. Just check it out and see if not I will open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that there won't be enough room to receive it.

And verse eleven, "I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruit of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And all the nations shall call you blessed: for you shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts."

There's three main things the Lord says. Here's what I will do if you give, he tells the people of Malachi's time. The first thing he says is you'll be blessed. I'll reward you with blessings so much that you won't even be able to contain it. And man, the Lord is so good at that and I've seen that time and time again.

You know what's interesting as just an observer of church life in many years? Sometimes the people are like, "Yeah, we're not going to give, that's just something we don't do." They're the ones that do constantly kind of seem to struggle. It's not that they're not hard workers, it's just that their work doesn't really produce what they really were hoping.

But the Lord says, man, test me on this. And so when you do, the Lord says I'll take care of you. I'll reward you and this is what you're supposed to put to test. The Lord will open the windows of heaven. Then there's another phrase here that's interesting. He's not only going to reward you, but number two, he'll rebuke the devourer. Who's the devourer?

Satan. Did you know that the devil is a devourer? And he wants to make your money not go as far as it should. Do you ever get a sense that your money's being devoured? Have you ever felt like your money just, where does it go? Like you get a raise and you're like, "Oh man, we're going to be in the money now, I got a raise."

And then you kind of do the math and somehow your raise just kind of disappears. And you're like, "I thought I got a raise. Where's the extra?" And you're like, "Oh, it's in my gas tank now." That's the devourer, that's the normal operation of finances in sort of a godless context. But the Lord says, I will rebuke the devourer for your sake if you test me on this in the area of giving.

Then the third thing, he will not destroy the fruit of your ground. I'll put it this way, he will revive your land. He says, man, listen, the ground, the fruit will not be destroyed, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. You say, what does that have to do with anything? Well that would be the representation of their vocation of that day.

They were farmers. They had vineyards and they were at the mercy of God for rain and for good weather that the fruit wouldn't over-ripen too quickly and fall to the ground. They were kind of at the mercy, and the Lord said, listen, if you give faithfully to me, I'll take care of the part that's out of your sphere of influence.

I'll take care of the part of your income, your vocation, that could be catastrophe. I'll take care of it and make sure it's fruitful and a blessing. Have you ever felt like your job, your occupation, is fruitless? You work hard but you don't feel like you get the reward that's due? Could it be linked to this issue? The Lord says I will rebuke the devourer and I will revive your land and make your land prosperous, speaking of your vocation.

And then with all that, the implication: your relationship with the Lord will be in the right place. Return to me, the Lord says, and I will return to you. Well, how do we return to you? In your tithe and offering, of your giving. Where your treasure is, that's where your heart's going to be. Put me to the test on this one and I'll bless your socks off.

And true, the law of tithing is Old Testament, but I believe the principle of giving and being a generous giver is something that's very much biblical and sound. It's not a "got to," nobody's cracking the whip, and that's not my job. My job is to say here's what the Bible says. And then your job is to say, "Lord, what should I do with that? How should I respond to the idea of giving?"

I would just say you should seek the Lord on that. But for me, I'm just going to say for me and Debbie and my family, we've found tithing is one of the greatest "get tos" we get to do. And I find real rejoicing. I never regret giving because I've just seen how the Lord is just so faithful. Like old Billy said, you can't out-give God. It's so true.

We've seen that proven for decades now. The Lord has been so faithful. And I know tons of you in this room can say a big amen to that because you know it's true. Amen?

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador with a worthy challenge for us to consider concerning our attitude in giving back to the Lord. A lesson drawn from our study series of the book of Malachi in Today's Word. And I hope you'll stay with us as Pastor Brett will close in prayer in just a moment.

But first, Today's Word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church in the Portland, Oregon area, where Pastor Brett Meador is the senior pastor. We invite you to find out more by going to todayswordradio.com. If you missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of his messages online at todayswordradio.com.

Our vision on Today's Word is to proclaim the hope of salvation and help people know Jesus through careful study of the Bible. We invite you to find out more by going to todayswordradio.com. I also want to mention that in addition to the main Athey Creek campus in West Linn, Oregon, we also have locations in Hillsboro and McMinnville. For more information, go to todayswordradio.com and click the link "Locations." Again, todayswordradio.com and click the link "Locations."

Well, to wrap up today's message, Pastor Brett Meador is here to offer a closing word of prayer.

Brett Meador: Lord, we are thankful for your provision. You have been good to us and we do have luxury, Lord. We live large here in the United States and yet I also know, Lord, that sometimes the most wealthy can oftentimes be the most grouchy and sad and feeling empty.

Lord, I pray that we would know how to use our resources, to use them as an act of worship, as an act of obedience. Lord, help us to be a church that is big-hearted in giving, Lord. And we're just so thankful for your provision. And I'm thankful that you don't depend on any one person to try to give.

Lord, we depend on you, the owner of cattle on a thousand hills. And you are the one who provides all of our needs according to your riches in glory. So we pray blessing on your church, Lord. Speak to us, may we be obedient to your word. So we pray this knowing you've heard our prayer now. In Jesus' name, amen.

Guest (Male): Amen. Pastor Brett Meador closing our time on Today's Word. Well next time we'll look at another verse-by-verse study from the book of Malachi. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.