Tithing in the Age of Grace: Lawful or Lawless?

SPEAKER 01 : 0:01

greetings to the brightest audience in the country and welcome to bobbineer live today we are getting into the age-old question to tithe or not to tithe to tithe or not to tithe is tithing part of the law. So many Christians who say, you know, I’m saved by grace through faith alone, not of works, lest any man should boast. They quote that so boldly. They say, you know, we do not need to do works. We do not need to do law. But then what’s the one thing they say immediately after that? Well, you do have to tithe. You have to die. That’s the one law you have to keep is that you have to give me money. I’m the pastor. You’re saved by grace, but you have to give me money. That’s the one law, of course. And so many atheists accuse Christianity of being all about the money. You have to give us money. Sadly, more often than not, they kind of hit the nail on the head with that criticism and but we know that we are saved by grace through faith not of law and not of tithing tithing is part of the law and we do not have to tithe because that is a work of the law a lot of christians say that tithing that it came before the law right you have uh melchizedek and the tithe to melchizedek and so they say oh look you you have tithing before the law But what’s so fascinating is that Jesus, when he’s talking to the Pharisees, what does he say? He says, you guys keep the little tiny laws, but you neglect the weightier matters of the law. You have to keep the entire law. You do well to keep these tiny little laws, but you don’t keep the big laws. You have to keep all the laws, guys. Come on. And what is the example that he gives when he talks about keeping the lesser matters of the law? He talks about tithing. He says, you guys tithe, you do a good job with these tiny little laws like tithing, but you have to keep the bigger matters of the law as well. So Jesus teaches explicitly that tithing is part of the law. However, we are now no longer under the law, but we are under grace. Paul teaches us that we are not under the law, but we are under grace and we do not need to tithe. What does Paul say instead? He says, give with a joyful and cheerful heart. Give freely, right? This is not a tithe that we need to. And it’s funny. I might be spoiling this sermon a little bit, but what’s funny about this tithing thing is that the Christians who teach we have to tithe, they say give 10% of your income and all that, but what they don’t talk about so much is the other matters of tithing. The Bible talks about tithing and how every now and then when you tithe, instead of tithing, take your tithe money and throw a big party and don’t give it to the church. Or sometimes within the law, if you tithe, instead of that tithe money going to the church, use it to give to the poor, right? Give to those in need. And how often does the church that teaches tithing, how often do they teach, hey, you know what? This week, instead of giving it to the pastor and the salary, instead of that, throw a big party for yourselves and it’ll be great. Don’t give it to the church. Give it to the poor. How often do you hear a tithing message that the pastor says, don’t give to the church, right? You never hear that. You never hear that. Why not? Well, because unfortunately the atheists and the skeptics all too often are right that the church is all about money and we need to reverse that and we need to understand that we are saved by grace through faith not of works not of tithing tithing is not part of our code today we do not need to tithe tithing is a work of the law and we are saved by grace through faith alone, not of works, not of tithing. We do not need to tithe. Hey, may God bless you guys. Let’s jump right into this sermon, to tithe or not to tithe.

SPEAKER 02 : 4:15

Sermons typically address areas of need within the church. This sermon is especially difficult to deliver because it addresses a major weakness within the pastor, namely talking about giving. Donating money to church. This is not something I do well or eagerly. In fact, this is the first time I’ve given this kind of message in 41 years. So since our church formed nearly a year ago, this is the first time we’ve talked about money. So those who are guests from out of state and out of town, we apologize for a sermon on money. There are two reasons why it’s so difficult for me to talk to people about giving money. The first is the reputation of churches regarding money, and the second is the use of funds. Now, on the reputation, the number one accusation against churches, as against televangelists, is that they’re only in it for the money. Has anyone ever heard that? It’s the number one. And when people reject the gospel, you try to tell somebody about Jesus Christ and they’re going to put up some opposition, quite often they say, churches are only in it for the money. I’ve seen them on TV. And it’s difficult to rebut that because so much of what they say rings true. So when I think about money, I get concerned because so many people are rejecting the gospel because Christians always talk about money. And so I have a tendency to overcompensate and never talk about money. And that has hurt our ministry, including this church. You can’t out-give God, we hear on Christian radio and TV. So if you plant $1,000 in fertile ground, God will multiply it 100-fold, and now we’re talking big bucks. So if you’re in any kind of financial hardship, I know we’ve taken the collection, but we’ll send it around again just so you can get out of debt. That’s the kind of thing you hear. And unbelievers hear it too. Christians tend to be more naive than unbelievers and more forgiving even when they shouldn’t be. And so they just say, oh, it’s all for a good purpose. But there have been outright frauds in the television community of Christians. A name that many of you will not recognize. He goes way back. Peter Popoff, who was a total fraud. What other frauds have there been where they say, send in your donation with your prayer request and we’ll pray for your prayer request. And the TV cameras went and they saw the prayer requests all going in the dumpster without even being looked at and just the checks being processed. Anybody remembers who that was? Benny Hinn, right. Frauds like the wealthy homosexual Jimmy Baker of the PTL Club and adulterous Jimmy Swagger. Those who’ve collected money for orphanages that don’t exist. And when they take their TV cameras there, they put up the shingle for the orphanage somewhere in the Bahamas. And when the TV cameras go, the orphanage shingle comes down. Or collecting money for the hungry in America. There are huge Christian ministries to feed the hungry in America. Where? We’ve been looking for such a person because we have extra food. You can’t find a hungry person on the streets. One out of ten Americans are on food stamps. And I’ve gone with people on food stamps to see what it’s like to the grocery store. I’ve gone with them. And I saw with my own eyes that they eat better than many people who don’t qualify for food stamps. Our family doesn’t spend that much on food. Even Pat Robertson had to defend himself for using his airplane for Operation Blessing to fly, that’s supposed to feed the poor, to fly equipment to his diamond mine in Africa. And in his defense, he said, well, you know, we employ poor people there. Well, that’s not what people gave their money for, for you to equip your diamond mine in Africa. And in fact, Pat Robertson, while claiming for decades to take only a small salary from the 700 Club, what he neglected to tell his givers, his donors, was that they were using the money coming in to buy TV stations, hundreds of them, to build the family channel, which was in his name and his son’s name. And this huge, the greatest Christian broadcasting network ever created create it. He recently sold to Rupert Murdoch. He got over a billion dollars for the deal. Rupert Murdoch, according to the American Family Association, is the most anti-Christian broadcaster in America today. So Pat Robertson used the money that came in, millions, from his supporters, some of whom struggled to send in the money and said he’s making very little money and he bought hundreds of TV stations, family channel network, and sold it to a pagan who hates God who will use the family channel against Christians. So when unbelievers say Christians are only in it for the money, there’s something that rings true of that accusation. And so some of us, like Bob Hill, for example, pastor at Derby Bible Church in Commerce City, and my mentor and pastor for many years, he responds so strongly to that, reacts so strongly, that in his church, they don’t even take a collection. And they haven’t for years. And I’ve used that to some good effect. When people say to me, Christians are only in it for the money, I say, my church hasn’t taken a collection in 30 years. And that does shut them up. Of course, we take a collection here, and I’ll address that later. So Christians have this reputation, mostly earned, of begging for money to make themselves wealthy, and many of those donating are struggling financially. It’s called fleecing the flock. Zachary, my son who’s three years old, he’s here in the room, he has a little Christmas video. And there’s some confusion with the shepherds in the field. And they said, it’s watch their flocks, not wash their socks. And it’s Zachary’s favorite line that he repeats. It’s feed the flock, not fleece the flock. So of my two concerns, the first is the reputation of Christians. And the second is the use of funds, especially in a small church. When you pass the collection and you gather a pool of money, what happens with the money? Well, after the sermon, we’ll pass out our financial statement of the church year to date. But the bulk of the money raised by a small church goes to the pastor’s salary and his benefits. So for me to give a rousing message talking about the joys and benefits of giving graciously to the church is difficult to say the least. Because much of that money that goes into the collection plate goes to pay our mortgage payment and to buy the gasoline for our cars and clothes for our kids and for a meal at a nice restaurant occasionally for Cheryl and I. So you see the conflict of interest. That’s real. It’s really there. And as a result, I hesitate and have for many years to talk about giving, and hence my awkwardness. Of course, the Apostle Paul makes it very clear that those who labor in spiritual things should also reap material blessings. And in a paragraph about finances, Paul writes in 1 Timothy 5.17, he writes, let the elders who rule be counted worthy of double honor. He says who rule well. Any elder can rule. Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. And of course, that’s what this church does. That’s part of our mission statement, to equip other men to raise up leaders who study the Bible and know the Word of God so they could go out and help to address the hurts in the world around us. And I think that is exactly what this church has been doing and does. Because prosperity and health is worth little apart from spiritual truth. So Paul says, an elder who labors in the word and in doctrine is worthy of double honor. You can have all the money in the world, but without family well-being, without friendships, without a peace with God, what will that money get us? And these things do not come from chemistry experiments. peace and love and joy, but they come from responding to the Word of God, to the Bible, God’s message for us. And that’s why understanding this book and getting to know God is chief among our goals. And God has appointed elders and pastors and teachers for this very purpose, to teach these things. The Apostle Paul, he worked on the side. He wasn’t only a minister. He made tents so that he was somewhat independent and he didn’t look completely to his flock for support. And Cheryl and I, we run a little business on the side. Doug is our business manager. It’s called, well, it’s a website ministry now, primarily. Kgov.com, talk shows on the internet. And that’s pretty neat. And it struggles, but it’s doing all right. It’s paying the bills. And so we have some on the side, some revenue, so that we’re not completely dependent. And our lifestyle that we live, the church doesn’t have to fund it all. Because before we started this church a couple years ago, we bought our dream home. And this church can’t really afford the whole mortgage, I don’t think. And we want this church to be able to buy a building of our own so that we can get together during the week and have fellowships and classes and band practice and weddings and funerals and whatever, not only on Sundays in a rented room. And so we could reach more people in our community because we’re more stable. We’re not transients, just moving through. So we have goals like that. And we hope that our kgov.com prospers so the church, more of the revenue of the church could feed back into the church and grow the ministry of the church. But largely, we depend for the bulk of our financial support on Damascus Road Bible Church. So that provides me with this second difficulty. The money I encourage people to put into the collection plate goes to us, about two-thirds of it. However, I know that I must teach on this important topic because giving money to support the ministry is part of a man’s service to God. And while service to God is often quite a challenge in all its many various aspects, I looked at donating money when I was a young Christian growing up, I looked at donating money as one of the easier avenues of service. I recall thinking I had to serve God and my family. That was especially difficult when it came to my sister. and I had to serve God at work with my coworkers and my boss and with my neighbors, and I needed to tell others about salvation. And accomplishing those things had varying degrees of difficulty. but serving God in the area of contributing to the church, that was relatively painless. Sure, I had other things I wanted to do with the money, but all I had to do was write a check or get some cash, put it in the collection plate, and I did it. So it was relatively easy compared to other areas of service, but then there was an after effect that I hadn’t planned on. I noticed that as I gave money to God, being faithful in that area, it helped me to be faithful in other areas. And it put my priorities in the right order. And so when it came to other aspects of my life, if I had put my money where my mouth was and made a financial commitment to the church I attended and to other Christian ministries, then that meant something to me. That helped to tell me that I was serious about God and it wasn’t just a fad. I was like a soldier in training and giving my hard-earned money to a ministry helped set my priorities straight. Of course, giving money apart from the right motives won’t benefit someone’s spiritual growth. Some people give money out of a duty or an obligation, and that’s not going to cut it. That’s just not going to cut it. It’s like a husband giving his wife love out of duty, obligation. I’m supposed to love her, so here goes. That doesn’t amount to much. But love that comes from a heart filled with joy, freely given, that bears fruit. And it’s not that we always jump for joy at every duty and obligation we have. But if we’re only doing something out of duty and not because we want to love our wife or our husband or our child or our parent, or we’re not giving because we want to give to the church to support its ministry and to further it. If we’re doing it strictly out of an obligation, it’s the law. The law says I have to give 10%, right? It’s called tithing. We’ve all heard about it. Well, God asks us to give liberally from a joyful heart, and then the gift can not only benefit the one who receives it, but the one who’s given it. We have friends up in Boulder, and they’re aware of my reluctance to ask for money for ministry. Their names are Bert and Carrie Wagner. Some of you may know them. Burt Wagner is an engineer. You probably have his software running in your home if you have a computer, IBM or Macintosh. At any rate, Bert wrote our Evolve program to show how evolution can never possibly work, and that’s on the internet at our KGOV website, kgov.com. But Bert and Carrie, they went to see you in Boulder. They were typical Boulderites. They were liberal. They despised… Doug just made a face. They were liberal. They despised Christians on TV. They mocked them. And back then, this was maybe… maybe seven years ago, I was on TV in Denver, and one night, Bert flipped the channels and came to the Christian station, saw me, and said to Carrie, let’s see how long before this guy asks for money. And he took off his watch. And he started timing, and about eight minutes went out, the show was over, and I never asked for money. Went off the air, the credits, no money. He said, that was weird, must have asked for money in the beginning of the show. And the next night, he turned it on. Watched the whole show. I never asked for money. He said, I’m going to keep watching this show until he asks for money, and then I’m going to stop. He watched for four months. We never once asked for money. He couldn’t comprehend it. And I finally met Bert at a little bookstore in Commerce City called Bible Discount. And he and his wife had become Christians. They got saved. So there is some benefit to being aware of the primary objection to the gospel. There’s some benefit to that, and we could take that into account as we strategize and determine how we’re going to impact the world around us. But what we can do is we can overcompensate. And because people ask, because people accuse us of only caring about money, then if we say, well, we’re not going to ever ask for money, then our ministry goes bankrupt. That’s the typical result of ministries that are not good at asking for money. They go bankrupt. And this ministry most likely would, except there have been some incredible people have come forward and said, Bob, you don’t ask for money enough, and here’s a check, and ask for money more. And there have been people like that here and around the country who are determined to have this Bible teaching grow. Well, speaking of Bible teaching, the Bible talks about tithing, giving 10% of your increase to the ministry. And for thousands of years, that’s the way Israel did it. Those who were faithful, they gave 10%. When Gentiles started coming into the body of Christ, The ministers, the bishops and elders and pastors, they thought that was pretty convenient. 10%, it will ensure a pretty good revenue stream, and so the Christian church has taught 10% for the most part. Christians also are familiar with the idea that we Christians are no longer under the law, but we’re under grace. So how does that play in with giving a tithe? Well, most Christians agree with that, but then they sort of compromise and they find ways to put themselves and their church under the law. They’re not really comfortable with just going by grace. Now, that’s one of the big battles we fight at this church. We say we are not under the law, we’re under grace. Unbelievers are under the law. Christians are no longer under the law, they’re under grace. And so if tithing is a part of the law, then are we supposed to tithe? Well, the law, let me talk a little bit about the law first and then about tithing of the law. I’ll give you an idea of what the Apostle Paul says about the rules. And he compares the rules to love. And he says that we are to operate by love, not by the rules. So if a man is faithful to his wife, only because of the 300 rules, one of them says he can’t cheat on his wife. And so he grins his teeth and says, I’ve got to be faithful. Because that rule says it. She’s not going to be very pleased with him, is she? She’s going to want him to be faithful out of love. not out of duty. The same thing happens to be true with God regarding our offering of ourselves to him and our service to him. He wants it out of love, not out of the rules. Now, he didn’t describe this, he didn’t explain this early on in the Bible. He explained it later in the Bible in the writings of Paul. And that’s why Paul and no other author in the Bible says this, that the law, the rules, are a ministry of death and condemnation. The unbelievers are under the rules, not the believers. The unbelievers are guilty because of the rules, not the believers. Paul said that the law brings us to Christ, but once we have Christ, we’re no longer under the law. And he says that the law is good if you realize that it’s not made for the Christians, but for the unbelievers. He says the law gives passion to our evil desires because it creates forbidden fruit. And the law makes wickedness abound because when there’s one law, men will break one law. What if all of a sudden you give them 10 commandments? What will they break? They’ll break the 10 commandments. What if you give them 300 laws? They’ll find a way to break them all. And that’s why Paul said that the law gives passion to our evil desires. But for us Christians, he says, God nailed the law to the cross so that we are left with nothing but relationship, nothing but love to motivate us. We still sin, but our sin is dealt with by grace and not by the law. So now, how does that affect tithing? Is tithing of the law? Well, think of the nature of tithing. You’ve got to give 10%. And if you give 10%, then God will bless you. What if you give 9.5%? Well, you’ve broken the rule. Can’t get blessed if you break the rule. So tithing, by its very nature, is law. It’s a rule. Jesus said in Matthew 23, Verse 23, he said, woe to you because you give 10% even of the herbs you grow in your garden, but you neglect the weightier matters of the law. Well, by Jesus saying that, he affirmed there that tithing is of the law. Now, when he said you give 10%, you tithe of the mint in your garden. When I was growing up, my mom said, She planted peppermint in the backyard. And it was just an area less than the top of this pulpit of peppermint plants. And she wanted to flavor something. And she’d send me out to go get some peppermint. And I’d break off two or three stalks and bring them in. And maybe 15 leaves on a stalk, the size of a ruler, 12 inches or so. And she’d use those in cooking. And Jesus was saying, you guys, you’re so legalistic, you tithe of the mint in your garden. So we would count, okay, we have 112 leaves of peppermint. So we have to take 11 of them and tithe, give it to the church. Here’s your peppermint for the week. And Jesus said, you do that, but you neglect

SPEAKER 01 : 28:46

Stop the tape. Stop the tape. Hey, we are out of time. If you want the rest of this sermon, head to kgov.com. That’s K-G-O-V.com. Kgov.com. This sermon to tithe or not to tithe.