The Way To Growth In Christlikeness - Part 7 — Zac Poonen

Growth in Christlikeness and the Wrong Attitudes

So we're continuing our study now in the Sermon on the Mount. Our title is Growth in Christlikeness. And we first considered in Matthew 5 verses 1 to 16 nine right attitudes. And now we've been, in the last few weeks, we've been considering nine wrong attitudes.

And the first wrong attitude we saw was anger in Matthew 5 verse 21 onwards. And the second wrong attitude we saw was sinful sexual lust verse 27 onwards, which included divorce. And the third wrong attitude we saw was lying, verse 33 to 37.

And the fourth one we saw last Sunday was vengeance, which we saw from verse 38 downwards. And I just want to say one thing in clarification there. There's nothing wrong in asking for justice. We don't take revenge, but it's perfectly proper to ask for justice.

And we have the example of Jesus there. And, you know, we need to understand what exactly did Jesus mean when he say in verse 39, if someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other. But when you look at Jesus' own example, because when he was before the high priest, it says people did slap him.

In Matthew 18, 22, the officers standing there slapped him saying, is that how you answer the high priest? And Jesus didn't turn the other cheek. You need to understand the spirit in which Jesus spoke those words.

If I have spoken wrongly, he told them, testify of the wrong. But if rightly, why do you strike me? That was his reply. So we are not to understand turn the other cheek in a literal way when Jesus said cut off your right hand.

He didn't mean it literally. When he said plug out your right eye, he didn't mean it literally. We need to understand the figure of speech Jesus was using there. But here we find Jesus asking for justice.

If I've spoken wrongfully, sure, give a testimony and say that I said something wrong, Matthew 18, John 18, 23. But if right, why do you strike me? He was asking for justice. But when they just slapped him again and sent him off to the high priest, he just kept quiet.

So we see there the example of Christ, you know, we've often said the new covenant letter can kill. Just like the old covenant letter. We need to recognize that in an old covenant, it was the letter. In the new covenant is the word made flesh.

So Jesus is our dictionary. Jesus, the word made flesh is the one where we see the answer to difficult questions and how to interpret even Jesus' own words. Otherwise, you know, if you take the literal interpretation of Jesus' words, you'll be another new covenant Pharisee, which can be worse than an old covenant Pharisee.

I give you that warning. Because many people pursuing holiness in this day who think they agree with us in our preaching holiness, and I say I don't agree with you because your spirit is the spirit of a new covenant Pharisee, which is to me 10 times worse than the old covenant Pharisee.

Loving Enemies Rather Than Selectively Loving Neighbors

So Jesus is our example. Now we go on to the fifth wrong attitude from Matthew 5, verse 43 onwards, which I call selectedness in love. And in the old covenant, there was a command, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

Now there wasn't a command like that. Jesus said you heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor. That part is the command. But and hate your enemy, that was something they interpreted from the command, for example, that God told the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites who were their enemies.

So it's from that they imply that statement, but we need to understand why the Lord told them to wipe out the Canaanites. It's because they did not have the ability to overcome idolatry, which is the predominance among sin among the Canaanites.

And if God was to preserve a pure testimony for his name through which one day in the nation of Israel, the son of God could come as a man and die for the sins of the earth, that was God's ultimate goal in preparing a nation and giving them his laws.

And it took 1500 years to prepare that nation to receive Jesus Christ. It wasn't an easy thing. It was not something the Lord made a nation and the next week he'd send Christ to earth. No. They wouldn't have understood what it was all about and the word of God could not have been proclaimed as it was by the apostles who've been grounded in the law.

So we need to understand this, that in order to prepare that nation to receive Christ, God had to give them certain laws and they did not have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. So it was very difficult to keep them from idolatry and you see how often in spite of the prophets, in spite of the laws, they kept on going back to adultery again and again and again for a thousand years after the time of Moses.

Again and again and again from 900 years until they went into the Babylonian captivity. They were going back to idols and some prophet would take them out of it again. Some king would take them out again.

They'd go back to idolatry and it was to preserve that nation that the Lord said you've got to wipe out all these idol worshipers. Otherwise, they'll pollute you. You don't have the strength to overcome their the satanic power that's operating through them.

There was no way to overcome Satan in the Old Testament and on Satan operating through the idol worshipers of that time because the Jewish people did not have the Holy Spirit. So that's why he said the only way is to eliminate.

I mean to use an example. It's like if a man's got a infected leg infected foot, let's say which has developed what's called gangrene. Gangrene is something that's so bad that if you don't treat it, it'll destroy your whole body.

It'll kill you. So do you know what the doctors do? They cut off that foot. Now if you saw through a window in a surgery, a doctor cutting off somebody's foot, you'd think the man hates him. No, he loves him.

It's because he loves him that he cuts off that foot so that the rest of the body is can live. So something cutting off the Canaanites and the killing them was something equivalent to that. Many people who read the Old Testament say has God changed his mind in the new covenant?

And why was he like that? See when you don't know God you have all these wrong ideas when you read the Bible. The Bible can be understood only by one who has first received the Holy Spirit and who gets to know God through the Holy Spirit.

If you try to understand the Bible intellectually, you will have all types of questions, not only in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament as well. So that is what they were saying, hate the enemy.

But in the new covenant, the Lord was saying, I say to you, love your enemies. Now you can't do that unless you're filled with the Holy Spirit. See the ultimate answer to keeping the Sermon on the Mount, the commands in the Sermon on the Mount is to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

And if you read the Sermon on the Mount and you read it like the law of Moses, you'll just say it's impossible, impossible, impossible. I mean the Old Covenant law was impossible. Imagine this. And that's why a lot of people say that and there are, believe it or not, there are some Christians in certain groups.

I don't want to mention their names. They teach that this is not for Christians. This is for the Jewish people and it's not for us. They call that the, I call it the Jewish waste paper basket. Whatever you don't like, you put in the Jewish waste paper basket.

And that's what somebody else used that expression. Very good expression. But what is the answer to keeping the Sermon on the Mount? I believe it's what finally Jesus said at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, ask Matthew 7, 7, and it will be given to you.

What should you ask for? Good gifts. And what are the good gifts? You compare this with Luke chapter 11, verse 13. It's the Holy Spirit. So when you compare Matthew 7, these first seven verses, no, so verse 7 to 12 with Luke 11 and verse 13, you find that it's the gift of the Holy Spirit that the Lord is telling you to ask for if you want to keep the Sermon on the Mount.

Otherwise, you just can't do it. Forget about it. I mean, if you're trying to keep this on your own strength, brother, I'd say don't even try. I'll tell you right now, you'll fail. Love your enemies. We have to love every, if you've got 10 enemies and you love nine of them, you have disobeyed the Word of God.

If there are 10 people who are your enemies, that means not that you're the enemies, they are your enemies. A true Christian has no enemies except the devil. We read in Ephesians 6, verse 10 to 12, we have, we wrestle not with flesh and blood.

We wrestle with principalities and powers and evil forces. If you're a true disciple of Jesus, you have from your heart, you have no earthly enemy. But hundreds of people may be your enemies because you're a disciple of Christ.

And the more fervent your disciple you are, the more you proclaim the truth without compromise, the more enemies you're going to have. Jesus had the maximum number. They hated him so much they killed him.

But he loved them all. Every single one of them, he loved them. Even that soldier, he came to capture him, who came to capture him when Peter cut off his ear, Jesus immediately picked up that ear and put it back and healed him.

What a demonstration of love. And love is what wins people's hearts. And I believe that my conviction is that servant Malchus, whose ear was healed, will be in heaven. I can't imagine a man who's being healed by somebody he went to capture and not being convicted by that and he'll be there in heaven thanking Peter for cutting out his ear.

He'll say, God turned that for good and here I am in heaven, Peter, because how the Lord turned that evil to good. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Can you think of people who've been troubling you, maybe in your office, maybe your relatives, maybe your mother-in-law, maybe some anti-christian person, you know, making life difficult for you in your place of work because you're a witness for Christ.

Do you pray for them? Otherwise, you're not obeying God's commands. Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. Pray for those who persecute you. Pray for those who have troubled you in some way.

Pray that they'll be saved. That's the best thing we can pray for. A few months ago, some burglars got into my home that was being locked for some time and in India and well, they didn't find anything of value there.

They looked for gold and cash and there was neither of those there. No jewelry, nothing. My wife never wears jewelry in any case. And they found nothing of value and they were disappointed. But I prayed for them, you know, when I heard that.

I said, Lord, I want to see one of them at least. I don't know how many people went in, but at least one of them, I want them to be convicted and to be born again. I prayed and many times since that time in these past few months, I prayed that the Lord would bring one of them to Christ in some way, somewhere.

The Lord knows who they are. And one of them, oh Lord, lay hold of that person, help me hear the gospel so that one day when I meet him in heaven, he embraces me and says, you know, Zach, I burgled your house, but because of that, I got saved.

Wow. That would thrill my heart. And if I can meet him on earth itself, that'd be even greater. Pray for those who persecute you and so that you may be sons of your father who's in heaven. See, this is not the way to become a child of God.

No. Don't misunderstand. To become a child of God is John 1 verse 12, as many as received him, to them he gave the authority to be children of God, which is the accurate translation as in the NASB. In some other versions, it's not translated correctly.

That's the way to be a child of God. We repent of our sins and receive Jesus Christ as our savior who forgives our past sins and we are born from above into God's kingdom. Not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man, but by the power of God.

But a child is a baby. But a child must grow up and become a son. And here it says if you want to be a son, if you want to grow up, then you must love your enemies and you must pray for those who persecute you and treat nicely those who despitefully use you, love those who hate you.

So the purpose is that we might thereby demonstrate that we are sons of the father and in fact, not only demonstrate, that is the proof that you're growing up. Now if you don't love your enemies, I'm not saying you're not born again.

I'm saying you're an immature child and if you keep on like that, well, I don't know where you'll end up to tell you honestly. You could lose your salvation because hatred is from the devil. An unmerciful attitude is not from God.

God is full of mercy. The one place in the universe where there is no mercy is hell. And if you have a lack of mercy towards someone who's treated you badly, face up to it. You got a little bit of hell in your heart and you know the number of believers who got a little bit of hell in their heart, they got a lack of mercy towards someone who did something wrong to them.

There's some husbands who are not even merciful to their wives and particularly daughters-in-law, mothers-in-law. What a lot of lack of mercy there is among Christians. They've got a little bit of hell in their hearts because hell is the only place in the universe where there's no mercy.

And wherever there is on the earth here and there, you do find mercy here and there, different people, but God's children are here and there, but hell is a place without mercy at all. And heaven is a place full of mercy.

So when heaven comes into our heart through the Holy Spirit, he makes us merciful. No, he doesn't say, we don't pretend that that chap never did me any wrong. No, sure, he did me wrong. We don't pretend that nobody killed Jesus Christ that wasn't evil.

It was very evil, but Jesus was merciful. Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. What did they not know? Doesn't everybody know that to kill a human being is wrong? But they did not know who they were killing.

It was the Son of God. And when people treat me badly, I say the same thing. Father, they don't know who I am. They don't know I'm a son of God. They don't know what they're doing. They think I'm another human being.

I'm not. I'm a child of God. And if you're born again, so are you. And they don't realize that they are poking the eye of God, like it says in Zechariah chapter 2, verse 5 and verse 8. He who touches you touches the apple of my eye.

They don't realize that they are touching the apple of God's eye. Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. And so we are to be merciful, love our enemies, do good to those who do evil to you.

In James version, this is expanded beyond what it says here. Love your enemies, do good to those who do evil to you, and pray for those who persecute you and despitefully use you. We got to do good to those who hate us.

And it says here that because then you're a son of your father, you've got the nature of your father. What is the nature of your father? You know, your sons are supposed to look like their father, just like physically.

You look at somebody and say, hey, boy, he's a spitting image of his father. And that's what people should be saying about us spiritually in our life, the way we live. What a challenge that is. But the people who look at your life and mine should be saying, boy, that's a real image of his father in heaven.

How is that? Because he treats evil people in the same way he treats good people. The father, verse 45, makes his son, the S-U-N, to rise on the good and the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

There's no difference. Here's an evil farmer who says, no, God is all rubbish and treats people badly, and he's very unmerciful to his servants. And here next door to him is a good God-fearing farmer who's kind to everybody, but God sends the rain equally on both farms.

That looks a bit unfair. Why does God treat that atheist farmer the same way he treats this godly child of his? He makes the sun, you know, a farm needs both sun and rain, and the sun shines equally on both farms.

That's God's way. That's God's nature. You cannot make God hate anyone. He judges people, he hates sin, and he will punish one day, he will judge people fairly, and in love for the humanity, he will send some people to hell.

It's just like even on earth, people put people in prison because they love the rest of human beings. So, hell is like an eternal prison. That's all there is to it. So, this God loves everyone, and he's equal in his treatment of all.

He doesn't have a grudge in his heart against anyone. And that's a wonderful thing to have. You see, if God were, for example, let me use an example. Supposing it was not like this. There's another reason why God sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous and makes the sun to rise equally on the good and the evil.

If God sent rain and blessings only on righteous people, and all the others suffer because they're unrighteous, a lot of people would choose righteousness because they want the blessing upon their farm, because they want the blessing upon their life.

If godly people were wealthy and ungodly people were all poor and beggarly, people would choose Christianity for the sake of money. But God doesn't want that. God doesn't want that. So, he allows equal distribution of rain and sun and even wealth.

Some of the richest people, not some, most of the richest people in the world are not godly Christians at all. Far from them. Far from it. And so I know there's a false gospel called the prosperity gospel that is being preached today by people who don't know God, who claim themselves to be Christians and claim to be quoting the bible, and they're mostly quoting Deuteronomy chapter 28 and not Luke chapter 6.

There's a lot of difference between quoting Luke 6 and Deuteronomy 28. And they preach that if you follow the Lord, you'll be prosperous. They say if you pay your tithes, God will bless you. They're going to the Old Testament.

In the New Testament, there's not a word about tithes. That's a false gospel. Because God blesses people equally whether they are good or evil. Did you read this clearly? You don't become prosperous by being righteous.

Because the most prosperous people in the world are crooks and ungodly people. But what does that prove? And people who worship false gods and idols are multi-millionaires and billionaires, when it's very rare to find a Christian billionaire.

That itself disproves this entire prosperity gospel. So God sends his rain equally on the righteous and the unrighteous, makes his sun shine on the good and the evil, because he does not want anyone to come to him because of material blessing of prosperity.

I wish everyone in the prosperity gospel preachers would read this and understand it. You be a son of your father, proclaim that truth, and be like that. Be good towards people, to everyone. That's how God is.

Otherwise, it's foolish to say you're growing up spiritually. You can't say you're growing up spiritually. You're not growing in love for the people who hate you and despise you. So it's not enough to just hear this right now and say, yeah, yeah, I want to do that.

No, we must keep an account. Take an account book like you. Keep an account of your money. And here you say, now, who are the people who have done harm to me? Who are the people who have treated me badly, persecuted me, cheated me, done all types of things wrong to me, borrowed money from me and never returned it?

A whole lot of people did harm to my family, which is worse. Treated my son or daughter badly. Maybe your boss in the office or somebody, the teacher in school or something like that. Or your brother-in-law cheated you of your property or your mother-in-law treated you badly.

Whatever it is, make a list of it, my brother, sister, if you're serious about your Christianity and go through that list one by one. And ask yourself, do you love them, first of all? Do you treat them nicely?

Do you have good thoughts about them? Or do you have a grudge in your heart against them? Well, you're definitely not a mature son or daughter, definitely not. But sometimes I would even question whether you're born again.

Because you're not even trying to keep this command of God. I mean, if you're trying to climb this mountain and you see I'm still struggling, you're on the right track. Ask God to help you with the Holy Spirit to love every single person who's your enemy.

To pray for every single person who's despitefully used you or persecuted you to do good to every single person who hates you. You may not have the opportunity, but a lot of people, you know, I'm a son of the Lord and so I'm a target of the devil.

So a lot of people hate me and have done harm to me. And I've really prayed to God, Lord, give me the opportunity to do good to every one of them. And if I get an opportunity, I will do good. If I find them lying on the road, I'll pick them up and take them to hospital and do whatever I can to save their life.

I will do whatever I can to help them and their children. I do not hate them. I cannot hate them. I'm not going to be super spiritual and do what Jesus did not do. The Word made flesh is my example. So when it says Jesus loved the Pharisees, of course, he was willing to die for them.

But he didn't go visiting the Pharisees' houses with gifts and say, hey, I love you fellas so much. I know you spoke badly about me, but here are some gifts to show you my love. That is superficial nonsense.

Jesus did not do that. So don't go beyond trying to be more righteous than Jesus himself. Be wise. So to love someone does not mean I have to go around visiting the houses of those who hate me. Because the Bible also says pursue peace with all men.

There's a command like that. Pursue peace with all men. Hebrews chapter 12. And I've discovered through the years and I'll give you this advice. In some cases, the cases of people who hate you and don't like your face and don't want to see you, the best way to pursue peace with them is avoid meeting them.

Try your best to avoid meeting them. Don't visit their homes. Why? Because you want to pursue peace with all men. Because you know they are the quarrelsome type of people. You go there, they'll start a quarrel.

So we need to always make Jesus our example to explain these difficult verses. So if you look at a scripture and try to follow that, even this scripture, you can go astray. But the Bible says let us run the race not looking at the verses in the Bible, but looking unto Jesus.

So when you read a verse in the Bible, look unto Jesus and see how he did it. And then you won't go wrong. These are very important, particularly in these verses, because I found some people who have a wrong way of fulfilling these verses.

Bless those who curse you and do good to those who hate you. And they try to be more spiritual than Jesus and make a mess of everything and create more strife. Then Jesus went on to say, if you love only those who love you, verse 46, what reward do you have?

Because even the tax collectors do the same. And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Even the Gentiles do that. So I'm supposed to greet people who want to avoid me. I mean, again, remember what I said earlier, Jesus didn't go around out of his way to shake hands with the Pharisees and to greet them.

He wasn't avoiding them, but he wasn't particularly keen on going to seeing people who were only out to start a fight or argue. And there are people like that who, you know, whenever you meet them, they're out to start a fight with you, argue about some doctrine or something that happened.

I avoid them. I mean, I would really avoid them. I wouldn't go trying to shake their hands to show my love or anything like that. But I want to be like the S-U-N, that I'm an S-O-N. Jesus said the father makes his S-U-N son shine on everybody equally, then you can be an S-O-N.

And that's what I want to be. You know, just be warm and good and the sun doesn't go out of the way to go and shine on people, just continue shining. That's how we are to be. And so there's no reward if you do good to those who do good to you.

For example, you look at your church and you say, well, I'm such a nice person. I help so many people. But who do you help? You help the people who are helping you. Examine your life. You're good to those who are good to you.

Somebody did some good to you and you do good to them. You know what it says here? You have no reward. Verse 46. Did you do some good to somebody who did good to you? Let me tell you what you got. Verse 46.

No reward. I'm not saying you shouldn't do that. By all means, let's do good to one another. In fact, Galatians 6 says, let us do good to all men, especially to the household of faith. We have an obligation to bless and help our brothers and sisters.

That's a mark of a true Christian. But you shouldn't be doing that for a reward. No. What reward have you got for doing that? Because even the sinful people in the world, non-Christian idol worshipers, also help those who help them.

But how much do you love those who don't love you? I'm not saying you go and give gifts to them. Let me emphasize that again. And then this verse, verse 48. You are to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

Now a lot of people misquote this. They say Jesus says he will make you perfect. Is that what he says here? No. Read carefully. You must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. It is not a promised blessing.

It's a command to be obeyed. Now you say, how in the world can I be perfect like God? He's perfect in wisdom and knowledge and power. He's not asking you to be perfect in wisdom and knowledge and power.

Always read a verse in its context. You know, when you study the Bible, read a verse in its context. In what context is he saying you must be perfect as your father? It is in your attitude toward people who are unmerciful towards you.

Be merciful to them and good to them. And the other way we can know the truth is by comparing scripture with scripture. So this Sermon on the Mount is also repeated in Luke chapter 6. And there we read the same thing.

Perfection in Mercy and Spiritual Maturity

Luke 6 and verse 35. Luke 6 and verse 35. This is the Sermon on the Mount again starting in verse 20. Luke 6 20 onwards and all the way up to verse 49. It's a sort of a compressed Sermon on the Mount.

What is in three chapters in Matthew is in half a chapter in Luke. Luke 6. And here it's written like this. Verse 31. Treat others the way you want others to treat you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that?

Luke 6 33. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that? If you lend from those you expect to receive. Verse 34. What credit is that? But verse 35. Love your enemies. Do good and lend expecting nothing in return.

And you will be this. Your reward will be great. You will be the sons of the Most High. And then this phrase which we read in Matthew 5 is be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Compare scripture with scripture.

Here it is. Luke 6 36. Be merciful as your father in heaven is merciful. So when you compare what is written in Matthew 5 with what is also written in Matthew 6, we realize that the Lord is asking us to be perfect in mercy.

Don't go by one scripture. It is written be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. Matthew 5 48. It is also written in Luke 6 36. Be merciful as your father is merciful. So that's the one area where I can be perfect in mercy.

I can't be perfect in wisdom and knowledge and power. No, never. Not even in eternity. But I can be perfect in mercy right now. What does that mean? If 10 people hate me, I can love all 10. If I love 9 of them, I'm not perfect.

What does it mean in a examination to get 10 out of 10 or 100 out of 100? That's perfect. That's a perfect score. You can't beat it. So if you've got 10 enemies and you love all 10, you're perfect. If you love only 9 of them, you're not perfect.

That's all it means. Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect in its context. I want to say something here in passing and that is don't have this habit that so many Christians have. They come across a difficult verse like that and say, oh, that's impossible.

It's not impossible. But you misunderstood what he's saying. You compare scripture with scripture. What it needs in your part is a little diligence to study scripture with scripture to find what exactly it means.

I mean God didn't give me this as a revelation from heaven. No. I just studied the scripture carefully and when I came to Luke chapter 6 and saw the same thing, hey, I said this is the same in the Sermon on the Mount.

I spent a little time. This is not recent. I'm talking about 55 years ago. I compared scripture with scripture and I said, hey, I'm only supposed to be perfect in mercy. That I can understand. If I want to be merciful, I can be perfect in mercy.

And I wanted to show you also Luke here in 635 how he expresses how the sun shines on the good and the evil. It says in verse 35, the last part, God is kind to ungrateful and evil men. That's a good thing to read.

We are surrounded by a world full of evil and ungrateful people. It's a perfect expression of the world, ungrateful and evil people. There are Christians who are ungrateful. You do good to them and they forget about it.

Oh, I've had that experience numerous times. You do such a lot of good to them and a few years later, they don't even remember it. They forget all about the good you did to them. Ungrateful and evil men.

How should I treat them? It says here, God is kind, Luke 635, to ungrateful and evil men. Do you want to be like your heavenly father? Do you want to be a S-O-N of your heavenly father? Then be like the S-U-N, who shines on evil, ungrateful people, just like he shines on the grateful people.

Okay, that's selectiveness in love, wrong attitude number five. Now we go to the next one, which is chapter 6 and verses 1 to 18, Matthew chapter 6 verses 1 to 18, which is another wrong attitude, which is seeking man's honor.

There are three different areas he speaks about here. One is giving and the other is praying and the other is fasting. And in all three areas, he speaks about seeking man's honor. Now again, here are areas where we find Christians don't take this seriously at all.

Giving for God's Glory Rather Than Human Recognition

For example, in giving, it says here, when you give, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, Matthew 6 verse 3. Beware of practicing your righteousness before men, verse 1. Now, it's not that like it says here, the Pharisees blow a trumpet and then give.

No, no, no, no, no. We don't do it like that. You need to understand the spirit in which he is saying that in some subtle way you may want to make it known what you have done. And it's a very subtle way, in a clever way, you want to get honor for the good that you have done.

Now, you know, in the Old Testament, there was no law like this. There was no law which said when you give your money or do good, don't let anybody see it. Don't let anybody know what, I mean, that was God's heart, but when they didn't have the Holy Spirit, he couldn't enforce it.

So, you know, for example, when they pay the tithe, they brought their grain or their sheep, which is their tithe, or if they converted it to money and brought money to the, gave it to the Levites in the temple, they could make a big show of it.

Hey, fellas, do you see how much I'm giving? God's blessed me immensely and here is my 10%. In fact, I decided to give 11 today. They can boast about it. And they did not sin. Because they obeyed the law, which says pay your 10%.

And the other offerings as well. But in the New Covenant, you can't do that. In the New Covenant, it's not a question how much you give, but why you give. What is the motive? And whose glory were you seeking?