Tithing, Not Tipping

All of us have different feelings and attitudes when it comes to giving money to a local church. For some of us, it’s a regular and assumed part of our discipleship. For others, it’s a financial goal. And for others, it’s an exploitative way for churches to get more money. Regardless of how we feel about tithing, it’s difficult to be a generous person who lives out the way of Jesus without a regular rhythm of supporting the Body of Christ. In 2 Corinthians, we see a picture of what it looks like to become a community that generously tithes their money for the sake of the Kingdom. The grace of God allows them to give above and beyond what might seem possible. At Passion Creek Church, we find it helpful to think of the tithe as a starting point, not a stopping point. To practice tithing is to practice letting go of control, putting our trust in God, and participating in the Kingdom work that God has called us to.

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 It’s really impossible, honestly, to perfectly summarize all of Jesus’s teachings on money and possessions and generosity within four weeks, but we’re doing our best just to lay a foundation.

Hopefully, this inspires you to keep watching. building off of these principles. And so, yet again, folks, we’re going to start with our working definition. Anybody feel like they have it memorized? I won’t have you come up, but does anybody know the definition? I quit my job. All right, let’s go to the next slide.

Here is the working definition.   📍 The practice of generosity is living like disciples who trust the God of abundance by giving like stewards who tithe to God’s Kingdom.  So we’ve learned so far from Jesus’s teachings that one, greed is an invisible poison that honestly poisons our, uh, poisons our soul. It gives us the inability to, um, you know, love God and to love others.

And so we learned there is an antidote to greed and it’s primarily that of generosity. The second week we learned that generosity requires us to really view things a lot different, to, to reimagine our perceptions. So we learned that We’re called to actually depend on God and not on stuff, which is really hard to do.

And we’re actually called to live with an abundance mentality and not a scarcity mentality. Last week, a way to summarize that teaching was, history is shaped by those who steward their money, not stew on their money. And if you’re overwhelmed, you missed a week, just go to formedbyjesus. com slash generosity.

And it’s also okay if you don’t know any of that for today. Message now, I will never apologize for preaching the biblical text I want to apologize for the topic of generosity at the same time. I will say I feel the tension in the room We’ve been asking really difficult questions We’ve been pressing you to engage in really difficult practices in the context of community Which is sometimes really hard to open up and so let me just say i’m so proud of you Thank you.

And also you kind of signed up for this if you ever come back to passion creek We’ve been telling you all along We don’t make attenders. We make disciples. I was reading this week, Dallas Willard, my favorite. He says, uh, the quote in an interview, he says, pastors need to realign their priorities where we’re no longer counting Christians as much as we are weighing disciples.

I think that’s a really good summary of what we’re seeking to do each and every week here at Passion Creek. We want to be of substance. We want to be oozing out love, joy, and peace. And a huge part of that is practicing. Generosity. And so as we land the plane, hopefully not the practice, but as we kind of summarize this teaching, I want to change the definition into more of an identity statement.

Because we said week one, generosity is less of something you do and more of someone you become. And so here is how I want to just hopefully describe who we are at Passion Creek.   📍 We are disciples, not donors, who trust in the God of abundance, not in the scarcity of stuff. And we are stewards. not owners who start with tithing, not stop with tipping.

 Now, the data proves that there is division in this very room based off of your view of tithing. Let me give a quick overview. Tithing is actually an Old Testament word. We see in the Hebrew that literally just means a tenth, and so a tenth of your income or a tenth of your harvest you give back to God.

We actually, this is shocking, this is shocking for me as I learned this a few years ago, tithing actually isn’t very often ever seen in the New Testament. It’s only seen a handful of times, most of the time it’s neutral. There’s a couple of times where that word tithe is actually connected to a negative connotation.

So we just want to mention that out loud and understand that. So that actually brings a lot of debate. Is tithing for the Old Testament or is it also into the new? Tithing used to mean it’s how you gave to the temple to support the priests. Is tithing how we support the church and the pastors and leaders who serve it?

With all of that said, there are three kinds of people in the world. Those who can count and those who can’t. Come on, come on. Wow, tough crowd, tough crowd. Uh, now there’s three different types of views on tithing, and I want us to kind of wrestle with all of them. So for some of you,   📍 tithing is a sticking point.

And by the measure of you guys not laughing, maybe that’s everybody in this room. But tithing is a sticking point.  You grew up in a home where maybe even your parents tithed. But man, were they far from God. So like you kind of associate it with legalism. You associate tithing with hypocrisy There are people out there who just live not like the kingdom of God But they think everything’s okay because I tithe so I can live like however I want And so I understand that maybe for you tithing comes up with all sorts of baggage and negative thinking because of your upbringing Also, it’s no secret churches Are often not handling money.

Well, I would say the majority are but of course those don’t get the press But you hear a lot of stories about churches, uh using misusing and abusing funds Also the typical critique and I get it churches talk way too much about money And it’s funny because we used to never, now I’ve doubled the amount of talking I’ve, I’ve talked about with giving just in these four weeks out of the whole eight years prior, I only talked about generosity four times.

Now it’s eight, but I get it that some people are like, man, another church just talking about money. Again, I want to apologize about that because it’s in the biblical text, but I do get that. Maybe that’s why it’s a sticking point for you. I do think one way the church can do better in, um, leading the way.

Is actually being more transparent with how much comes in what goes out and all those sorts of things We do a lot of that in our membership class and we actually open up that dialogue even more With those who have signed our covenant, but for the sake of transparency go ahead to the next slide   📍 Here is what we have been receiving as a church the last well since january of 2024 We have had a few random gifts that were given specifically to the building fund So that’s not included in this amount  But other than that here is what we have been receiving on a monthly basis Uh, to the general fund, just the overall budget of our church.

You’ll see quite a few times we hit like the 15, 000 range. I think our best month was in March. Thank you, Easter. And, uh, and also five, I think that was five Sundays that month. We had 27, 000. That all kind of balances out where we have about a 19, 000 a month average. Now, when we budgeted this year, it was based off of 20, 000 a month.

Um, We actually were receiving more last year compared to this year, but that’s because of inflation Have you guys noticed that thing before have you been noticed that lately? So, uh, we are understanding of that It’s actually very common for all churches to be having a lower giving amount than we uh, anybody was a year ago But just for transparency sake that’s a little bit of a peek behind the curtain how we do our budget You’ll hear about this more in the membership class, but it’s 40 percent staff 30 percent Uh, facilities and rent, 20 percent ministry, administration, and 10 percent mission.

So just as how we are calling you possibly to tithe, we tithe as well to give to missionaries who are all around the world. If you want more on that, come to our membership class. Now, before we go any further, let me be loud and clear. If tithing is a sticking point for you, you are welcome and loved here at Passion Creek.

We believe, oh, God has been so patient. And caring to me and so loving as I take slow steps towards becoming like him How dare we not extend that same sort of patience grace and compassion to you So we get that it’s a sticking point We hope these teachings have maybe enlightened you and maybe changed some of your perspectives on this whole Category in general, but please know I believe we walk this out as well.

You are welcome here for others You’re taught to believe that   📍 tithing is a stopping point To use a metaphor that’s often pretty common in the church world tithing is the ceiling Okay, so and some of you have this story you grew up But maybe you didn’t give, you’ve never been to church, you learned about this thing called generosity and you started at like 2 percent of your income giving to the church and then it led to 5 and over a long period of time, like you’re celebrating, you love the series because you’re like, Hey, I actually tithe.

 I give 10%. You know, it’s like, And, and for you, it’s like, I’ve hit the ceiling. I don’t really have to worry about this area of my discipleship. It’s just what I do. It just always happens. Now I’m focusing on prayer and Sabbath and fasting and so many other things that I need to grow in. And that’s awesome.

Uh, this group also from their understanding of the scriptures, they don’t see tithing being abolished in the new Testament. We’re going to wrestle through that a little bit in a moment. But if this is you where you think tithing is good, but it’s the ceiling, the data says you’re in the minority. And I mean that in a good way.

The most recent data of Americans, uh, 37 percent of churchgoers don’t give at all, even some who are very active in the church, so it’s very common for people to not give. The average churchgoer in America today gives 2. 3 percent of their income to church, and that’s a more recent phenomenon. In fact, that number is much lower than, uh, what the number was during the Depression of the 1930s.

So I know our excuses often, but do you know the economy right now? I think we could all agree the 30s was likely worse. And in fact, a lot of like mission organizations are starting to really raise the red flag. They’re concerned because much of missions is, uh, given by those who are, are, are the older generation, like the greatest generation or the c the the quiet generation, they are starting to pass away.

And that is scaring a lot of organizations because the data shows. Those older generations, by the grace of God, they learned giving. They’re generous people and they have a lot of wealth. They’re worried though, as that wealth passes down to the next generation, they don’t have a history of generosity.

And so a lot of people believe in the next 10 years, a lot of missionaries who are currently overseas will have to start coming home. We just won’t have enough money to do all this missionary work that honestly can’t happen without finances. So it’s a really big fear. For the whole world at large, here’s a quote from Christian Smith and Hillary Davidson.

They did a whole study on giving and how it’s better to give than to receive. And these stats are pretty shocking, at least to me. They say, quote,   📍 nearly half of all Americans, 44. 8 percent give away not 1 by their own admission. Another 41. 3 percent gives away some amount of money, but less than 2 percent of their income.

9 percent of Americans gives away between 2 and 5 percent of their income, 3. 1 percent gives away 5 to 10 percent of their income, and 2. 7 percent gives away 10 percent or more.  So I really don’t want the tithers in the room to get really boastful and self righteous here, but like that is kind of what the data shows.

So full disclosure, I think I might be arguing by the end of today that I think tithing is a starting point. However, I would consider it a miracle if every adult here in our church actually tithed. It’s not common. The data shows it’s not like, I don’t know how much you make, but I’m saying, I think not all of us tithe and that’s okay.

You’re welcome here. So I would just consider that an absolute miracle. So here’s the question I want us to ask. Does the New Testament clearly communicate that tithing is the stopping point? Well, let’s look at a few passages. Let’s start in the actually the gospel of Luke. We’ve been going through the book of Luke every single week.

So I wanted to include some more passages today After today, we’ll have gone through eight chapters in Luke to talk about Jesus’s perspective on money We’re just going to read three stories quickly. I won’t go line by line here I’ll at least try not to and then we’ll be able to see like the big 19 verse 1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through There was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector and he was rich.

He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was not able to because of the crowd since he was a short man. Anybody grew up on VeggieTales? Is the song coming to your mind yet? He was a wee little man, okay? And a wee little man was he. Now verse four, so running ahead, he climbed up a sycamore tree to see Jesus since he was about to pass that way.

When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down because today it is necessary for me to stay at your house. It’s one way to have hospitality, say, Hey, I’m coming to your house. I hope that you’re going to host a verse six. So he quickly came down and welcomed him joyfully.

All who saw it began to complain. He’s gone to stay with a sinful man. But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, Look, I’ll give half of my possessions to the poor Lord. Is that more than 10 percent? I think so. And if I have extorted anything from anyone, which he’s a tax collector, so he certainly has, I’ll pay back Four times as much so Jesus replied.

It’s okay. It’s the thought that counts I only want you to give 10 percent is that what the text says you guys are a rough crowd today verse 9 today Salvation has come to this house Jesus told him because he too is a son of Abraham for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost Now the argument, of course, is that is it likely kept giving 50 percent of his income?

Probably not So this was a one time event. So, you know Maybe he’ll just start tithing from here on out. Luke 20, let’s go to verse 20. Luke 20 20 is another great story. Uh, it says, uh, in verse 20, they watched closely and sent spies who pretended to be righteous so that they could catch him. Who’s him?

Jesus. And what he said to hand him over to the governor’s rule and authority. They questioned him, teacher, we know that you speak and teach correctly and you don’t show partiality, but teach truthfully the way of God. This is one of my favorite verses. What a great summary of someone who’s called to teach.

The problem is it’s done in a mockery. Like they’re trying to mock Jesus. I still think it’s a wonderful verse from the mouth of terrible people. Whatever. Verse 22. Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not? But. Detecting their craftiness, he said to them, Show me a denarius. Who’s image and inscription does it have?

Caesar’s, they said. Well then, he told them, give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. Now, the quick translation is, guys, first of all, you should tip when you go to the restaurant and also pay your taxes, okay? Uh, Jesus is saying that you should do it. But there’s actually a deeper lesson here if we actually study this and don’t just run through it.

His argument is, hey, give to Caesar what has Caesar’s image on it. Okay? Denarius has his face, his image, then you should give it back to him. But who is made in the image of God? We all are. So actually God, Jesus is saying, yeah, give that to Caesar cause his image is on it. But your image, God’s image is on you.

So give all of yourself, not just 10 percent of your income to God. So he is really showing the deep, it’s all of life. Which shows, and a lot of you brought this up, which is wonderful. Generosity is not just finances. It can include time. And we’re so grateful for the mighty warriors here at our church who give a lot of their time, including Saturdays.

That is one form of being generous. That’s a way of saying, God, you own my whole life. And I’m going to be a steward, not just of my finances, but of my time. But it also has to include finances. Let’s look at Luke 21. We read this just a couple of weeks ago. Jesus looked up and saw the rich dropping their offerings into the temple treasury.

He also saw a poor widow dropping in two tiny coins, which we said was about two to 50 bucks. Truly. I tell you, he said, this widow has put in more than all of them. Now did she literally put in more currency? No, but it was the proportion, right? It was the sacrifice. Verse four, for all these people have put in gifts out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.

In other words, it’s not like she was going home to a fridge full of food. She wasn’t going home with all of her bills paid. She literally was putting herself in a really, really tough spot. Why? Well, God was leading her to do it and she was being obedient. And I love this because this shows generosity more than anything.

It’s really difficult because it’s about trusting God. It’s about relying on God. So by her giving her only two coins, she was declaring, God, either through miracles or through my community or something, you are going to provide for me and what I need. So with those three chapters, Possibly it makes sense why some say, nah, it’s not a sticking point.

It’s not a stopping point.   📍 Tithing is a starting point. Maybe the new Testament opens up our paradigm of thinking and maybe we’re actually called to maybe even start there. And to use that analogy, it’s no longer the ceiling. Maybe tithing is the floor. Before you’re mad at me and run out. Please keep listening.

 We’re going to wrestle through this with the biblical text. Now, our favorite Quaker, just to make us feel bad, like he did a couple weeks ago, Richard Foster, one of my favorite authors, but he always comes in with the right hook. He says, quote,   📍 It is quite possible to obey the law of the tithe without ever dealing with our mammon lust.

 Remember week one the warning was hey mammon is a god Who is demanding our affections and you can’t serve god and money at the same time And people like foster say there is a why some of us make enough money where tithing Doesn’t even touch our idolatry of money We can tithe and still be caught up in mammon.

 And so turn with me now to second corinthians chapter eight I’m going to read the first four verses in chapter eight and then we’re going to really settle in together in chapter nine um I think this is really one whole chapter. It’s all one complete thought. So let’s look at verse one together. In chapter eight, what Paul is going to be introducing here is not so much a tithe, but what many commentators call grace giving.

So many would equate tithe as a giving from the law, and this is giving from grace. Verse one. We want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that was given to the churches of Macedonia. So everything you’re about to read is all about this gift that God gifted them with, with this grace.

That’s why all of the rest is possible. Macedonia, by the way, is just the northern half of Greece. So verse two, during a severe trial brought about by affliction, many commentators believe this affliction was actually persecution. These people who were once worshiping idols is now worshiping God. And so as a result to punish Christians, they’re not killing them yet here in Macedonia.

They’re just not allowing them to participate in the marketplace. So they are losing money. They’re becoming poor, but look what happens though. They’re abundant joy. And their extreme poverty overflowed and a wealth of generosity on their part. And I can testify that according to their ability and even beyond their ability of their own accord, they begged us.

I love that language here because typically the beggar is the one who wants money. No, they begged us earnestly for the privilege of sharing. In the ministry to the saints. The context here is the church in Jerusalem was going through a severe famine, so a lot of Gentile churches were beginning to show good faith and showing unity in the gospel by giving money to their Jewish brothers and sisters, and the church in Macedonia wanted to do it.

Now, so all of that to say, notice this really difficult math equation. Makes no sense. What does verse two say? Abundant joy plus extreme poverty equals a wealth of generosity? That’s not how my math works. And Paul is saying it’s not supposed to make sense, but because the grace of God has come, that math makes perfect sense.

See, without verse one, without us remembering everything we have is a gift and God has given us his grace through the gospel of Jesus Christ, nothing in the Christian life makes sense at all. So when we receive and we preach this every week, the grace that was given through the cross of Christ, when Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose again in victory, and he offers this free gift, very generous, all we have to do is receive it in faith.

And when we do that second corinthians chapter five just before this says you will have a new heart And then you will have new desires which will lead to new actions and paul is pointing out that story One new action is that you don’t hoard your money. You are generous with it Now this is very difficult for us to comprehend and I think because as americans We have misinterpreted the meaning of grace Grace is this greek word charis and we Diedrich Bonhoeffer, he wrote the great book called The Cost of Discipleship.

He argues the version most of us hear and think about today in our modern world is he would call cheap grace. His definition, cheap grace is just this belief, all grace does is forgive you of your sins. But it’s not just forgiveness. Read the biblical text. It’s like jet fuel. And I use that word intentionally.

Dallas Willard, for the win, he really helps us see a better definition of what grace is. Quote will be on the screen.   📍 The true saint burns grace like a 747 burns fuel on takeoff. Become the kind of person who routinely does what Jesus did and said, and you will consume much more grace by leading a holy life than you will by sinning.

Because every holy act you do will have to be upheld by the grace of God, and that upholding is totally the unmerited favor of God in action.  You see the difference there of what grace really is? It really is like jet fuel. Let me put it another way and it’ll be on the screen.   📍 Grace grants us permission to give less, but it also produces the power to give more.

So again, let me be clear. The grace of Jesus means you don’t have to earn your salvation. If you never give to our church or to any church, that doesn’t mean you won’t be in heaven or not.  This that means nothing on that we mentioned that a couple weeks ago and I’ll say this over and over again You are not a child of god based off of if you tithe or not The only reason you and I could be children of god inheriting that eternal salvation is because of jesus’s generosity  And him giving up his whole self to pay for our sins in order for us to have new life He gave the ultimate offering not us.

Therefore. Let me be loud and clear This is why we say this whole thing’s an imitation. You don’t know have to give. Grace sets you free from that. But not only does grace set us free from, grace sets us free to, to have the power to actually become generous people. Every time I love seeing our people really start to grasp the gospel, possibly for the first time or at a deeper level, you’ll notice they start to live life with open hands.

It’s just really natural. Think about it. Why do people buy so many things and why do we get caught up in so much money and trying to hoard it and save it for ourselves? It’s because we’re looking for hope. We’re looking for security. We’re looking for an identity. Oftentimes the things we buy, give us into like a community.

For so long, I wanted to buy a Jeep Wrangler so I can go like this to all the other Jeep Wranglers. Right? There’s like a community when you buy something that does something for us. What’s great about the gospel is we’re set free from that need to like need to have security and identity and these other things we can say, Hey, I live my life with open hands.

I don’t need to buy my way into happiness. Christ has done that for me. And so when that happens, you find yourself spending less on yourself and spending more on the kingdom. You’re set free. You’re not worried. You’re not compensating. You are just living a generous life. So please hear me. This is our understanding of grace here at Passion Creek.

The grace of Jesus empowers us to do more, not to earn more. And this is where these practices can get so confused if we think it’s about earning. No, it just enables us to just do the Christian life way better than we could on our own. Now, I really want you to study second Corinthians eight on your own this week.

Let me summarize the rest of this chapter quickly so we can settle into chapter nine, verse five through nine. Paul just points to Christ. He was saying he was rich yet for our sake became poor. So the whole reason we’re generous is because Christ was ultimately generous. Verse 10 through 11, Paul really emphasizes.

Your motive is important. You need to really give from the heart. It needs to be a willing thing, which we’ll see again in chapter 9. 12 through 15, Essentially, he says giving produces equality in the church. So the rich are called to help the poor within a congregation and the poor have ways to help the rich.

And so even in this context he was saying the jews have blessed the gentiles spiritually and now the gentiles get to bless the Jews financially we all are equal. We all bring something different to the table verse 16 through 24 is great for church leadership Because it’s the importance of transparency and accountability and handling gifts to the church And then verses 1 through 5 of chapter 9.

He’s again bringing back the focus He wants to really kind of introduce this competition spirit. Hey corinth Macedonia has given a lot step up brothers and sisters Let’s also give a lot to help our other brothers and sisters in jerusalem. Now we get to verse 6 of chapter 9 The point is this. I love that.

He’s like, focus in, here’s the whole thing. The person who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the person who sows generously will also reap generously. Giving is a lot like sowing seed. To reap a harvest, and I know we’re kind of detached from agriculture, but the thing about planting seeds, you really have no idea what’s gonna happen.

You’re relying on the grace of God. You’re relying on rain and timing. You really don’t know how God’s going to show up. Your job is just to give, to give the seed and see what God does with it. Same way, but he’s saying, if you don’t pass out a lot of seed, of course you’re not going to have a lot of harvest.

So give more and you will receive more. But then the question is, what are you going to, what are you going to receive? Let’s keep going. Verse 7. It says, each person should do as he’s decided in his heart. So he goes back to the motive again, not reluctantly. So in other words, like, don’t do this begrudgingly, uh, and then he says not, um, out of compulsion.

So don’t be forced. We this is why we have tried not to guilt trip you into giving this entire month. That is not our desire at all. Because he says, look, since God loves a cheerful giver. He wants us to give with the spirit of joy. That word cheerful, cheerful, it’s a hard word for me, and I speak for a living, whatever.

Cheerful actually in the Greek means hilarion. You see the root word there, hilarious? Can you imagine we pass around, we don’t do this, pass around a giving bucket and we all laugh because we’re just cheerfully giving our money?  📍 The point here is a guilty heart asks, how much do I need to give? But a grace filled heart asks, how much do I need to keep?   See that perspective change this view on generosity only makes sense when you’ve been set free from sin Satan and death through the power of Jesus’s death burial and resurrection and this is why I say The tithe doesn’t always set us free to ask the grace filled question.

The tithe sometimes keeps us, how much do I need to give? 10%? Okay, cool. But what if God is calling you to keep less and to give more? Let’s now, verse 8, and God is able to make every grace overflow to you so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work. As it is written, he distributed freely, he gave to the poor, His righteousness endures forever.

Now the one who provides seed for the sower and bread for food. This is what God does. He’s generous to us. We’ll also provide and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your righteousness. And of course, the question is, what does that harvest mean? Verse 11, you will be enriched in every way. For all generosity which produces thanksgiving to God through us.

In other words, our generosity inspires praise not to us But to God now this phrase about how he will multiply your seed and he will give you a rich and abundant harvest This is where a lot of we warned against the prosperity gospel a couple weeks ago This is where a lot of people I think misinterpret this verse This is not saying I give to God because he will multiply everything Tenfold so I gave God a hundred he will give me a thousand.

That’s a misinterpretation of the text Craig Blomberg gives us insight He says   📍 those who give generously of their surplus income know from experience that in the vast majority of instances They do not recoup that money from other sources.  In other words You have, I imagine you’ve experienced it even this month, when you gave, it’s not like all of a sudden you got that money back.

Sometimes it’s a loss, at least financially, but he continues.   📍 Rather, as verse 8 explains, all grace, all things, all that you need, and every good work, are experiences that cannot be limited to the financial realm.   We touched on this a bit last Sunday as well. Look, this harvest can come back to us in many forms.

I have found sometimes my giving opens me up to different relationships. It’s given me new opportunities. Sometimes it’s a blessing back financially, but also the data is pretty clear. Generous people are actually healthier people, like it actually makes you healthier and happier. There’s a lot of other things you receive, not just monetary back in kind, and God and his wisdom.

Knows exactly what to give us, and that’s why if we define harvest in that broader term, we can say without a doubt, you can never outgive God. I used to think, really, I can’t outgive God. What if I give him a thousand? He doesn’t give me even a thousand back. But that actually is a misinterpretation. First of all, what Jesus has done for us, we can never earn it.

We can never outgive. He’s already outgiven us by giving him himself, but at the same time, he does bless us with all sorts of spiritual blessings, relational blessings of all sorts of things like that. Now I’m going to, what about you? With all that we’ve learned today is tithing, a sticking point, a stopping point, or a starting point for you and your family.

 To be fully transparent with you, my family, tithe is the main thing we do. We give a tithe no matter what. I’ll explain that in just a few moments. And to be honest, especially with inflation, tithing feels hard for us. For the longest time, I was the only one, one income. I worked other side jobs to make things work because we wanted my wife to raise our children.

So now that they’re all in school, she’s not at home anymore, so now we’re starting to experience a new reality, but before then, tithing’s been really, really hard. Here’s what we do though, we tithe no matter what, and then we look for ways to bless people. We give 10 percent to the church, And we think, okay, does the church need something else, or do we need to give to the building fund, or does this person need lunch, all those sorts of things.

I kind of view greed as a weed that always keeps growing, so I have to give every two weeks, because I view it as me going out to the front yard and pulling out those weeds yet again, because if it’s left unchecked, the greed will consume my heart and change who I am as a person. So that’s how my disposition is.

So when I say it’s a starting point, For me and my family, honestly, we’re not that many percentage points above 10. But I still don’t ever see myself going below 10. And that’s kind of how I view it, and I hope I continue to grow in generosity. Now, I know this is our last teaching, so I want to end with 6 best practices for generosity, and 3 next steps.

In other words, there’s all sorts of other stuff I wanted to share, didn’t have time to share it. Now is the time, okay? Here’s the first tip.   📍 Give as you can, not as you can’t. I want you to remember this is an invitation. Like, we really, because of the text here in 2 Corinthians 9, we never want you to give out of guilt.

  This is why we say it’s an imitation. Okay, I think I could have guilt tripped some of you to give a little bit more I don’t want to do that because I have to stand before god and how I use my words I want you to give as a response to grace So this is an imitation and I also know we’re all in different financial situations Because of our past because of the careers that we’ve chosen I get all of that I think campbell morgan a famous pastor 1900s Has this quote I think it’s a really helpful way to really describe how I view You Tithing.

He says, I   📍 know men today who are Christian men in city churches and village chapels who have no business to give a tenth of their income to the work of God. They cannot afford it. I know other men who are giving one tenth and the nine tenths they keep is doing harm to their souls.  You see that balance there?

So give as you can. Second, this is so big.   📍 Begin with the principles of firstfruits. You’ll see this in the Old Testament, but it was this, when they received a harvest, they would give the first initial part right back over to God.  This was hard because, first of all, it was the best. The beginning of the harvest is the best, and this was a communicating to God, God, I’m giving you my best.

But also it’s a principle that we don’t give God the leftovers. We start by giving to him. This is why for my family, every two weeks, we don’t call it payday. We call it giving day. Because first fruits, when we budget, it’s so much easier to budget when we give first and then figure out how we’re going to survive off the rest versus surviving off of it and then going, Oh, ran out of generosity money again.

And so if you want to take up that invitation, that has been life changing for us. Point number three,   📍 give while you’re paying off your debt. I’ve heard this a lot, and I get it. The Bible says don’t be a slave to the lender, but it also says don’t be a slave to mammon. So we would encourage you, while you’re paying off debt, also give,  and by the way, remember, give that caveat, you don’t have to give to our church if you don’t trust us yet, give somewhere, okay?

But we believe you should be doing both at the same time. Number four,   📍 secret giving is the secret to living. I love Jesus’s principle of secret giving. It’s so fun to bless somebody anonymously. And so one fun way to do it is just grab a wad of cash, go to somebody you want to bless and say, Hey, someone told me to give this to you.

 That someone was you, you talk to yourself, but they don’t need to know that. Just say, Hey, someone told me to give this to you and just bless them. That’s kind of in secret, right? But also another principle of secret giving is to remind yourself, Hey, when you give it to the Lord, you’re not in charge of that money anymore.

This is God’s. And so something that really happens that the enemy uses is when people start to give to a church They think now they can call all the shots. I give so I know where it gives and There needs to still be an act of trust, right? Hey give to our mission and let us continue to reach people This does not mean pastors aren’t above accountability.

We have those structures in place, but please hear my heart We still even when we give we still find a way to try to keep control Do it in secret and allow God to use your money in ways you have no idea how he’s using. The next one is   📍 consistency is better than intensity. So back to our marathon metaphor we like to use often here at our church.

It’s crazy to try to run 26 miles tomorrow, right? What is a good pace for you?  Okay, so give. But also, you know, I encourage you pay your mortgage still, you know, eat food, but where is God calling you? How can you do something that you can maybe continue this practice over the long haul? Last one   📍 raise your standard of giving not your standard of living I pray that every single person in this room increases their income.

What a joy And I pray that we have the capacity to receive that what’s been great for my family  Just in time with school starting my wife is working out of school because of that We are now finally making more money than we used to And so we have decided we’re not changing anything. We’re not adding a car.

We’re just living how we’re living. And now we’re raising two things. We’re paying off debt more aggressively and we’re being more generous. It’s so much easier, right? So, so many of us, we jump right into a new debt, a new loan. And now we’re, we’re back to where we were suffocating and trying to make it every single month.

All that said, Let me end by, I want to encourage you to take a next step, or multiple steps. You’re actually going to talk about this in your groups this week, and it’s in your, uh, your booklet on the Form by Generosity. Make sure you grab one on your way out if you haven’t yet. But here’s the three different next steps.

I just hope we all take up upon ourselves to take one. Some of us,   📍 the challenge for you is to go from static to sporadic.   So I know, I imagine. If the data is true, some of us in here have never given to church before. Wonderful. How about what if God is calling you to give a sporadic gift, a one time gift, maybe to this church, maybe to a friend, just be generous and see what the Lord does and allow God to maybe even allow you to give generously again.

I know some people, they love to give when they see a GoFundMe, right? They never give until they see some sort of need and they give to it. Wonderful. Maybe begin by giving sporadically. We hope number two happens.   📍 You go from sporadic It’s a systematic. In other words, it’s on a system every two weeks, every month.

 You have some sort of system in place where it’s regular. You just do it. What’s great about our online giving is we have a recurring option. And I think I saw about 35 percent of our church is on online recurring giving, which is wonderful. It’s wonderful for a couple reasons. One, it keeps you away from greed.

It’s like a good consistent way to say no to greed. to the uncertainty of wealth, but also it helps us, honestly, if you give to our church, helps us budget, helps us go, hey, this is what we’re getting every month. So now we can plan, maybe we can hire that staff member, we can get ready for that building, all those sorts of things really help.  📍

Lastly, from systematic to sacrificial.  I really believe as I read about giving more and more, there is something about giving until it hurts. And I think for some of you this means giving for the first time, you know, not even tithing yet But others of you you’ve been tithing for a long time. Praise the lord Is god calling you to do a one time sacrificial gift that’s above and beyond what you normally do Or is he calling you to raise it just by half of a percentage point every two weeks?

I don’t know. This is what I love about my job. I’m not the holy spirit. Let him talk to you. Okay, you figure that out But I think all of this is a beautiful invitation. But as I close I want to say this again This should feel hard Because it is. And the major reason is the kingdom of God is so counterculture to the ways of this world.

And so you’ll feel this friction. And I’m excited. Come again next week. We’re doing a whole series on the kingdom of God in Acts 13 and on. It’s living these principles of the kingdom always lead to joy and abundance, but it also is very difficult. What we need to do is to rewire our brains. I love how one professor of New Testament put it.  📍

He says it is giving instead of gaining. Thanks instead of interest. Confidence instead of credit. This last line is big. Trust instead of security.  And I think that’s been the growth edge for most of us. Giving is hard because it’s making us rewire and say, okay, God, ultimately my foundation, money, it’s not about money.

Making a greater security for me and my family. It’s actually about giving it over to trust God that you are my ultimate security. And so as we close again, I just encourage you take a next step. Jesus himself says, my family are those who do the word, not just hear it, but also don’t do it alone. This is why we love for so many of you are in groups, wrestle with this, be honest with each other.

Talk about how this is working or not working. Talk about budgeting. We need to like normalize money conversations. Cause I think a lot of us, the enemy works in isolation. We don’t know enough about money because we don’t talk about it. But man, I just keep picturing us becoming this community of generous people who are so counter cultural to the world.

We live with open hands because of the grace that was given to us through the person and work of Jesus. Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, May we just be a people that gladly give our money away, because you gladly gave your life away for us. God, we do this with joy, because our happiness is not based off of any practice, it’s based on you, the person and work of Jesus.