Sr. Pastor Darrell G
Vaughn Text: Judges 7:9-22 Mal 3:6-9 (King James Version) "Father, I am your servant, willing and desiring
to be
used to
bless your
people."
The Fields are white and the laborers are
few! Malachi 3:6
For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not
consumed. Malachi 3:7
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? Malachi 3:8
Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we
robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Malachi 3:9
Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole
nation. Malachi 3:10
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. Let's pray. Father, Open my eyes so I can see Your truth.
Open my ears so I can hear Your voice. Nothing in the church causes someone to hide from the
truth anymore than a sermon like I feel led to give you this morning. Today, the
Lord and His Word have a message for us that some of us would just as soon never
heard. We've tried to ignore this part of God's Word and sometimes even
downright denied it was even there. Even though we all believe that God's Word
is truth, and that we need to live by every part of that Word, there are a few
things that we just wish weren't there and find it hard to
accept. A few of the Laws of Stewardship and of Sowing and
Reaping: If we do not consider ourselves stewards of the Kingdom
of God, we are going to have problems with Lordship, and we are going to have
big problems when it comes to the area of Tithing. "When it comes to giving, some people will stop at
nothing." - Jimmy Carter Robbing OURSELVES. Lets go to God's word for a few minutes and look at talk
about this principle of Tithing. Once again we are going to use the Story of
Gideon as a road map so to speak to learn about what God is asking of us in this
all important area of stewardship. Judges 7:9
And it came to pass the same night, that the LORD said unto him, Arise,
get thee down unto the host; for I have
delivered it into thine hand. Judges 7:10
But if thou fear to go down, go thou with Phurah thy servant down to the
host: Judges 7:11
And thou shalt hear what they say; and afterward shall thine hands be
strengthened to go down unto the host. Then went he down with Phurah his servant
unto the outside of the armed men that were in the host.
Judges 7:12
And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east
lay along in the valley like grasshoppers for multitude; and their camels were
without number, as the sand by the sea side for multitude. Judges 7:13
And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto
his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread
tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it
fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along. Judges 7:14
And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of
Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered
Midian, and all the host. Judges 7:15
And it was so, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream, and the
interpretation thereof, that he worshipped, and returned into the host of
Israel, and said, Arise; for the LORD hath delivered into your hand the host of
Midian. Judges 7:16
And he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a
trumpet in every man's hand, with empty pitchers, and lamps within the
pitchers. Judges 7:17
And he said unto them, Look on me, and do likewise: and, behold, when I
come to the outside of the camp, it shall be that, as I do, so shall ye
do. Judges 7:18
When I blow with a trumpet, I and all that are with me, then blow ye the
trumpets also on every side of all the camp, and say, The sword of the LORD, and
of Gideon. Judges 7:19
So Gideon, and the hundred men that were with him, came unto the outside
of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch; and they had but newly set the
watch: and they blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers that were in their
hands. Judges 7:20
And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and
held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to
blow withal: and they cried, The sword of the LORD, and of
Gideon. Judges 7:21
And they stood every man in his place round about the camp: and all the
host ran, and cried, and fled. Judges 7:22
And the three hundred blew the trumpets, and the LORD set every man's
sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host: and the host fled to
Bethshittah in Zererath, and to the border of Abelmeholah, unto
Tabbath. Remember I have said over and over stewardship comes
down to Trust and Lordship. In no other area of our life do we need to practice
Trust and Lordship than in our finances. 2 Corinthians 9:6 But this I say, He which soweth
sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap
also bountifully. Philippians 4:6 Be careful for nothing; but in
every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be
made known unto God. Philippians 4:7 And the peace of God, which
passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ
Jesus. Matthew 6:33
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all
these things shall be added unto you. -How about the Old Tesatment.. -James sums it up..in 2:26.."Faith without Works is
dead" God calls us all to be cheerful givers. He will never
call you to do something that He will not also empower you to complete. Does
this mean if we tithe we will never have to sacrifice financially?
No
in fact in may cause us to sacrifice greatly to fulfill what He is asking us to
do. You know what..this is okay. It is good for us to deny self every once in a
while in order for the Kingdom to be built.
Faithfulness
- A Key Step to Happiness
Dec 4,
2011
"Trusting by Obeying!"
Sun AM Worship We
show our true colors in our obedience in giving!
C.H. Spurgeon said, "If God does not save a man by truth he certainly
will not save them by lies, and if the old gospel is not competent to work a
revival, then we will do without the revival;"
Open my mind
so I can understand Your Word.
And open my heart so I may receive all that
You want me to receive. AMEN
This is one
message that is liable to hit you where it hurts the most. No, it's not in your
face; nor is it in your head; its right smack in the middle of your
pocketbook, and the pain will travel from your pocket book to your head
first of all; and then it will reverse course in a little while and hit you
right in your heart. I believe that the Holy Spirit and the Word of God desire
to speak to each of us this morning concerning the subject of being a faithful
and good steward in the House of God.
I know that this is an unpopular
subject for many people so if you don't want to take a chance on being struck by
the Word of God and brought under conviction, then you might just want to tune
me out for the next 30-45 minutes. Go right ahead and do that but don't forget
that you are tuning out the Word of God too. The only problem is that you can
tune me out, but you will not be able to tune Jesus out on the day you stand
before Him.
THE LAW OF RIGHTFUL OWNERSHIP - Nothing truly belongs to us;
everything actually belongs to God.
THE LAW OF PURPOSEFUL POSSESSION - Wise
stewards are guided by lordship, not "hoardship."
THE LAW OF MIRACULOUS
MULTIPLICATION - Man's economic measurements are no match for God's miracles of
multiplication.
THE LAW OF GUARANTEED RETURN - As you give, so it will be
given to you. You get more back than you give.
THE LAW OF JOYFUL GENEROSITY -
God loves those who give with the right attitude.
THE LAW OF FAITHFUL
DEPENDABILITY - How much can God trust you is the mark of a true steward.
THE
LAW OF PARADOXICAL PARTICIPATION - The greatest blessings often come out of the
greatest sacrifices.
THE LAW OF SUPERNATURAL SUPPLY - God enables the giver
to give beyond his ability to give.
THE LAW OF PERSONAL INITIATIVE - Giving
out of a desire to give is better than giving out of duty.
THE LAW OF
GRACEFUL ABUNDANCE - Abundant grace brings abundant blessing that spurs abundant
ministry.
THE LAW OF SECRET SPIRITUALITY - Godly giving is a private
demonstration of our faithfulness, not a public display of pride.
THE LAW OF
SACRIFICIAL EXAMPLE - The most significant gifts are often given by the most
insignificant givers. (The Widow's Mite)
THE LAW OF RISKY MISMANAGEMENT - Trying to rob God will always cause robbery
of your blessings.
THE LAW OF GODLY CONTENTMENT - Wise stewards are happy with what they
have, not hassled by what they don't have.
THE LAW OF ABSOLUTE HARVEST -
Sow sparingly, reap sparingly; sow
bountifully, reap bountifully.
THE LAW OF CHANNELED RESOURCES - Good Stewards are "pipe-lines"; not storage
tanks.
Illus
A priest once asked one of his parishioners
to serve as financial chairman of his parish. The man, manager of a grain
elevator, agreed on two conditions: No report would be due for a year, and no
one would ask any questions during the year.
At the end of the year he made
his report. He had paid off the church debt of
$200,000. He had redecorated
the church. He had sent $1,000 to missions. He had $5,000 in the bank.
"How
did you do all this?" asked the priest and the shocked congregation.
Quietly
he answered, "You people bring your grain to my elevator. As you did business
with me, I simply withheld 10 percent and gave it to the church. You never
missed it."
Definition of
stewardship is this: "Someone who is responsible for another man's property."
Duet 16:17 "Every man shall give as he is able,
according to the blessing of the LORD thy God which he hath given thee.
"
Illus
I read of one pastor who perceived the whole concept of
encouragement from a financial point of view. He announced one Sunday that he
had made a new offering box for the weekly collection of the tithes and
offerings. He claimed that it was designed to encourage people to become better
stewards of their money.
"This new box," he explained, "has some interesting
features. When you drop in a check or paper money in large amounts, the box
makes no sound at all. Put a quarter in and it tinkles like a bell. A dime blows
a whistle, and a penny fires a shot. When you put in nothing, the box takes your
picture."
Listen:"God
judges what we give by what we keep."
"I have tried to keep things
in my hands and lost them all, but what I have given into God's hands I still
possess." - Martin Luther
J. D. Rockefeller said, "I never would have
been able to tithe the first million dollars I ever made if I had not tithed my
first salary, which was $1.50 per week."
"The
trouble is that too many people are spending money they haven't yet earned for
things they don't need to impress people they don't like. "
"Give according to your income, lest God
make your income according to your giving"-Peter Marshall
"If you
give what you do not need, it isn't giving"
Mother Teresa
-One last
quote...
Adolphe Monod
"There is no portion of our time that is our time,
and the rest God's; there is no portion of money that is our money, and the rest
God's money. It is all his; he made it all, gives it all, and he has simply
trusted it to us for his service. A
servant has two purses, the master's and his own, but we have only one.
"
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?
The
CALL of God.
The call of God in v 10 of Malachi 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.
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.
-Lets look at what we
learn.
1)God Promises His Blessings v. 9
"During that night the
LORD said to Gideon, "Get up, go down against the camp, because I am going to
give it into your hands."
God promises us His Blessings. One of the ways
He promises us His blessings is through the principle of Tithing.
Malachi
3:6-9
Verse 10 says "Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I
will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that
you will not have room enough for it."
The promise goes forth for those who are willing to
give to the Lord. We don't have time to go into the Old Testament law in
defining the what this tithe was that Malachi was speaking of other than to say
it was a tenth.
-It was to be the First Fruits..the best.
-It did not
belong to the Children of Israel.
-There were other offerings expected above
the
tithe.
God has promised to bless his children if they will give. This
is not only a Old Testament Principle
Matthew 7:9-11 says that God is
willing to give good gifts to his children.
Over and over the principle
of God blessing his people is there both in the Old and New Testament. We will
look at some more scripture in a minute, but first lets look at the second
point, because there is a prerequisite to receiving this blessing of
God.
2) Blessings Require Action
v9
"Get up, go down against the camp,"
There are times when God
says..I have delivered the camp into your hands..now get up and go. Many times
to receive the blessings of God in our lives, we must show action in our camp.
Want some Scripture for this..Here are a few.
Luke 6:38 Give, and it shall be given unto
you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall
men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall
be measured to you again.
Isaiah 26:3 Thou wilt keep him in perfect
peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.
When we say we trust in God, and then we get up and go down to the
enemies camp like the Lord told us too..then God truly can perform the
miraculous in and through us. Our financial giving once again is a barometer of
whether or not we are getting up and going.
3)Actions are designed by God
vv 13-15
When God asks us to do somethings..it may not always be the most
conventional way, do it anyways. He told the Leper to wash in the Dirty Jordon
River..Did it Work? Yes. Did the Leper's conventional wisdom say it would
work..No!It goes back to God wanting the credit..not man.
Sometimes God asks
us to do some pretty unconventional things in our giving. It is so easy to try
and talk ourselves out of this.. the enemy tries every rational in the book to
confound our efforts of obedience. Here are some of lines he pitches to us..and
excuses we use
I Can't Afford
It
If I had More I Would
I already Tithe just by my own standard
I am
so far behind I don't know where to start
I like to spread my tithe
out
Don't listen to these lies..if God is in it He will help you to
be obedient to Him.Is it always easy..no
Illus:
A mother wanted to teach her daughter a
moral lesson. She gave the little girl a quarter and a dollar for church. "Put
whichever one you want in the collection plate and keep the other for yourself,"
she told the girl. When they were coming out of church, the mother asked her
daughter which amount she had given. "Well," said the little girl, "I was going
to give the dollar, but just before the collection the man in the pulpit said
that we should all be cheerful givers. I knew I'd be a lot more cheerful if I
gave the quarter, so I did."
Is it easy to Tithe..no. But listen
closely to this last point.
4) What God Designs He also Empowers
v22
When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the LORD caused the men
throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords.
?Do I hear an Amen?
When
I say that God empowers us..it doesn't
mean that money will begin to grow on trees in our front yard the moment we
begin to tithe.
In fact if the Tithing principle is correct according to
Malachi, 10% is just our reasonable service..it has nothing to do with our
gratitude for what He has
done for us.
When I say that God empowers us..I
mean that He will provide, strengthen, equip, discipline, and train you to make
it through the lean times.
In the case of Elijah their was always just
enough oil and flower in the bins.
Conclusion
Illus:
There was a knock on the door of the hut
occupied by a missionary in Africa. Answering, the missionary found one of the
native boys holding a large fish in his hands. The boy said, "Reverend, you
taught us what tithing is, so here--I've brought you my tithe." As the
missionary gratefully took the fish, he questioned the young lad. "If this is
your tithe, where are the other nine fish?" At this, the boy beamed and said,
"Oh, they're still back in the river. I'm going back to catch them now.
We learn Lordship and Trust from Gideon. We also learn four
principles we can put into the area of Stewardship, especially the area of
financial giving.
1) God Promises His Blessings v. 9
2) Blessings
Require Action v9
3) Actions are designed by God vv 13-15
4) What God
Designs He also Empowers v22
-Have you been robbing God?
-What is God
speaking to You?
-Have you been obedient to Him?
-Have you been trusting
Him enough to Tithe?
-Are you leaning on or leaning against?