Ecclesiology: Supporting the Church

The Burden and Blessing of Preaching on Giving

Alright, open your Bibles with me and turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 9. We're going to read a very familiar passage, one that you hear me read a lot. I read this just about every Sunday right before we receive the offering.

And I want to say before we read the text that if there is a subject that I do not like to preach on, it is the subject of giving. The reason for that is not because I think giving is wrong or bad, but it is so misused and so mistreated.

And I know as soon as I plan a sermon on giving, we're going to have at least four visitors. Most of them are not going to be believers. And they're going to leave thinking the only thing the pastor ever does is ask people for money.

And I have heard pastors who do that. Who every message is about how much you're not giving and how much you should be giving and how much needs to be given. And I have seen the Scripture mistreated. But I want to say something tonight as we begin.

Sort of make a personal appeal here. We are ending our study of ecclesiology. This is the last lesson on the subject of the doctrine of the church. Next week we'll have Thanksgiving which means all of our evening events are canceled.

No karate, no anything for the week. We just take the whole week off because so many people are preparing for Thanksgiving. So we will not have Wednesday night next week. When we come back in December, I'm going to take a break from the theology.

I'm going to teach.

On the birth narratives of Christ for several weeks. Luke and Matthew. I just want to do that. Take a little break. But when we come back in January we'll be in eschatology which is the study of the last things.

And that's going to be exciting. I hope we'll have several new people come and visit because people like to hear that subject. So tonight's the end of eschatology. Ecclesiology, sorry. Tonight's the end of ecclesiology.

Why Supporting the Ministry Is Necessary

End of the study of the doctrine of the church. And we're ending on the subject of giving because it's necessary. Supporting.

The ministry.

Is not.

Optional.

It is necessary. You guys like that you can come to this building and it's nice and comfortable and the lights are on. And the air is blowing nicely. And you have men who are able to to teach and those things and time given to study and all those things.

All of this is part of ministry and we like that we can support missionaries and we like that we can help people who are hurting. All those things are part of giving to the ministry. So this is not something that we should ever be ashamed to talk about.

Neither should I ever be ashamed to teach on it and I'm not. As I said my only fear is that people would think this is all I ever talk about. And you can look I have over a thousand sermons on Sermon Audio on ranging from a ton of different subjects.

Brother Andy's on there. Brother Mike's on there. And in those thousand sermons you may find less than ten where I've addressed this subject. So if you're here tonight I know we only have visitors. Lewis it's good to see you guys again.

Just know that this isn't the normal thing but it is necessary. Though it's not the norm it's a necessary conversation. And so what we're going to look at tonight we're going to look first at this passage and then we're going to discuss the different types of giving the amount of giving purpose of giving in the manner of giving.

So let's read the text. 2nd Corinthians 9 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart to give not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver. That last phrase.

Is.

An encouragement to me and we're going to talk later about what it means to give cheerfully but just for a moment can't we just meditate on what God loves. You know this week I'm preaching Psalm 92 if you want to prepare for Sunday morning and it says in the beginning of Psalm 92 that it is good to give thanks to the Lord.

And I've been I've been bathing in that passage all week because it's such an understatement. I almost almost titled the sermon the biggest understatement in the Bible it is good to give thanks to the Lord.

It's such an understatement isn't it. And isn't it also an understatement to say that what what is what God loves we should love. Isn't that an understatement. What God loves we should love. And if God loves cheerful givers we ought to love being cheerful givers.

You know that's a meditation of the heart. If God loves it when I give cheerfully then I should never want to give begrudgingly. I should always want to give cheerfully because God loves that. And if God loves the cheerful giver then my goal in life should be to give him everything I can cheerfully.

My wife and I watched a documentary I'm actually thinking about showing it here in church maybe next year sometime after the Christmas season is over. But it's called The Insanity of God. It's about missionaries who go to the deepest darkest places on earth and give their lives for ministry.

And man it's hard to watch some of the things but the miracles that God does and the cheerfulness with which these people give their lives and the joy. I posted something on Facebook. I think some of you who are on Facebook saw it.

I said you know some people have way more trials than we do. And yet they have way more joy than we do. Their trials are so much more than ours and yet their joy is so much more than ours.

How can that be?

That someone can have so many more problems and yet so much more joy because they're so close to God. And they're giving themselves cheerfully to God. And so when God says God loves a cheerful giver we should want to be that.

We should want to give cheerfully. Everything not just money. Not everybody has a lot of money. But we can give to God so much. We can give to God our service. We can give to God our time. And I've been so thankful the last few weeks.

You know we've had some people who've really stepped up around here and given God a lot of extra time for some of the things that need to be done. I've been so grateful just to see the doors open and people come in and doing things that just need to be done.

What a blessing.

And they're doing it cheerfully. Nobody's demanding anything for it. They're doing it because they want to do it. They know it needs to be done. And they're laughing and smiling while they do it.

What a blessing.

Compulsory Giving: Taxes and the Old Covenant Tithe

So that being said we're going to look at two types of giving that are described in the Bible. This is the only blanks that you have on your sheet so I will give you the blanks. The two types of giving that are described in the Bible.

The first is compulsory giving. And the second is voluntary giving. So that is the two types of giving that are described in the Bible. Under or beside since the line goes this way you don't have much room underneath it.

Off to the side of compulsory giving you can put two words to remind yourself what I'm referring to. Under compulsory giving the first one would be taxes. Taxes are compulsory. You want to write a verse for that.

Romans 13 1 -6. It says that let every person be subject to governing authorities. There's no authority except from God. Those that exist are instituted by God. Then in verse 6 it says you also because of this pay taxes and it says in verse 7 pay to all.

What is owed to them.

There's a lot of people who don't want to pay taxes.

I don't love it.

I don't enjoy the fact that we're just now we're fixing to move. For those of you who don't know we're moving to Callaghan. We're in the process of purchasing a home and they sent me a letter. This is what your annual taxes are going to be.

I'm like, you know, it's just more money. Well, we're going to talk about that in a minute. But we do it right because it's obligatory. It's compulsory.

Right.

I'm supposed to pay my taxes as a Christian. I'm not supposed to cheat on my taxes. You know, even if I want to argue the whole I don't know if you've ever heard of this phrase taxation is theft. That's a big thing that's argued right now that all taxation is a form of theft and that's a libertarian phrase that's very popular right now.

And we could we could have that conversation later. But the point is it's a compulsory thing. The Bible says we pay it. The other compulsory giving, if you will, is the tithe. Now, when I say the tithe, I am particularly referring to the Old Covenant tithe.

And I'm going to explain the difference in how I understand the New Covenant in just a moment. But under the Old Covenant, the tithe and all the word tithe means is 10 percent. The word tithe actually predates the law.

Anybody know the first time the tithe was given in Scripture? Melchizedek. When Melchizedek was when Abraham came back from war and he had the spoils of war, it says he gave a tithe to Melchizedek. And so that's the first time we see an example of a 10 percent offering being given as something of a religious observance.

The priest of Salem was what Melchizedek was called. And so he was given that tithe. And so 10 percent becomes a becomes a foundational sort of standard. You know, and you've probably heard it. If 10 percent is enough for God, it's enough for the IRS.

No, but the 10 percent sort of becomes the baseline. And then we get to the law and we find, though, that the 10 percent is not always the it's a baseline, but there's multiple times where we have this come up.

And the Levitical tithe actually turned out to be more like 23 percent, depending on your your amount of produce and how much you're how productive you are.

Right.

And there were some people who didn't give. Because some of the tithe was used to give to rather than take from. And so the tithe was universal. And it was based on the amount that was that you were that you were prospering.

And so there were rules and all kinds of established things. But there was that it was compulsory. You were not allowed to not tithe. And the way that I describe the tithing of the Old Testament, as I say, it's a lot like the taxation of today.

It was what it was, what caused the the the system of government with the theocratic system, which became a monarchy. It was theocratic under Moses and Joshua. And then through the through the judges.

But then you have the kings. And the tithe is the is essentially how the nation is funded. And so so we have this tithing system that's compulsory. So we have compulsory giving. And there's various passages.

I wish we had time to read. We don't have time to read all these just like Brother Andy. I'm going to be giving you some passages tonight, but we're not going to be reading all of them. You can look up the Levitical tithe, which was Leviticus chapter 27, verses 30 to 33.

The festival tithe, which is Deuteronomy 14, 22 to 29. And then there were smaller amounts that were required at different times in the year. Leviticus 19, 9 and 10. There was an offering. And then Exodus 23, 10 and 11.

There was an offering. And that's why I say you start adding them up, and it gets to be more like 23 versus just as flat, flat tax. Yeah, it's not a flat tax. And this revenue was used to operate the nation, to maintain the civil government, and to aid in the needs of meeting the needs of the poor.

And it was compulsory. So all of these we've talked about are compulsory giving. Now, the second type of biblical giving is voluntary giving. And in the Old Testament, there was voluntary giving. I'll read to you one passage.

Exodus 25, verses 1 and 2. Exodus 25, 1 and 2. Notice what that's saying. It's saying that it's a voluntary offering. It's not there's no percentage mentioned. There's no standard. It's as his heart moves him, take the offering.

Also, we see this in 1 Chronicles 29. And here's where we the only time in the Bible where we get the words free will is in regard to an offering. And it says this, 1 Chronicles 29, verse 6. It says, The leaders of fathers' houses made their free will offerings, as did also the leaders of the tribes, the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and the officers over the king's work.

They gave for the service of the house of God 5 ,000 talents, 10 ,000 derricks of gold, 10 ,000 talents of silver. And it goes on to give the numbers.

It said,.

And whoever had precious stones gave them to the treasury, to the house of the Lord, in the care of Jahiel the Gershonite. Then the people rejoiced because they had given willingly, for with a whole heart they had offered freely to the Lord.

David the king also rejoiced greatly. So notice, they gave freely. They gave with their whole heart. They still gave a lot, which is interesting. They still gave, I mean, thousands and thousands of talents and derricks.

But the point is, there was compulsory giving. There was voluntary giving. And we see this all throughout the Old Testament. Now, when we come to the New Testament, here is where some debate comes in.

And I'm willing to have the debate when time allows. For now, I'm going to say my thoughts on the subject. If you want to ask a question, I'm willing to entertain it. But it is my opinion that when we come to the New Testament, that we are dealing exclusively with the voluntary gift.

And the reason why is because the New Testament does not provide for us the same standards of the compulsory gifts as the Old Testament provides. So some people say, well, what are you saying? You're saying we're not supposed to tithe.

I think tithing is a basic standard of measurement, one-tenth. But the New Testament actually never says if you don't tithe, it's a sin. In fact, I would say this. Within the New Testament paradigm, I think more, not less than the tithe, is really what is expected.

Think of it like this. Who is the person who is considered to be the greatest giver in the New Testament? She only gave a penny. Yeah, the widow. What did Jesus say? This woman gave more than all the rest because she didn't give out of her abundance, but she gave all that she had to live on, right?

So what happens, I think, often with the tithe is people feel like that's all I have to give. And they're thinking in terms of compulsory giving. And rather than what do I get to give, what should I give?

What should I be giving? And if somebody says, well, you should give a tithe, I think that that's a good foundational place. But I do know this. There, for some people who have very little income, a tithe would be very difficult, a whole ten percent of their income.

And for some people, a tithe is nothing. You see what I'm saying? And somebody says, well, if everybody gives a tithe, everybody's giving the same. I understand the logic behind that. And that is, in a sense, true, right?

But when we go back to the Old Covenant, there were poor people that were the recipients of the benefits of the tithe rather than the giving side. See, that's the point. We missed that part. And so I do think that we have to be careful telling somebody, Daisy, you didn't give ten percent, you're a sinner.

Right?

I don't know what you give, I have no idea. I'm just saying, Daisy, I pick on you every week.

You see? Yeah. Yeah.

Y 'all remember J .C. Penney? J .C. Penney gave well above a tithe. Some say he gave ninety percent of what he earned to the Lord. And he was a very wealthy man. Now, I don't know that that number is entirely accurate.

But J .C. Penney was a wealthy man who gave and gave and gave and gave. And he could have stuck with ten percent and said, that's good enough for me. Good enough for God, good enough for me. But that wasn't what he was to give.

It wasn't what God laid on his heart to give. And so I do think that it is it's dangerous to say this is the standard. I think it's a good foundational starting point. And, you know, my wife and I, we do we work through our giving in such a way that we try to give at least ten percent.

We do.

I mean, this is my heart. I'm not telling you what you should do. I'm telling you what we do as an example. That's the only example I know, because I don't know what anybody else gives. Right. I know what I give.

So I'm able to say, OK, I know how much I make. And the good thing is I make an annual salary by God's grace. I know exactly what I'm going to make. And so I'm able to at the beginning of the year say, OK, I know how much I'm going to make.

Therefore, I know how much I want to give as as as my base. But that's not all I get. That's just the starting point for me. Right. And somebody may do it differently, but that's the you know, and it's easy to start there and then to do what else I can as the Lord prospers or as I'm able.

So there is my thoughts on the tide is I do not believe tithing as a as a compulsory gift is a new is a new covenant command. But I do think that it's a good example and a good way to start thinking about giving.

How Much to Give: Proportion, Ability, and the Heart

And so I think that's a you know, if we want to talk about because if you look at the first note is the amount of giving.

How much should you give? Right.

If you want to ask, how much should you give? Here's here's here's here's here's some ways I can answer that. I'll give you the scriptures to answer that from a New Testament perspective. First Corinthians 16, 1 and 2.

First Corinthians 16, 1 and 2. Now, concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches in Galatia. So also I direct you on the first day of each week. Each of you should put something aside and store it up as he may prosper so that there will be no collecting when I come.

Note the amount given is determined by what? The amount you prosper. Right. So so right there is a beginning point. All right. So you have you have earned this much. You have you have prospered this much.

Therefore, there's your you give proportionately to that. Now, let me let's talk about that for a minute, because, like, you know, I mentioned the 90 percent that J .C. Penney gave. I can't give 90 percent and unless my kids go hungry.

Right. If I gave 90 percent, my kids wouldn't eat. And then I'd have to beg for money. So we do have to be reasonable, right? We have to say, OK, what is it that the Lord has provided me that I can give?

Right. And somebody says, oh, just give it all and let the Lord. This is an issue with Martin Luther and his wife, Martin Luther. His wife's name was Katharina von Bora, and he would give away all their money.

So he she she had to hide money so that he wouldn't give it away. In fact, there's a funny story about a vase where Luther was walking around the house and he said, you know, Katie, which is what he called his wife.

Katie, where's the vase we received for our wedding? I want to give it to this other person. And she said, no, I have hidden it from you because we are going to sell it in the winter and use that money to feed ourselves.

That was given to us for our wedding. He goes, well, I want to give it to this person for their wedding. She said, no, you can't do that. This is going to sustain us through the winter. You know, it must have been some vase.

But that, you know, that was the heart of Luther. Luther would give until it was and until he was impoverished. But remember, he was a monk. What did monks have? Nothing. They took a vow of poverty. Right.

They were used to having nothing. But he had six kids, so he had to consider his you know, his wife. She was the manager. They call her, what do they call her, the Duchess of Wittenberg. He called her the Morning Star of Wittenberg.

But no, the Duchess of the Cloister. I've been calling Jennifer that. The Cloister was where the monks lived and he called her the Duchess of the Cloister. And she really was like the household manager when it came to the money because he was just giving it all away.

And and so you have to consider that. Right. I mean, you all have family. Some of you are parents. Some of you are grandparents. And if everybody gave all of their money away and their kids were hungry, then that would be not good stewardship.

So we have to consider that. Right. We have to we do have to feed our kids. We have to pay our bills. But is is there times when we're when we're being extravagant and lavish that that becomes an issue of the heart.

Right. It really does. So we have to have to consider that in regard to our giving. Are we giving proportionally as we're prospered? And then the next thing in Acts 11, it mentions giving according to our ability.

I think that goes in the same vein. That's Acts 11, 27 to 30. And I got I got to speed up a little bit because of time. But I think 2 Corinthians 9, 7, which we already read, really is the heart of it, because 2 Corinthians 9, 7 says each one must give as he has decided in his heart.

And then it says those two beautiful but very powerful words, not reluctantly or under compulsion. So if a guy comes and he says, Pastor, I don't want to give this, but here. Now, nobody gives me money anyway like that.

They put it in their offering place. I wouldn't know if they were doing that. But the attitude does matter. And notice it says not under compulsion. This is why I think New Covenant giving is not compulsory giving.

Even if we come to the belief that the 10 percent is the standard, it's still not compulsory because if you're doing it only because you have to, then you don't understand the heart of giving. We should do it because God loves a cheerful giver, not because God loves a compulsive.

Find the verb. Compelled giver. There it is. That's an adjective, actually. A compelled giver. God loves a cheerful giver. And when we're compelled to give, it's not coming from the heart. It's coming from the sense of guilt or demand.

And that's not what we're called to do. In fact, let us move now to the purpose of our giving. Because once we go from how much, we then move to why are we giving this. I think the purpose of our giving tells us more about how much we should give because we understand why we're doing it.

Why am I cheerful when I give? Because I know what the money's for. I know where it's going and what it's being used for. And I've given you three things to think about. I'll give you Scripture verses to go with each one.

The Purpose of Giving: Brethren, the Poor, and Christian Workers

To meet the needs of the brethren. 1 John 3, 17 and 18. If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? And little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and truth.

So, we give because it meets the needs of the brethren. We have in the church here benevolence and benevolent giving. Meaning, when you give, a certain amount of that money is set aside for the purpose of using in case there are those within the church who have need.

I mean, we've paid light bills. We have helped people in times of crisis regarding food, anything. And it starts here, within the church. No one in this church, I've said it before and I'll say it again.

No one in this church should be desperate and the elders not know about it. That's our job, to know those things. And people say, well, I'm embarrassed. Don't be embarrassed. That's why we do this. There should not be desperation while the elders remain ignorant.

That doesn't mean we have to tell the whole church if you're embarrassed or whatever. But I want to say this. I don't think you should be embarrassed. Everybody has hard times. But, as I said, that's a lesson for another time.

Meeting the needs of the brethren is part of why we give. Number two, we meet the needs of the poor. We are called to be philanthropic. I will say this. In the history of our nation, the most active people in feeding the poor has been the church.

Orphanages have been started by the churches. In fact, when I adopted my two children, I adopted them, well, this is not a church, but I adopted them through Jewish Family Services. Because adoptions at that time, this was 14 years ago.

Today is the anniversary of the day we got Ashley and Cody, by the way. Today is the anniversary of the gotcha day. We call it gotcha day. And there was three groups, Jewish Family Services, Catholic Family Services, and I think the Baptist Children's Home.

So, basically, those were the groups that were handling the fostering. I mean, the state is over it, but they're ministering out, using the church in the ministry of the church, because that's where the heart of this is, to help the orphan and the widows.

Right?

And that's the goal. The church should be about that. Yes, absolutely. You know, when we give to various ministries as a church, and I encourage folks, you know, to also give to ministries that move your heart.

You know? The last one, meet the needs of Christian workers. In addition to meeting the needs of the brethren, in addition to meeting the needs of the poor, the elder or elders who are responsible for the labor in ministry, daily labor, are to be supported.

Now, I say that knowing I'm the primary one here who receives the support, so I say that carefully. But listen to this passage, 1 Timothy 5, 17. Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.

That's their job, is preaching and teaching. For the scripture says, You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages. I'll tell you this, I wish I was independently wealthy so that I would never have to take a dime, but I do have to feed my family.

And I am grateful that the church affords me a salary that I may take the opportunity to spend my life in the service of God and his church and the study of the word. That's my only job. It's to minister here.

By God's grace, he's given me that opportunity for 15 years. I may go away one day. I may have to go paint fences or hang sheetrock or do something. Oh, I hope not. I'm not really good at either one of those.

But the point is, whatever. I'm going to preach regardless. But right now, the Lord has allowed me to do this as my primary vocation. And I'm thankful for that. And I think that passages like this one allow for that, for the minister to be a vocational minister.

Some people think ministers should never be paid. I know a lot of people, and a lot of people have a lot of opinions, not usually based on Scripture. And they say, well, if you get paid, you're a hireling.

That's not true. If you ever want proof that I'm not a hireling, listen to me preach because I'm willing to offend you. The hireling is not willing to offend because he's afraid that his paycheck will be taken away.

That's the very idea of a hireling, someone who does what he does only because he's paid, and he changes the way he does it because he is paid. That's not me. Brother, jump in any time if you feel like it.

Go on, man.

Okay, all right. And Brother Andy, you know, he did ministry. I don't want to tell his story, but he did ministry for a lot of years as a bivocational minister. And so he worked for Pinsky and ministered at a church.

And so he can tell stories about that, you know, about the difference. So, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. There's certainly nothing wrong with bivocational ministry. But I am grateful, as I said, that by God's grace for 15 years, I haven't had to do that.

The Manner of Giving: Anonymous, Sacrificial, Cheerful, and Voluntary

The man of our giving, this would be, if you will, just indulge me another couple minutes, and I'll finish with this. The manner of our giving. Four things to consider. One, we should give anonymously.

I base this on Matthew 6, 1 to 4. That says, Beware of practicing your righteousness before people. It basically tells us when we give, we shouldn't sound a trumpet. We shouldn't want people to see what we give.

I don't think that that necessarily means that we should be scared of people seeing us put money on the offering plate, but we shouldn't be sitting there, looky, looky, looky. Well, you know, I'm making it rain in the offering plate.

You know, that's not the way we're supposed to, that's not the attitude we're supposed to have, right? Look at what I give. Because why would anybody do that? Because they want other people to be impressed with what they give.

And what did Jesus say? They have received their reward. They got the people to be impressed by it. They've received their reward. So we give anonymously, you know, not necessarily strictly. We don't want anybody to see us do anything.

But, you know, we don't walk around holding up a banner for ourselves. Number two, we give sacrificially. I go back to the widow's mite as an example of that. I always try to ask this. Is my giving really costing me anything?

Am I making a sacrifice or am I just giving out of my abundance? I think that's a question only you can answer, right? I don't know what you have and I don't know what you give. So I can't tell you if you're giving sacrificially.

But, you know, that's a good question to ask. Is what I am giving costing me anything really? Number three, we should give cheerfully. I said I was going to bring this up again. 2 Corinthians 8. Listen to this as Paul describes the churches of Macedonia.

He says this. He said, We want you to know, brethren, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.

For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. And this not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us.

Notice they begged for the opportunity and they were poor. It says there it says they were impoverished themselves, and yet they begged for the opportunity to be a part of what God was doing. Let us be a part of what God is doing.

Do we feel joy when we give? Do we really feel like we're being a part of what God is doing? Or are we reluctant? Do we wonder is God really at work? Do we wonder if what we're giving really matters in the grand scheme?

And lastly, we should give voluntarily. And that's the crux of the lesson, right? All of our giving to the church is not under compulsion. No one stands. I don't stand with the offering plate walking by looking, you know, and when you don't give enough, I reach down and twist your arm.

You know, or when the offering plates go out and they come back up, I look down and say that's not enough, send them again. You know, that's yeah, you can't go out until we get a little more. Our motivation for giving is love for Christ, love for his church, and a desire to see his work prosper.

Love for Christ, love for his church, and a desire to see his work prosper. The New Testament teaches we are to be generous, sacrificial, and cheerful. That's the heart of New Testament giving. And I would ask, does that describe the way you give?

Do you give generously, sacrificially, and cheerfully? Many people do not. And I'm going to end with a little. Did you want to say something, brother? You look like you're.

I have lots to say.

You have lots to say. That's right. None of us go in and see what anybody has given. We're very particular about that. We just had a turnover, new treasurer and all. But, you know, it's the finance committee.