Preachers who talk about money are often accused of talking only about money. The fact is that money is mentioned in the Bible, and as a preacher of the Word, we are charged to preach the Word of God. Now, money is not preached on real often, because some preachers have developed sensitivity about it. Prayer is also a topic that it doesn’t seem like is preached on a whole lot. I think that a preacher should preach on subjects in proportion to what they are covered in the Bible. Doesn’t that sound good? So, money and possessions should be preached on in proportion to prayer in the same amount that both are mentioned in the Bible. There are some 500 references to prayer in the Bible, and there are 2,300 references to money and possessions in the Bible. So, for every sermon preached on the subject of prayer, 4.6 sermons would be preached on the subject of money and possessions. For one Sunday sermon on prayer, there would be a month’s worth of sermons on money and possessions.
I happen to think that prayer is a pretty important subject, and not many people would object to a sermon or even a series of sermons on the subject of prayer. With over four times as many references to money and possessions in the scripture, I think that is a subject that merits our consideration, perhaps even more than actually do. Why are we so afraid to talk about money? Perhaps it’s because there are some TV preachers who have tainted our thinking about money. They beg and plead with people to send in their money, and people who can’t afford it do it. Perhaps it’s because the world sees the church as greedy. They see some churches building huge cathedral type buildings while people live in poverty down the block.
The truth is, however, that what the Bible says about money and possessions is related to who is number one in our life. Is God number one, or is the self number one? Consider that question as we look at our scripture passage today. Turn with me to Malachi chapter 3. Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament.
Read Malachi 3:6-10.
Do words ever jump out at you when you read something? You can be sitting there reading along, and all of a sudden, this word just kind of jumps right off the page and smacks you. Well, the word that jumps out at me here is the word “rob.” Four times in verses 8 and 9, the word “rob” appears, or some variation of the word. Robbery is a pretty serious charge. Only murder and rape would be considered worse crimes in our culture. It’s one of the Ten Commandments. There are several types of robbery. There is forceful robbery where someone uses a weapon and threatens the victim. There are also more passive methods. Embezzlement is robbery. Over the last few years the crime of identity theft has cropped up. Robbery can also come in the form of cheating. Robbery is a very serious charge.
Robbery also affects many people as well. As we examine this passage today, let’s consider three entities that are affected by the type of robbery that the prophet Malachi talks about. The first is…
I. Robbing GOD.
The first thing that Malachi tackles is the robbing of God. Robbing God is not something to be taken lightly. We rob God, when we deny him what is rightfully his. We deny him what is rightfully his when we withhold our tithe from him. The tithe is defined as 1/10, or 10%, of our income.
We say, “Hey, I worked hard for that money. I have bills to pay.” The truth is that all of it is God’s to begin with. He allows us to have the income, and it is our act of thankfulness that we give back to him a mere 10% of what he gave us.
Psalm 24:1 says, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” God owns the entire world to begin with. We are merely tenants on his land. The very least we can do is offer a part of what we gain to God, since he gave it to us to begin with. In verse 8, we find…
A. The CLAIM of God.
God levels a very serious charge in verse 8. He asserts that the Israelites were robbing him by the withholding of tithes and offerings.
Now, to set the stage a little here, let’s get some background information about the times in which Malachi lived. The Jewish people had just returned from captivity in Babylon, which is modern day Iraq. They had been gone for 70 years. The land was in ruins. The Temple was destroyed. The city of Jerusalem lay in ruins. It was a desolate land. Work was scarce. Money was in short supply. Poverty ruled the day. Here was a group of destitute people, who were struggling to provide food, shelter and clothing for their families. They had almost nothing. To top it all off, there was drought in the land, so the crops weren’t growing. It was awful.
Into this type of problems God says, “You are robbing me.” Can’t God see that these people have nothing? They are scrounging for food wherever they can find it. They can’t pay the rent. They can’t buy new sandals for the kids. They can’t buy enough grain to make a decent loaf of bread. God says, “You are robbing me.” The argument comes back, “I can’t afford to give anything.” Have you ever heard that claim? Have you ever made that claim? The truth is that no matter what our level of income or wealth, God expects us to give back to him a portion of what he has given us. They didn’t have much, but they had something. Last week, we look at the account of the poor widow’s offering of two little copper coins. Jesus said that she gave more than the wealthy that piled in money. It’s not the amount of the gift, but it is the motive and sacrifice behind the gift.
In verse 9, we find…
B. The CRITICISM of God.
Verse 9 is an interesting verse. It says, “You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you.”
Sometimes that word “curse” troubles us. We associate curses with witches and the like. We think of wizards and magic potion when we think of curses. There is a difference here. Those curses are intended to be harmful. They are malicious in nature.
What we have here is not God saying, “I don’t like those people over there, so I am going put a curse on them.” This is a matter of consequences. The consequence of their actions is what this is talking about. There are consequences when we do things. If I beat my head against the wall, the consequence will be a headache or a concussion. The consequence of their actions, or inaction, was that they received less and less.
If at your job, you continue to give less and less effort, you will receive less and less in the way of pay. You may even lose your job. I have seen that happen to people. They just quit giving effort on the job. They get bad reviews and no pay raise. They ultimately either quit or get fired. There are consequences to our actions.
The consequence of failing God is that he removes his hand of blessing from our lives. That’s what the Jewish people were facing. Their poverty deepened because they were unfaithful to God. On top of that, the whole nation was implicated in the sin. There were probably some who were faithful. There were some that may have been partially faithful. The majority was unfaithful. Partial faithfulness is also being unfaithful. If I am faithful to my wife 364 days per year, I am still unfaithful. Those that were unfaithful were ruining it for the whole nation.
We see how God is robbed. The second this is…
II. Robbing the CHURCH.
The Church is robbed. God is God, and, as the Bible says, he owns the cattle on a thousand hills. God doesn’t need our money to be God, but the Church needs the money to be the Church.
In order to fulfill the mission of the Church, there has to be some financing behind it. The city doesn’t give us free electricity or water. Sunday school material and Friends Club material isn’t free. The church has to pay for these things. I realize that raising money to pay the light bill isn’t exactly thrilling, but it has to be done. We in the first phrase of verse 10…
A. The CALL of God.
The call of God here is quite simple. He says, “Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.” The storehouse is the center of God’s activity. At the time Malachi wrote this, it was the Temple. Now, it is the Church. The storehouse is the Church.
There is some confusion about which storehouse we should give to. I believe you give to the church where you are being fed. You don’t go and eat at Ruby Tuesday’s and then go pay the bill at Applebee’s. You pay for dinner where you are fed. You tithe to the church where you are fed spiritually. God calls us to support his ministry on earth.
Jesus has charged the church to go into all the world and preach the Good News. Part of our duty, in addition to supporting the concerns of the local church, is to provide for missions. There are parts of the world, and I have seen them, where they have nothing. The poorest Americans are still much wealthier than the average Haitian. We are called by God to support the work of spreading the Good News around the world. The Church of the Nazarene has one of the best missions agencies around. They are efficient and productive. There is very little if any waste in the system that the Church of the Nazarene has set up. In addition to providing spiritual food for the local church, we are charged to provide spiritual food for those who don’t enjoy the privileges that we have.
As we as a church reach out to our community, we have to provide something for them when they arrive. It’s not enough to have a nice sign and friendly people. We have to feed them the spiritual food they need when they come. Also in the first part of verse 10, we find…
B. The CHALLENGE of God.
God challenges his people to support the work of the Lord. Remember that these people to whom Malachi was talking were mired in desperate poverty, and yet they are challenged to rise above that and provide for the advancement of the Kingdom of God. God is issuing them a challenge. Again, last week, we looked at the widows little offering. Jesus said that she gave more, because she gave all she had out of her poverty.
In his second letter to the Corinthian church, the apostle Paul wrote, “We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own free will.” The churches in the region of Macedonia were poor, but they gave generously. Paul wrote this to a rather wealthy church in the city of Corinth.
I believe that is a challenge for us. We are wealthy. We may not be rolling in money, but compared to the rest of the world, we are wealthy. I believe God is challenging us to step up and step out on faith to support the work of his Kingdom.
In addition to robbing God and the Church, we are also…
III. Robbing OURSELVES.
By withholding our tithe, we not only rob God and the Church, we also rob ourselves. We rob ourselves of the blessings that God pours out on those that are faithful to him.
That doesn’t mean we give for the sole reason of getting. We aren’t lab rats who punch a button and get a food pellet. We don’t plop our money into the offering to buy a special favor from God. We can’t buy off God.
God does promise to supply the needs of his people who obey his commands. Tithing is as much a command as anything else, and God expects us to follow through on that command. He expects us to tell the truth. He expects us to be faithful to our spouse. He expects us to kind and compassionate to others. He expects us to love him above everything else.
We rob ourselves of a vibrant relationship with God when we allow something to get in the way between him and us. If we value our money and possessions more than we value our relationship with God, then our relationship with God will naturally suffer.
We rob ourselves of opportunities on the job if we value goofing off more than we value our job. We will lose our job if that’s the case.
We will lose fellowship with God if we don’t make him number one in our lives, even ahead of money. The issue of tithing really isn’t about money; it’s about commitment to God. It’s about our relationship with him. When we fail in that commitment to him, we rob ourselves of a complete relationship with him.
This basically comes down to our attitude of who owns what. If we believe that we own all we have, then we will have a stingy attitude toward God. If we realize that God owns all that I have, then we will gratefully give to him out of a heart of love. The question is, “Who owns your possessions, bank account, and even your very life?” We have no control over our possessions, money or life. Our house might burn down tomorrow. The stock market may take a dive and slash the amount we have in our retirement fund. Our life may be taken at any time. The truth is that we don’t own ourselves, much less the stuff we possess. God owns it all. He gave us what we have. It’s all a matter of our attitude toward what we have and who we are.
Conclusion
The great thing about this passage is the last half of verse 10. It says, “And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more.”
I love that. God wants us to put him to the test. How many times do we hear claims from people and we think, “Ya, prove it”? God is saying, “I’ll prove it to you.” God is saying put me to the test. God promises to be faithful to those who are faithful to him.
In a few moments you are going to receive a little card. On it says…read card.
God is saying to us today, “Put me to the test.” There are two places to check. One says, “Yes, I already tithe,” and the other says, “I will begin tithing.” Then you can sign your name.
Someone once told Tammy, some years ago, “You know, when we tithe, it seems like God’s blessing is on us more.”
The truth is that the 90% that God allows us to keep will always go farther than the 100%. I can testify to that in our life. When you are faithful to God, he supplies every need you have. He may not give you a brand new car or big screen TV, but he will provide everything you need.
If you don’t tithe, and you are still a little skeptical, I am going to issue a challenge to you. If you start tithing faithfully, and after three months of faithful tithe, God isn’t blessing you, just stop tithing. How many thought you would ever hear a pastor say that? I believe that if you faithfully and cheerfully tithe, God will supply what you need. I’m not promising that he’ll give you a new car or anything like that, but I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that he will supply what you need. Will you do that?
