What is Tithing?

SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everyone. The scripture reading this morning, the Old Testament reading is from Malachi 3, verses 6 through 12. And I will follow that with a New Testament reading from Matthew chapter 23, verses 23 and 24. God's word from Malachi 3. For I, the Lord, do not change. Therefore, you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, How shall we return? Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, How have we robbed you? In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation, of you. Bring your full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, 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 need. I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts. And from Matthew 23, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and you have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat, and swallowing a camel. Ministers normally don't begin sermons with announcements, but I'm a professor and I'm used to making announcements before I give a talk. And I'm going to make two announcements before I deliver my sermon this morning. These announcements are not for all of you. They're just for those of you who are under 18 years of age. First of all, if you've been around Trinity at all, you know that I'm not the regular minister. So this morning, I'm like a substitute preacher. And I don't know about you, but when I was your age, my classmates and I looked forward to having substitute teachers. And if you're under the age of 18, I hope you'll be nicer to me than we were to some of our substitute teachers. And second, unlike John Hall's sermons, my sermon involves some arithmetic. And in case you hadn't noticed in the bulletin, the sermon is called Bible Arithmetic. But you should be able to handle the math. It's going to involve taking 10% of a number. And the number will always be a dollar amount. So if you know that a tenth of $10 is a dollar, if you know that 10% of$10,000 is$1,000, then you can do all the arithmetic you need for this sermon. You might test yourself to see if you can figure out what 10% of, say,$12 is or$36,000. Okay, that's the end of the announcements. Let's talk about Bible arithmetic. One of the biggest surprises to me as a new Christian was realizing that God cared a lot about money. The Bible has about 500 verses on prayer. So prayer must be important. It has over 2,000 on money and income. So money and income must be really important. Richard Halverson is a name that some of you might know, a former chaplain of the U.S. Senate. This is what he wrote one time. Jesus Christ said more about money than any other single thing. Because money is of first importance when it comes to a person's real nature. Money is an index to a person's true character. All through Scripture, there is an intimate correlation between the development of a person's character and how he or she handles money. Now, one part of handling money is giving it away. And one method of giving it away is to tithe, to give away 10% of your income. So the Bible arithmetic is tithe equals income over 10, or tithe equals income times 0.1. That's the Bible arithmetic I want to preach about. The Bible verses, particularly in Malachi that were read, not only commend tithing, but they suggest that not to tithe is to rob from God. So this is a sermon about tithing. Now, whenever real ministers, professionals, give sermons, they almost always tell a story. And I want to tell two stories in this sermon. One I'll tell now, and the other one is going to be at the end. The first story is about a young professor who joins the UVA faculty, fresh out of grad school, and he's a new Christian. And he joins a Bible study with a couple other faculty members who are godly people, and he looks up to them. And he learns that they tithe. That is, they voluntarily transfer 10% of their income to charitable causes, mostly to their church. And not only do they tithe their income, but they commend tithing to the young professor for his income. And not only do they commend it, they suggest that this is a biblical practice, a norm, for people who are grateful for what Jesus did for them, and who want to be followers of Jesus. Now, there are a couple things you need to know about this young professor in my story. He's Dutch by family background, and he's also an economist. So he's not exactly wired or trained or disposed to throw money around. And he wasn't raised in a family where there was a lot of money. And he worked his way through college, and teaching at UVA was the first job he ever had that had middle class income potential. And then some people he admires suggest that he give 10% of his income to Christian causes. So what did he do? Economists make a lot of fun of accountants, especially these days, but economists really aren't that different from accountants in a lot of ways. This economist thought, well, if the 10% figure is fixed, and you can't change that because that's in the Bible, he could play around with the income figure. Surely the income variable didn't include books and professional expenses, he thought. So he could deduct those and cut his income figure down. Surely the tithe was to be applied to after-tax income and not pre-tax income, and that reduced the amount of the tithe quite a bit. Surely the Bible sanctioned imputing a dollar value to time spent going to church. And it was and it was appropriate to cut down the dollar value of that time as part of the 10% given away. And that cut the income down. The worst thought that came to his mind, since he had been working since he was 14 years of age, is what if this tithing concept is retroactive? Now, I'm the economist in that story, and there have been many blessings in my life that have been taught to me by mature Christians about what it means to follow Jesus, and one of the greatest was these two colleagues patiently but firmly, lovingly but very directly, telling me that I was missing the whole point. And they encouraged me to do something that seemed radical at the time. They suggested I simply take 10% of my gross income and give it away. They told me that the Bible arithmetic was that simple. Now I tell this first story to my church family not to call attention to myself. Just the opposite, really. I tell you this story to call attention to the grace and power of the Lord and to the wisdom of proportional giving. Because following the biblical concept of tithing, by God's grace began to change a stingy, calculating person into someone who, contrary to everything in an economics textbook, experiences the joy of giving. I remember telling these guys in my Bible study, look, it says in 2 Corinthians 9 7, that the Lord loves a cheerful giver. Shouldn't I hold off on tithing until I could do it cheerfully? And they taught me that, like so many parts of the Christian life, you obey first. And then out of practicing the art of obedience, the heart follows. They made a prediction that seemed amazing to me at the time. Giving cheerfully would follow from obedience. And it did. I can't promise that your experience will mirror mine the moment you begin tithing, if you're not a tither. But if I were a betting man, I would bet that if you tithe, you'll become a cheerful giver. If you aren't, right from the get-go. If you get involved in proportional giving, I also predict your spiritual maturity, your walk with the Lord will be enhanced. You see, proportional giving is not commended, even for high-income people, because the church and charities need their money. Nor is it commended because giving to Jesus will make you rich. The Bible doesn't teach give Jesus a nickel and he'll give you back a dime. Proportional giving is commended because giving is an investment in Christian character. The church, this church, too often speaks of giving as a means of what we do for the church. Too little is said about what it does for the giver. John MacArthur wrote, giving is not God's way of raising money. Giving is God's way of raising children. Every time you give sacrificially, you give a little of your selfishness away. Proportional giving is an investment in Christian character. In fact, tithing is one of God's ways to do a heart check. The Bible says where your treasure is, that's where your heart is. If you think cars and homes and portfolios are what really counts, that's where your heart will be. If you think the Lord is important, that's where your heart will be. I predict that your attitude toward proportional giving will smoke out the condition of your heart. And in this sense, tithing is not really about money, it's about the condition of my heart. When I think of what Jesus did for me, and now he asked me to do something practical for his church, that's also for my own good, because of character traits it will develop in me, I should say yes. If I see tithing against the backdrop of a blood-stained cross, it looks different. The present value of the lifetime earnings stream for many in this congregation is sizable. Some of you have, some of you will have, tithe increments that can really make a difference in the life of a church or a young life staff member, a Salvation Army shelter, an abundant life program. For some of you, if you tithe, someday, if not now, there may be opportunities for sizable income transfers to needy and worthwhile causes. But if you make a very modest income, a small income, and you give part of that away, do you know the Bible teaches that God is pleased and he uses those funds in ways that are even more special than funds from rich people? Read the story of the widow's might in Luke 21, 2. If you doubt that at all, Jesus also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. Jesus said, I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth, but she out of her poverty. Studies show that lower middle income Christians give away a higher fraction of their income than high-income Christians. Did you know that? You pick a blue-collar worker who attends church, probably he will give a higher fraction of his considerably smaller income than the gal who's a highly paid attorney who goes to church. Now I mention this because someday some of you will be highly paid, if not now. Say you're a UVA student, and someday your income is$250,000 a year. That's a lot of money. If you tithe, what's the Bible arithmetic on that? That's$25,000 a year. And some of you may be thinking, wow, I could never imagine giving away$25,000. But if you think that way, what you're saying is that the blue-collar worker, who's making $35,000 a year and tithes, is somehow able to give away$3,500 and is more able to do that than you could give away$25,000. If you think it's easier for low-income people to tithe than high-income people, because the dollar amount gets so high for high-income people, then I'm especially happy that you're a Trinity this morning. And I will simply say lovingly but directly, watch out, because you're in great danger of being shackled by income. The scriptures teach to whom much is given, much is required. Let me say very explicitly to young people, not yet earning an income, but with high income potential. You need to get this right in your life early on. Now I said I was going to tell two stories. The second is about an undergraduate student I know. This is a poor kid by UVA standards. What's the indicator? Over spring break, he couldn't afford to go south. He couldn't even afford to go home. So he stayed in Charlottesville, where he has a part-time job. My wife Terry and I had him over for dinner during the break. And I observed something I don't think I'll ever forget. A couple weeks earlier, my wife and I had learned that this boy's car had just given up the ghost. And we prayed about this and we wanted to give him some money towards another car, but we we didn't want him to know it was from us. So we tried to do this through Terry Burns, our church administrator. But it turned out the student learned anyway that the money was from us. And when he was at our home for dinner, he told us this. And he offered to give the money back because he had decided he could get along okay at UVA without a car. Now, that offer to return the money is itself remarkable. Help someone buy a car whose car just went dead and they say no. I can't speak for females, but I suspect 95% of the male population won't say no to such an offer. But this young man did. So I countered and I said to him, Well, someday you may want to get a car. You could put that money in a savings account until then. But this UVA student did. So I asked him, if you had this amount of money that came to you unexpectedly. My field of economics, we call it a windfall. If you had this amount of money and you didn't know how to return it, what would you like to do with it? Now listen to this. This young man said that he always wished he had some money to give away. He observed students in his university chapter at UVA who were raising money to go on summer missions trips. He knew the university staff people lived off of donations given to their ministry. And he's never had any money to give away. And what he really liked is to have some money to give away. And so I said to him, that's what the money's for. And I thought at the time, this guy's better suited than I am to deliver this sermon on giving. Because giving to him really is an investment in Christian growth and discipleship, and it's something he wants to do. And I will just tell you over and over again, I meet Jesus-following students at UVA whose godliness is both an encouragement and a rebuke to my own lukewarmness towards the things of Christ. And this church family has a number of people and a ministry called Crown Ministries that are ahead of me, I'm the first to admit. Now, for those of you who are under 18, let me come back and speak only to you another time. Making Jesus Christ the Lord of your money is not necessarily as simple as taking 10% and giving it to Trinity Church or some other organization. It might not be as simple as doing the Bible arithmetic. I once gave a talk on tithing to a group of students at the Darden School. And a young man came up to me and told me that he and his wife were borrowing from one of their parents to get through school and they were in debt. And he wondered if he should be tithing that money from his parents. And I told him, probably not. That instead he and his wife might hold off tithing until they got out of school, and maybe even until they got some of those debts paid off. But I did tell him that putting off tithing was a slippery slope. Because when he got out of school, he could reason, well, we'll put off tithing until we pay off our parents. And then he argues, we'll put off tithing until we paid for our first house. And then he rationalizes, we'll put off tithing until we've put our children through school. And then it might be, we'll put off tithing until we save for our retirement. And you get the picture. They never tithe. This is not something I would bleed and die over, but if you're a youngster and you believe in Jesus and you get an allowance from your parents or you have a summer job, I would encourage you to pray about tithing your allowance or your pay from your summer job. If your parents aren't Christians, you should ask them if this is okay. And if they're opposed, you should do what they say. If your parents are Christians, ask them if you may tithe your allowance or your pay from a part-time job. And if they say no, they don't want you to tithe, please have them give me a call, okay? Now, for those of you who have been around church a while and who are sensitive to theological issues, let me address this question. Does the Old Testament tithe retain force in the wake of the New Testament? In the wake of the gospel? In terms of the law of God given through Moses, the answer is no. The tithe as a literal 10% biblical law is not operative. And some of you just relaxed. For the first time I began speaking. But hear this. Jesus transformed the old covenant law by fulfilling it. Now that statement could take a lot of sermons to unpack, but for our purposes today, the reality is that fulfilling the law is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. The transformation of God's law is giving all we have to God. And with regard to finances, this means all of our income and our wealth really is God's. Suddenly the tithe looks like a bargain. The tithe is not law today, but in the context of giving all you are and all you have to Christ and his kingdom, the tithe functions as something stronger than a guide or a suggestion. I think of it as a starting point. For some, a minimum. Possibly a baseline. Now, every Sunday in this church there are non Christians and seekers who attend worship. Service. And this is the part of my sermon I particularly want non-Christians and seekers to hear and understand. With regard to those of us who are Christians, with regard to those who are followers of Jesus, Jesus doesn't save us and bring us into God's family because we tithe. We could not earn our salvation if we had a billion dollars and we gave it all away, every penny of it. We tithe because we love Jesus and we want to follow him. That's all. If you're not a Christian and you're wondering, will God love a follower of Jesus more if he gives away 10% of his income? Does God love a Christian who gives 6% of her income more than the Christian who gives 3%? No. No, no, no. God doesn't slice and dice his love that way. Whether we give a huge percentage of our income or nothing, God loves us 100%. His love is not occasioned by our performance. He loves his people. We can't bribe him or tip him. He loves us. Now, if you're a seeker and you were to tell me this would really be hard, giving up 10% of my income, I would say back in response, boy, that's great. What an opportunity. You're in a position to see God work in your life. Ask God for help. Because where you feel weak, he's strong. And where you feel poor, he's rich. And where you feel tight-fisted and selfish, his character is to be open-handed and generous. Ultimately, tithing is bound up in loving him with all your heart, soul, and strength. Jesus gave all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength so that you could give all of yours. He's already given himself to you. And he'll continue to give you all of himself if you put your trust in him. That's the gospel. Now let me say something to my church family. It would be possible to preach for a month of Sundays about Christianity and economics. Because it's a subject that just runs through the Bible. If you look at the Old Testament prophets, the Proverbs that John has been preaching on, and we'll get to, many of the parables of Jesus, the behavior of the church in the book of Acts, Paul taking up a collection for Christians in Jerusalem, the exodus of the Jews from slavery in Egypt to a land that was going to be a land of milk and honey. The themes in Genesis about creation are all connected to careers and how people relate to the world of money and the things that'll buy. So you might have a hundred questions about Christianity and giving. And this one sermon can't touch on all of them. But I have been praying day after day that this sermon will touch your heart. In particular, I pray that it will touch the heart of anyone in the audience who's thinking it's okay for the church to preach about prayer and redemption and missions and grace and the cross and prophecy. But when someone preaches about money, they're meddling. Jesus taught more about money than he taught about prayer and missions and the cross and heaven and prophecy. I can still remember as a new Christian hearing a black evangelist named Tom Skinner claim, and I was in an audience of hundreds, but it seemed like it was directed straight at me, he claimed, if you want to learn something about a person's spiritual life, look at their calendar and their checkbook. For some of us, money is a reality check as to whether Jesus is real to us or not. If Jesus is the center of our lives, then our money will flow to that center. If status and possessions are the center, then money will flow there. You know, I've been in this congregation when we have sung together. And in singing, we've experienced so much joy. It was so much fun that we decided to sing some more. And I've wondered, would I ever see a day when we take an offering? And many people say, wow, that was great. That was such a blessing. Could we do that again? For we will always give effortlessly to those things that give our life meaning. Let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the privilege of speaking to my church family. I pray particularly for young people in this congregation, for whom this question of money and income and possessions is still an open one. I pray that you'll touch their heart, that they will get this right early on. And Father, I pray also for people in this congregation who are more at my age of the age spectrum. And their hearts have gotten hard about this, Lord. They may even think that you can't work in their heart anymore. And I pray that you'll show them that you are still a heart changing God. And that they will look back and say, Wow, the Lord still works in my life. Father, thank you for your many riches and mercy extended to us through Jesus. And it's in his name I pray. Amen.