Imagine that you are a gymnast whose specialty is the balance beam, and right before you’re ready to take to the beam in the final phase of the competition, your coach notifies you your preliminary scores are already so far ahead of everyone else’s that even if you get “0” in the final phase, you will win. This information would enable you to be as daring and creative as you want because you have nothing to lose.
For a lot of pastors, preaching on stewardship is their most dreaded series. It used to be that way for me as well. And I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that that was because I didn’t view God correctly myself in this area. Oh it wasn’t that I didn’t trust Him with the tithe—He already dealt with me in that area more than 16 years ago when I married my wife Michelle. You see Michelle has the spiritual gift of giving. Because of that, there’s few people I’ve ever met that can out give Michelle. Now to be fair to me (perhaps not so fair to Michelle) she didn’t notify me of this little tidbit of information until we were on our honeymoon. On our honeymoon, holding hands and walking along the shore. Michelle told me that one of her dreams was that when she got married we would as a couple raise our tithe 1% for every year that we were married. She followed that up with this question, “So let’s do it!” Before I could even think, the following words came out of my mouth, “let’s not!”
Alas, that was not one of my more shining moments. But after the walk and conversation ended that day on the beach I decided to trust this godly woman God had given me and we went ahead and did this with our tithe. Some amazing things immediately followed. She would have her best year ever in private practice as a chiropractor and the church just began to explode with growth and keep on growing therefore we never lacked. Oh there were times of unbelievable nail-biting tests, such as the time I went without three paychecks in a row because things were that tight at Southbrook church. And there was another time when we (combined with a building campaign for our church) had pledged 40 percent of our income away to God’s work and almost immediately just about freaked out with what we’ve done. Ok, I freaked out, not Michelle.
Question? What do you thin happened that year?
God came through greater than ever! So when I talk about a matter of trust with the tithe, I’m not talking about my own tithing—Michelle and I cannot cross that bridge again—we would never go back. We know that it truly is more blessed to give than to receive and we’ve seen that you truly cannot out give God. No actually when it comes to the title of this post “a matter of trust” it’s that I’ve had trouble trusting what God would do if I preached to people about money. Nevermind that Jesus talked about it more He talked about heaven and hell—combined. Never mind that he talked more about our stuff than even love or prayer! I still felt this would be a deal-breaker for many people. And you know what? It is for some. but it’s also a faith stretching transformation for most.
The reason I gave the illustration of the gymnast on the balance beam at the beginning is that all professional athletes or Olympic athletes have daring moves in their repertoire that they’re usually unwilling to do unless they have hem down cold. If the competition is real tight I doubt they’re gonna pull out those risky moves that they could very well fail on. More likely than not they’ll choose a routine that has a high enough degree of difficulty but that they know solidly and can perform in their sleep.
But what if you knew you couldn’t fail? Wouldn’t that make a whole lot of difference? Sure it would. If the same gymnast knew they had it in the bag they might try to really wow the audience and do things that they were pretty sure they can do (but not positive) perhaps a little bit nervous about. But my bet is they’d still—go for broke.
That’s what I say tithing really comes down to a matter of trust for a lot of people. God already said that if we bring the whole tithe to the storehouse (temple or church — Malachi chapter 3) that He would bless us. And Jesus talked about blessings being so full that we could shake up our baskets full of blessings press them down again and put more in, then shake it up again, press down some more, and God would still fill them to overflowing. So when we don’t trust on the tithe, what are we really saying? That God’s not good for His word? That’s exactly what we’re saying.
I haven’t met a lot of people that wouldn’t like to let go completely and trust God with everything they’ve got. I mean, most believers want to live a more vibrant Christian life than they’re currently living. But friends? You need to know that that’s impossible (even logically so)—if you don’t fully trust your savior. The fact is, you’re not likely to follow somebody you don’t trust. You don’t know where he is going to take you. You don’t know where he is going to lead you. You don’t know if he might hurt you. You’ll feel you don’t know—flat out—enough about him to follow him anywhere. You know what that sounds like? That sounds like a stranger, not a savior! How many Christians today are no closer to the one that saved them than there are to a perfect stranger?
So you see it really does come down to a matter of trust. Do you believe that God can and will do what He said if you’re faithful in giving back to him?
Or not?
Your move.