Sunday Sermon: Giving to the Church (1 Corinthians 16:1-4)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a New Testament book.

On Thursday is our Old Testament study, and then we answer questions from listeners on Friday. Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series, presently going through the letters to the Corinthians.

This is the sermon that was preached last week from our pulpit. Here's Pastor Gabe.

The Church’s Offering as an Act of Worship

A few years ago, this was before we had restructured our constitution and we had elected a plurality of elders to First Southern Baptist Church, I was kind of in a season of considering the function and the operations of the church and wondering if the way that we executed our regular duties as a church, if we were doing this according to what Christ had ordered for his church in the Bible.

So we were coming back to the scriptures and we were seeing what did the first century church look like and are we as a church operating according to that model. And as I was considering the different departments and offices and just regular tasks, one of those things that came to mind for me was how we collected the offering, how we allocated those offerings, those monies that we collected, how we were spending those offerings, everything I was putting under the microscope to see that the things that we did as a church, we were doing in obedience to God.

And so as I was considering the whole concept of tithes and offerings, I was listening to what different pastors, different preachers were saying to their churches and how they followed, what kind of model they followed when it came to collecting the offering.

Even the passing around of offering plates or telling the church to give to the service of the church. What were some different pastors doing and how did that line up with the scriptures? So I was learning from other men who have been convicted by this thing as well.

And one of those pastors, very famous preacher, if I said his name, you would probably recognize it. He was talking about how the offering was collected at their church. And he, like me, was not convinced that the tithe was the model of giving for the church.

I'll explain that here coming up in just a little bit. So I saw with him eye to eye on that, but one of the things that he talked about related to giving to the church was that as a church, they had decided to take out the offering plates altogether.

So there was never a time during the church service in which an offering plate was passed around and the members of the congregation were being asked to give. And so I pondered that. And this was a very large church that he was a pastor of, and all of their needs seemed to be met.

In fact, he said, we just have a box in the back, and whoever wants to give will just put their giving and their offering in the box. Well, obviously, that method was working because it was a large, thriving church.

So I wondered, maybe we should do the same thing. And so I brought this up with the deacons. Again, at the time, there wasn't a plurality of eldership. So it was just as deacons, we were talking about these things and considering that we as a church were following along with a biblically-centered model.

And when I brought this up with the deacons, I said, what if we took the offering plates out? What if we didn't pass an offering plate anymore? We were to just have something set up in the back or in the foyer that if somebody wanted to give, they could place their envelope or their offering in the box.

And it was actually Dave Bleasner that convicted my heart on that, on that idea. And he said, no, I don't think it's something that we should do. There were some other deacons that had expressed, no, we shouldn't do that.

We still need to pass the offering plate around. But it was Dave that actually gave me a good, solid reason for why we still should be passing the offering plate. He said, our giving in church is worship.

And if we were to stop passing the plate around, we would be depriving the members of our congregation of an act of worship to God, giving money in the offering plate, which is part of our worship service.

So we should still pass an offering plate around. And so his recommendation was, why don't we do the box and still pass the plate around? And so that's what we ended up doing. And now we have that box on the wall back there that says, ties and offerings on it, or your givings and your offerings.

So now we pass the plate during service that you may have an opportunity to worship God with your giving. But if in the event you can't get that check filled out in enough time when the plate comes around, there's also the box on the back of the wall that you may give in worship to God in that way, by dropping your offering in the box.

But it is true that when it comes to giving to the church, this is part of our worship to the Lord. May everything we do be done in worship. As it says in Romans 12, 1, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice unto the Lord, this is your spiritual act of worship.

So in everything that we do, as we understand that great command to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, even with our giving, because for some of you that takes a lot of strength to give, even with our giving, we would do this in worship to our God.

Paul’s Instructions on the Collection for the Saints

And this is a point that Paul makes with the Corinthians also when it comes to giving to the Lord. He says concerning the collection for the saints, we're talking about a monetary collection for the saints, collecting money for the service of the church.

Now in this case, the money that's being collected is to serve Christians. It's not specifically for the cause of spreading out with the gospel to unreached places, although there were certainly offerings for that purpose.

But this particular offering that Paul is asking the church in Corinth to collect is going to be to bless Christians, specifically here in Jerusalem, concerning the collection for the saints. As I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do.

Now, apparently this is an offering that's being talked about here that's known to the church. So this isn't something Paul is suddenly springing on the Corinthians, oh, hey, I'm going to be collecting an offering, so start collecting something for me to be able to come and gather.

He's saying this has been directed to the church of Galatia, you know about it. And so I'm saying that you need to collect this offering as well. This is for the service and the benefit of our brothers and sisters who are struggling under the threat of persecution in Jerusalem.

Christians were being persecuted all over the place. There was probably not a larger group of Christians under more severe persecution than the Christians who were at Jerusalem. And so for their relief, to bless them, to minister to them, we're going to take an offering, a collection for their benefit.

Now, part of the offering that we collect here at First Southern Baptist Church is used for that very purpose. A portion of that offering goes to the North American Missions Board to service the missionaries who go out with the gospel here in North America.

A portion of that offering goes to the International Missions Board so that those missionaries who are going from the Southern Baptist Convention around the globe are being supported by our church. We also have a portion of that money that is set aside for the purpose of planting a church, which we hope to be able to do sometime in the near future, or maybe supporting a missionary that goes from this church to plant another church abroad.

However, that money might end up being used or allocated, so that's the way that that portion of that money that's being set aside might be able to be of service to the advancement of the kingdom of God.

Of course, we have money that gets collected that needs to be used just for the purpose of keeping the lights on or being able to provide heat for you this morning for coming to church in the bitter cold Kansas.

And there is money that is collected to pay my salary and also to give a portion to Pastor Dwight and minister to him and his family as they live in the parsonage next door. And I have been a pastor here for eight years.

I have never complained about my salary. This church has always taken very good care of me and my family, and we are always thankful and gracious for what the church has done for us. That may have been you over the whole eight years that I've been here, or maybe you've only been here for a small period of time and your giving has just supported us for the year or two that you've been here.

But every dime has been appreciated, has been prayed for, and has been graciously received, all in service to the advancement of the kingdom of God that is being done through the ministry of this church.

So that's just a little bit about how the money that's collected here is used. Here in Corinth, the money was being collected. This particular offering that Paul was asking for was going to go to Jerusalem.

So this is in addition to the other money that may have been collected for the work of that church there in Corinth. Paul is saying, there's another mission's work being done that I'm going to collect an offering for.

And so on the first day of every week, because that's when the church gathers, on Sunday, on the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper. So Paul is not setting an amount, he's not saying you have to give this much of your income, he's saying all of you have been blessed by God.

Some of you are really rich, some of you don't have as much. So however you have prospered by the blessing of God, give what you know that you can give so that there will be no collecting when I come.

Now what does that mean? What Paul is simply saying to the church in Corinth here, he's saying to them to be deliberate with their giving. This isn't haphazard. This isn't, oh, I'm supposed to do the offering today, I'm going to give this much.

But you have actually allocated what you have earned, what you know you can give, and you've set that aside. It's going to be gathered on Sunday, the first day of the week. And then when I come, Paul says, when I come, I'm going to take up what has been collected over those Sundays that you've been giving to that particular offering.

So it's not going to be the sort of a thing that when I get here, then you realize, oh yeah, I was supposed to be giving money to that offering. But every week you've been setting something aside for this purpose.

This keeps in your mind a knowing that there are Christians in another part of the Roman Empire here who need our help. And so I'm setting aside that money every week to be able to help them. And so when it comes to our giving to the church, we need to be just as mindful.

When you make a paycheck, whether that's a bi-weekly thing or a monthly thing, are you going through your budget and knowing how much you can give from the money that you make, you know, every single paycheck, however often that paycheck might come to you?

Are you deliberate and intentional and planning and methodical with your giving? Or is it just a sort of a thing where you get to church on Sunday and you go, oh yes, I'm supposed to give something today.

And so you drop in a 20 or write in whatever amount in a check that you know that you can give and then just put it in the offering plate. Is it something that with all of your mind, as you are worshipful to God, you are just as intentional about the giving that you give to the church as you would be about any bill or mortgage payment that you would have to pay?

If the church was a debt collector, and we are not, so don't hear me saying that we are, but if the church was a debt collector, would you be delinquent on your giving to the church? Would we be coming after you just as a debt collector might be coming after you if you had missed a mortgage payment or a bill?

Would we be as annoying as your credit card company when you miss a credit card payment? Or one that I've experienced in 2017, would we be as annoying as the Red Cross when they're trying to ring up your phone and saying, hey, we need another blood donation?

Well, they were calling me sometimes twice a day. It was absolutely ridiculous. I actually finally had to put a stop. I don't want to hear from you anymore. When I'm ready to give blood, I will come and give a donation of blood.

Anyway, you're sucking me dry here. But often it's said, when it comes to our giving, often it's said that a giving must be a tithe. It must be a tenth, 10%. Now, if you know something about my doctrine, you know that I don't teach that.

Tithes, Freewill Offerings, and Old Testament Giving

I don't teach that we should be giving a 10%. I don't see that that is the model of giving for the New Testament church. Furthermore, I don't even see that as the model of giving in the Old Testament.

So you might think, oh, the tithe was the Old Testament system. Here in the New Testament, we don't give a tithe. Well, you didn't give a tithe in the Old Testament either, not in terms of your free will giving unto the Lord.

Tithes were taxes in Israel. And there were actually three tithes that Israel had to give. So whenever somebody tells me, well, you need to give a tithe because that's what the Bible commands. My response is, okay, which tithe?

Which tithe are you supposed to give? The monthly tithe, the annual tithe, or the three-year tithe? Because those are all the tithes that you have there in the Old Testament. You have the Levitical tithe, which is specified in Numbers 18, 21 through 24.

You have the tithes of feasts, which is in Deuteronomy chapter 14. And you have the tithe of the poor, also in Deuteronomy 14. Here's what we have in Deuteronomy 14, verses 22 through 29. You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year.

And tithe means a tenth. So this is an annual tithe that's being talked about. Before the Lord your God in the place that He will choose to make a name to dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

So notice here that this tithe is being commanded that they would do this for fear of the Lord. Proverbs 1, 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge, so we all should fear God.

It is a reverent fear. It is great respect that we have for God, knowing that He is creator of all, and He can be the destroyer of all. So out of fear of God, in worship and in love to our great King who has saved us, that we would give of what we have to the Lord.

So the command goes on, if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, so you can't take your grain offering, you can't take your animal offering, what you should do instead is that you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses, and spend the money for whatever you desire.

Oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves, and you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice you and your household. And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you.

At the end of every three years, you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns. And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns shall come and eat and be filled, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.".

This is the system of welfare that was set up in Israel. So whenever somebody gets all bent out of shape about the welfare system in the United States of America, we shouldn't even have a welfare system.

Well, no, it's biblical to have a welfare system. We might need welfare reform, but we shouldn't just get rid of the welfare system. So this was welfare in Israel, caring for the poor. That a tenth would be collected every three years from what had been produced in Israel, whether that was from livestock or from grain or fruit or from the money that had been collected so that the poor might be able to eat and be filled.

This was the tithe for the poor. So you had the three tithes, the Levitical tithe, which was in support of the Levitical priest, and that's the one that usually gets carried over into church giving because you're caring for the pastor or whatever.

Then you had the tithe of feasts, which was an annual tithe, and then the tithe of the poor, which was a three-year tithe. So overall, you're talking about 23 of an Israelite's income was then given as a tithe.

So hence why I ask the question, when you say a tithe is a requirement for giving to the church, what tithe are you talking about? But we do have a system of giving even in the Old Testament that's referred to as a freewill offering.

It's mentioned in places like Leviticus 22, in Numbers 15 and 29. And this, by the way, is the only place where the term freewill occurs in the Scriptures. As much as we want to argue about whether God has given us freewill or not, no one seems to want to defend the freewill offering that has been commanded in the Scriptures.

So of the extra that you have accumulated by your own freewill, what do you give back to the Lord? And this is really the system of giving. Whether you're talking about Old Testament or New Testament, this is the system of giving that the Lord has laid out from your freewill offering.

Not from your first fruits, because when it comes down to it, we here in the United States of America can't give of our first fruits. Our first fruits goes back to the government. So we can't give of the first fruits.

But what do you set aside from your income that you know, this is what I'm committed to giving to the Lord. And this I do as an act of worship. So we do this with joy. Not begrudgingly, not dragging our feet, but it's deliberate and intentional.

We plan on it. And on that day, when we take that offering and we put it in the plate or we drop it in the box, or we give online, we do that with joy in our hearts. Knowing that I'm giving this to the service of God and however he uses this for the production of his kingdom.

I know I may not see a return for it in this life, but there will be great reward in heaven. And you give not to get credit for it, but you give because you want to serve God. You want to serve the advancement of his kingdom.

You know, whether or not you're aware of it, this church doesn't just reach Junction City, but we reach around the world. And I'm not just talking about the giving that we also apportion to the cooperative program or how we support a missionary, but through the, when we understand the text podcast and the videos that we produce, Becky and I get emails all week long from people around the world who are blessed by that ministry.

Vicki sees the giving that comes in from people around the world who want to give to this church because they appreciate what that ministry has meant to them so much and has benefited them personally in their walk with Christ and has probably even benefited their church if they use the videos or encourage people to listen to the Bible teaching day by day.

And we have had some very generous contributors and that offering that comes in, I know they're not going to see with their own eyes how that offering is being used because they don't attend our church.

Now I hope and I pray that they're giving to their own church first because I really think that's where you should be giving first, where you're being fed, but whatever extra they have, they're benefiting our church with and that has been such a blessing.

And so I know that when those donations come in, the responsibility that is upon us as a church to handle that in a right way, not to be storing it up for ourselves, not to be boasting about it, not to spend it on any personal interests, but we do this in service to our God, being good stewards of that which the Lord has given to us.

That's the word that has been used in scripture. So this is the way that we should be when it comes to our giving to God. And with the advent of digital technology, we even have it set up online that you could do an automatic draft of your bank account.

So you enter your checking information in there and then automatically from one month to the next, a certain amount of money is being pulled out of your account and being applied to the church. Now that's great if you want to set that up that way so that the donation comes out automatically and you don't have to think about it from one month to the next, but I would just encourage you to make that deliberate and to think about it from one month to the next.

Because it can become an out of sight, out of mind sort of a thing, and then it's not an act of worship to God. It's just something you're doing because you know you need to do it or you're doing it out of obligation, but you're not doing it in an act of worship with joy and saying, Lord, I give this to you.

Please use this for the advancement of your kingdom and praying over that which you are giving to and contributing to the church. So let all of these things be done deliberately for our God. The apostle Paul in the book of Philippians, he wrote that letter to the Philippians to thank them for the money that they had collected and sent to him while he was doing his ministry in Rome.

And when Paul wrote back to them, he said, I know what it's like to have plenty and I know what it's like to be in need. This was Paul saying to them, I don't actually need your gift. I'm doing fine here in Rome and God is providing for all of my needs here in Rome.

But Paul received the gift that the Philippians collected for him and sent by way of Epaphras so that he would give them an opportunity to worship God with their giving. So though he didn't need it, he took it and used it so that it would be accredited to the Philippians' account.

And they would have that chance, that opportunity to worship God in this way by supporting the apostolic ministry of the faith. And so this is the way that we should be with our giving, giving to the church in service of God, doing it with joy as an act of worship.

God gave us way more than we will ever give God over the course of our lifetime. He gave us freedom and the forgiveness of sins and eternal life through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. When we look to the cross, we see the wrath of God poured out upon Christ for our sins, but we also see the abundant love of God and his steadfast love for each of us who believe and are saved by faith.

Thank you for listening to our weekly sermon presented by First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas. For more information about our church, visit fsbcjc .org. On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, inviting you to join us again this week, Growing Together in Christ, when we understand the text.