Test Me In This

So this morning, coming to our sermon, we're going to be taking a break from the Gospel of Luke this morning to turn our attention to the topic of money, specifically tithes and offerings. And there's particular reasons for that we'll get into as we talk about it. But I want to acknowledge at the beginning that this topic can bring up a whole host of temptations for all of us. There's not anyone in the room that's not like, has a thought about it. And so this morning, my hope, is that we can set aside whatever personal or potential thoughts we have or preconceived notions about this topic, and that we can actually come to the Word of God with open hearts and minds. In 2 Timothy 3.16, we read, And so as we jump into our text this morning, I don't want us to be thinking, well, not this part. You can't touch the part that talks about my money can't be.

It can't actually be acknowledged publicly. And so I wouldn't be doing it if Scripture didn't do it and if it wasn't necessary. And so I want you this morning to listen with open hearts and minds. In a nutshell, I'd describe our text this morning, which comes from Malachi, as a challenge. It's simply a challenge to us as God's people. Now, there are reasons to refuse the challenge, to say no. None of them happen to be very convincing reasons. And they don't end up well for those who choose that path. But there are reasons to refuse the challenge. There are also reasons to accept the challenge. And those who accept the challenge end up being the recipients of very good things. And so I want you now to please stand for the reading of God's word from Malachi chapter 3, verses 7 through 12. This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. From the days of your fathers, you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me.

and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, how shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, how have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and test me now in this, says the Lord of hosts. If I will not open up for you the windows of heaven, and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground, nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes, says the Lord of hosts. All the nations will call you blessed, for you shall be a delightful land, says the Lord of hosts. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. I want to start out by talking a little bit about the structure of the book of Malachi. Malachi is a prophet sent to

Israel in the Old Testament toward the end of their reign, their time. And the structure of this book is basically it's a diagnostic book, and all it does is say what's wrong with Israel, what they're doing wrong, what needs to be done to rectify the problems, meaning their repentance, and then it outlines the blessings of what will happen if they do that. And a number of times in the book of Malachi, you come across the phrase, but you say. Meaning that that's what the people will say. The Lord will declare, here's a problem. And then he'll say, but you will say, in response to his diagnosis, something. And so it's written as a description of the conversation that would be happening between the Lord and his people as he's correcting them. In these instances, the Lord anticipates the people's response to his judgment and he heads them off at the pass and he addresses their concerns and their justifications, sometimes with warnings.

sometimes with promises and sometimes with both. Our text this morning is typical of the whole book. It contains the phrase, but you say twice. And it also contains warnings and blessings. It's worth noting here at the beginning of the sermon as well that the Lord knew what was going on in Israel. It wasn't hidden from them. They weren't unaware of, he wasn't unaware of the state of the people as a whole or each one of them individually. And so when he says, but you say, He's not out on a limb guessing at what's going on with them. He actually knows what's going on with them. He knows what's down in the bottom of their hearts that's causing the problem. And so he's not wrong to say, but you say, here's your response. And what you'll find is those are often the hardest parts of the text to swallow because it's the part that's the least flattering. It's the part that lifts up, removes the curtain on your heart and it says, that's what's in there.

And if it was just some other person saying that's what's in there, maybe you could argue with them, but here it is the Lord saying that's what's in their heart. And how can they argue with it? And yet they do. That's what we're going to see in this text. And so our text begins with a declaration of the people's sin and also a call to repentance. In verse 7 we read, This is the declaration of the people's sin. It's been going on for a long time, from the days of your fathers. This is a long-standing problem that you guys have turned away from my words, from my statutes, from my laws. This is not new. These children that are being written to, right, when it says, since the days of your fathers were speaking to the children, these children have followed in their father's ways. And those of you, if you have children, you know this to be the case. Your children do what you do. And they don't actually distinguish between right and wrong as well as you'd like them to when they do what you do.

If you do something that's wrong, they copy you. And the fact that they know it's wrong doesn't stop them from doing it any more than the fact that you know it's wrong, right? Now, granted, your kids don't understand your sins the way you do, but they will usually accept the way that you do things as being right. And as I've said, even if they know that it's wrong or come to know that it's wrong in time, that knowledge will not turn them out of that way. And so the people of Israel, the children of Israel, are following in their father's way. turning away from the statutes of the Lord. And it's been going on a long time. And so the Lord's response to this is, return to me. This is his call to repentance. Return to me, and I will return to you. Now, when someone's been sinning against you for a long time, what are some of the ways that you might want to respond to it? Someone's been doing something wrong, been ongoing, their whole life, let's say.

Is calling them to repentance the thing that you're inclined to do? Or have we gotten past the season of repentance? I think what we want to do is tell them that time's gone. You've had plenty of time to repent, plenty of time to say you're sorry, plenty of time to learn, plenty of time to change. That time is over. Now we enter into judgment or discipline or conflict or severing of relationships or whatever. Some sort of end. And so I want you to see from the very beginning of this text that the Lord is merciful and gracious to his people who've been sinning against him for a long time. Return to me are his words. Return to me and I will return to you. And one of the things you have to bear in mind right at the beginning of our text is that your sin exists and that provided that you repent of it, and you believe in Jesus, it doesn't become a separation or a divide between you and the Lord. If you don't repent of it, then absolutely. It opens up into a huge chasm between you and the Lord, and he can have nothing to do with you, just like Adam and Eve when he kicked him out of the garden. They sinned. You're out. No longer did they see him face to face. But right at the beginning, if you find, you know what, I'm a sinner, I want you to know that

The Lord's call to you is to repent. It's not to cast you out. Will there come a time when it is time to cast those who don't repent out? Oh yeah, absolutely. That time will come. But the word to you today is repent and return. And I will return to you. And so one of the things we learn about repentance from the very beginning is it actually restores relationship. The Lord doesn't say, return to me because I said so. He says, return to me and what? I'll return to you. The division that has existed between you and I, says the Lord, because of your sin will be removed. You return to me and I will return to you. And so that's a very sweet thing to bear in mind at the beginning of this text. Is to remember, we could be dealt with in much, much harsher ways. God's people could have been consumed. And the Lord's word to them is repent. Return to me and I'll return to you.

Then we come to the first refrain of the book of Malachi. But you say, the Lord says, return to me. And the people, it's as if they take offense. And they say in their hearts, how shall we return? Now think of what's behind that response. Well, think of it this way. When you tell your children to do something, and then you inspect it, and you look at it, and you notice it's not done well. Or it's not done at all. And you come to your child, you know, you having told them, go pick up the toys in your room. You come by a little while later and you say, you haven't cleaned your room. And they say, what do you mean I haven't cleaned my room? You see, there's a disagreement here. There's a division. The child, for whatever reason, thinks they've done what's required of them. They don't think they've done anything wrong. And so when the people say, how shall we return what they're intimating is, when did we depart?

How can we come back to you if we've never left you? They don't see their sin. They don't think that there's any area in their lives where returning to the Lord is necessary. And it's worth noting at this point that their particular offense hasn't been mentioned yet. It's only been general. Since the time of your fathers, you have not kept my statutes. You have not done what I said. Return to me and I will return to you. But you will say, how shall we return? And what they're saying is we don't know of any way in which we need to return to the Lord. We don't see any area in our life where repentance is necessary. And it's kind of a crazy thought when you actually look right at it. But if someone came to you and said, you need to repent. That's all they said. Would you not have it in you to say, of what? Of what? And what you're saying is, what have I done wrong? What did I do? You think I did something wrong. I don't think I did anything wrong.

And so we're not that much different than the Israelites. How shall we return? And then the Lord begins to get specific. Will a man rob God? But you are robbing me. How have we robbed you? Right, here we go. But you say, again, the conversation progresses, but you say, how have we robbed you? You know, they're just appalled. And which one of us hasn't had something going on in our life confronted in some way and responded with the same sort of or like, I can't believe you think that, that they do. How have we robbed you? What's the Lord saying to them? Well, he's saying, you're stealing from me. You owe me something. You haven't been giving it to me. You're stealing, which is quite a thing if you think about it, knowing that everything that we have in the first place comes from God. If you had a child and you said, I'm going to give you $10 and you have to pay $1 back a week because I said so, because it'll be good for you.

It'll teach you good things and it'll increase your faith. What a silly thing for that child to say, I ain't giving you your dollar. I'm keeping it. I'll give you 50 cents. What do we have that we don't receive? What do you have that you haven't received from the kindness of God? And yet they ask, how have we robbed you? What have we robbed you of? Again, ignorance. Or hardness of heart, right? How have we robbed you? Now, which is it? Is it ignorance or hardness of heart? And the reason I ask is because if someone's ignorant, we're inclined to be like, okay, you didn't know. Let me teach you. But if someone has a hard heart about something, it's not that they didn't know. They knew, and they made a decision. So is it ignorance or is it hardness of heart? Well, undoubtedly, there's some ignorance, but it's mostly hardness of heart in this context with the Israelites. One of the things you have to realize at this time was that

Going back historically, when the Israelites came into the land of Canaan, all of the tribes were given an area to live, except one. Who wasn't given any land to live in? No, it wasn't Benjamin. Who was it? The Levites. Now, who are the Levites? The priests, right? And so you have to think at that time, what was the land for? What would they have used the land for? And if you're not sure, Just think about our scripture lesson this morning and all the laws concerning their animals and their crops, their food. That land was given to them to cultivate so that they could scratch out a living. It was meant so that they could raise animals, they could grow food to eat. Now here you have the Levites. The Levites aren't given any land, so what can't the Levites do? They can't grow their own food. So how are the Levites to eat?

The Levites were to live, them and their families were to live off of the offerings of God's people. And so when it says later in the text, bring the whole tithe into my storehouse. Why? So that there may be food in my house. What he's saying is, my priests are without food. Your brothers are without the provisions that they need because you're not tithing. That's what's going on in their context. That's why it says, Bring the whole tithe in so that there may be food in my house. It's not for the Lord to eat. Whenever they would bring in their offerings, they would bring in, the priests would cut it all up, and a portion of it would be offered as a sacrifice, and a portion of it would be held back for the priests for their provision. And so when that stuff was withheld, the priests were actually without food. You know, when I said, well, maybe, you know, if I gave you $10 and you're supposed to give the dollar back, maybe you'll give 50 cents back.

It's significant to note that it says, bring in the whole tithe. So were the people giving? Something. Yeah, they were giving something. There's other places, if you were to read on this, there are particular types of animals that they're to bring for their sacrifices. Now, what kind of animals were they? Well, they were young. They were healthy. They were without blemish. Basically, they were good. They were to be presoffered to the Lord. And they weren't to be the lame, the sick, the weak, the diseased, the half dead, the old. Now, why was it that the people had to bring in the best of their flock? Yeah, that's right. If you had to make a living for yourself, and you lived in this sort of time, and you had to slaughter, lose one out of your herd, The last one that you would want to lose was the best one, the youngest one, the one with the most potential. And yet that's exactly the one that they're told they have to give up. Now, that would give reason to worry. You're taking away the best stuff. It's my best stock. It's my best animal. He's got the best form. He's got the most potential. He's going to make me the most money. Well, more than that sorry-looking thing over there with a saggy back and a gimped leg. Bring in the whole tithe.

They were bringing in something, but not what the Lord had commanded them to do. And so in response to their question, how have we robbed you? The Lord's plain. Finally, he comes to it and he says, in tithes and offerings. You're actually required to bring a particular amount of your wealth into the Lord's house and to give it to him and they were not doing it. Your tithes and your offerings. Now, what's a tithe? It's a weird thing nowadays. I was talking with a pastor one time and Giving is always something that everyone's aware of in churches, and every church has their own way of getting people to give money. And so the pastor I was talking to said, you know, I was with another pastor one time, this big, huge church in town, lots and lots of money, thousands and thousands of people. And he said, the way you get your people, he said, people got money and they aren't going to give it. What you have to have is a building campaign every year.

Every year. There has to be some initiative that the people need to be called to give their money to. Whatever it is. Maybe it's a building campaign. Maybe it's missions. Who knows what it is. And I looked at it and I was like, that's crazy. That's unsustainable. People can't do that. But what I realized very quickly was the people in those churches don't tithe. They give, but they don't tithe. And so they have to have something particular to give to. And so that church's way of getting the people to give was not to say anything about tithing, but to say, there's giving. We have this need. There's this thing going on. We have this initiative. We need you to give to it. Here's our goal. Here's how you fit into it. Here's what it's going to require of you. There's a pledge form in the chair right behind you. We want you to take that home and pray about it. We want you to give that. Put it in the offering next week. That's how they get people to give. That's just one way of doing it.

I'm not speaking about whether that's the right way or the wrong way or anything in the biblical way or anything like that. I'm just saying churches have different ways of registering the church's financial needs with the people. You guys are all aware of this, right? At this time, it was very spelled out law with regard to a tithe. Now, what is a tithe? A tithe means tenth. And so when I said earlier, you get $10, you give one of them. That's a tithe. That's a tenth. And it's worth noting that That wasn't the only way that the Lord saw them, described them as robbing him. He says, how are we robbing you? And he says, in tithes and offerings. So what offerings did they give at that time? Well, they had the baseline giving, which was a tenth of all that they had, which would have meant animals, which would have meant grain. And then there were other sorts of offerings or giving that they would do throughout the year. And the Lord's indictment against them is, you're not doing it. You're keeping it all. And the stuff that you give is not...

what I've required of you. And so a tithe was a minimum. And you know, for my part, I think $1 out of every 10 is a lot of money. Maybe $1 out of 10 isn't a lot of money, but $100 out of every thousand is a lot of money, or $1,000 out of every $10,000 is a lot of money. It adds up. All of a sudden, it's like, this is like a portion of my income. Some people will make the case that in the New Testament, The tithing was done away with. The people don't tithe. And it's all just free will, just as you're led. Okay. If that's what you want, fine. Do you think it's less than a tenth in the New Testament? What were the people doing when the church was in need in Acts? Going and selling what? Everything that they had. Now you're like, everything. You mean I got to sell everything? And I'm like, no, okay. I'll let you keep what you need to listen to me.

I'll let you keep what you need to maintain the lifestyle of your brother. That's it. That's all you get to keep. So to put a number, let's do it with numbers, okay? Let's say that you want to be able to live on $50,000 a year. That's not how they would have quantified it then or whatever, but just go with me. You want to live on $50,000 a year. Okay, that's fine. You need to sell everything that you have beyond. $50,000 a year, and give it to the church. All of a sudden, it's like, that's way more than a tenth. And I'm like, that's way more than a tenth. What happens to Ananias and Sapphira, who were a part of this and got all caught up in the giving and were like, this is a thing, but not all of it. They were struck dead. Now, why were they struck dead? Were they struck dead because they didn't give all their money? They were not killed. Yeah, that's right. They were not killed because they didn't give all their money. They were killed because they lied about it. They were robbing God.

What did Peter say to them? Why are you lying to the Holy Spirit? So is the point of me saying, you've got to give everything that you have to the church? No. It's just to say, don't lie. And be generous. And a tenth, for biblically speaking, a tenth is the bottom end of our giving. It's what it should be. I want to come back to this a little bit toward the end of the sermon of giving. But I want to move on through our text right now. The Lord then goes on and he says, You are cursed with a curse for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Now, what is the curse that they're facing? Well, let me ask the question another way. When are we most likely to pull back on giving? When money's tight. That's what, you know, it's weird. It's such a weird thing because actually there's another time when people are inclined to pull back on giving and it's when they have a lot. When they have excess, their greed is stoked and that flame grows and their giving goes down.

It also goes down when they go, we don't know how we're going to pay next month's rent. And there's a spot in the middle where faithfulness seems a little more reasonable. But at both of those extremes, you tend to see giving go down. Well, in Israel's time, they're on the poor end. You're cursed with a curse for your robbing me. They don't think they can afford to give. And what's the curse that they're plagued with? Well, look at the blessing that's promised to them. What does the Lord promise to bless them with if they'll give? I'll open up the window of heaven and pour out my blessing, and you'll have food to abundance. It'll overflow. So why weren't they giving what the Lord required of them? Well, because they were worried they wouldn't have enough for themselves. What's that? Yeah. We're going to come more into that. He says the promise that he gives to them was...

telling them to bring in the whole tithe into the storehouse, he says, then I will rebuke the devourer, the devourer being the one that's consuming all of their food, so that it will not destroy the fruit of the ground, nor will your vines in the field cast its grapes. And so the implication is, in terms of time, is things got tight, you stopped giving, I afflicted you, or I allowed affliction. And the affliction was right at the point of the thing you were worried about. If you'll return to me, give what's required. you'll see my blessing. And that's where the challenge comes in. He says, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse so that there may be food in my house. And then he says this thing that you find almost nowhere in scripture. Test me in this. When Jesus was in the garden, was not in the garden, I'm sorry, was in the wilderness and he was being tempted by Satan, what was his final response? Throw yourself down from here. And Satan quoted scripture and says, you know, the angels will bear you up on their wings.

And what was Jesus' response to that? You shall not what? Yeah, that's right. You shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Meaning you shouldn't act foolishly to see how far you can get before discipline comes. You shouldn't put yourself in harm's way just to see if the Lord will save you. But here, the Lord tells us, test me in this. Test me in this. Test me in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open up for you the windows of heaven and pour out on you a blessing until it overflows. That's the challenge. Are you going to test the Lord or are you not going to test the Lord? Through repentance and repayment, the Lord's promise is to bless his people with abundance. Now, you remember at the beginning I said there's reasons to say, yeah, I'm down for that, and there are reasons to say that's not for me. What are the reasons to say, I can't just yet? Well, it's because you're looking around at your own life and you're going, I don't know where it's going to come from. I don't know how it's going to work. And I could tell you stories.

from my own life or from your lives that you've told me of how the Lord's blessed you. Sometimes it's simply a check coming in the mail from some anonymous person, which has happened more than once in our life. Don't know where it came from. Just money just showed up. Don't know who it was from. And so to accept this challenge, you have to have faith. And it's not faith that says, I will when or I will if. These are not the terms of faith. Abraham didn't say, I'll sacrifice my son if he believes God. And it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Stop messing with my keys. Thank you. And so it takes faith to accept this challenge. Not only to give first, but also to wait for the blessing. And it takes faith to see it when it comes. You know, as you get older and you start to realize what food doesn't sit well with you, you're not old enough, JC, to have this problem yet.

She's like, I know. You have old friends, right? Not that any of you who are her friends are old. You start to realize what doesn't go well for you. It makes you feel, you just don't feel good if you eat it. You don't sleep well, whatever. And that knowledge sometimes helps you not to make yourself sick. Eating what you know is going to make you feel sick. Some of you I know, whatever, it's ice cream or it's cheese or it's I don't know what. You just don't sit well with you. What's the blessing, let's just say, with regard to food? Let's just say that drinking soda pop gives you heartburn and makes you feel sick. I don't know if it's the sugar or the carbonation or whatever is in it. Something in it doesn't sit well with you, right? And you know it's not good for you and you know it makes you sick. You decide, I'm not going to drink soda anymore. What's the blessing?

It's true. You may well feel better, though you don't have that satisfaction of cold soda. I just haven't made it long enough yet. Yes. Now, are there any other blessings that might come your way? Yeah? Money? I mean, you would save money, right? How much money do you spend on whatever your comfort food is? You may get to feeling better. You may be encouraged to say, you know what? I actually didn't die. when I stopped drinking Dr. Pepper or Coke or whatever your thing is, hey, you know what? There might be this other thing that needs some attention. Is that a blessing? That's absolutely a blessing. Change the analogy. You've got a smoker. A smoker says, I can't quit smoking. Finally, they quit smoking. You know what they might be inclined to do? They might be inclined to quit something else that's bad for them. And that's a blessing to them.

And so you actually have to have faith to see the blessing that comes. When you read this text, I don't want you simply to think, oh, well, if I give, then I'm just going to get a bunch of money. Because that's not the promise that's made to you. Not specifically. Does that generally happen? My experience and observation has been yes. But it often comes because the people who make a principle of tithing generally start to budget and watch their money a little closer. And it's amazing they have more of it. Except they don't have more of it. They just don't waste as much of it. Or they know where it's going and they go, wait, no, not that much over there. And the abundance comes, the blessing is apparent. But it's only visible through faith. And so our section ends with this statement. It says, all the nations will call you blessed. For you shall be a delightful land, says the Lord of hosts. Meaning your life that you lead will be attractive to other people.

They'll be able to see it. What will they see? What will be the cause of them seeing that? It'll be the people not stealing from God anymore. So why am I preaching about this? Well, the simple answer is because giving's been down. And the elders took a look, not me, at why that is. It's like, well, is it because attendance is down? Is it because a bunch of people lost their jobs? What's going on? And it's not because attendance is down. It's not because a bunch of people have lost their jobs. It's because a fair number of us aren't tithing. And one of the things that was observed, was mentioned in the elders meeting was that generally the people who give faithfully and generously tends to be the happiest people in the church. And the people who don't tends to be the ones who are upset.

have a hard time, and complain. Now, I don't actually know who, like I don't know the specifics of who gives and who doesn't because I don't want to know. But there are people who know. And whether you know what other people are doing is not the point. The point is you know what you do. And you know why you do it. And you know what's going on. And you know what your rationale is for when and how and why. You've fought through all of this at some level. Part of the reason I'm bringing this up now is because we're right in the middle of our fiscal year, and our fiscal year, craziness has happened in the last six months, right? Six months ago, we met in a school, had a big old building fund, kept trying to buy cornfields that people wouldn't sell to us, and our rent got doubled, and we were going to lose our storage space at the school, and then this building happened, like that. From the time we found this building,

To the time we owned it was like 40 days. How many of you guys bought a house? You do it in 40 days? What about an $800,000 house? You do that in 40 days? Here we are. Now, some of the work that we did, when we looked at coming into this building, we looked and said, if we cannot afford it, we cannot buy it. We're not going to buy it and be house poor, if you will. And so we ran the numbers and we said, we can afford this. We actually can afford it. And the way the budget's worked out for the rest of this year is that we bought a 30,000 square foot building that sits on 15 acres of land. And we didn't have to come to you and say, and we're going to need an extra $50,000 a year to pay these bills. We've actually worked it out such that we can pay the bills with the budget that we approved before any of this was known to us.

And when we presented our budget, when we were at the school and we didn't have any of this coming, we presented a budget to you. And we explained, here's how it's going to work. Here's where we've been. Here's where we're going. Here's how it's all laid out. We're not asking for some big, huge increase. And that budget passed unanimously. No one voted no. But everyone that was there, everyone said, we like that budget. We agree with that budget. We think that's a doable budget. And then all of us... Then here we are now, we're in a building, and the money's been moved around in that budget, but the limit's still the same. Well, the reason I'm talking to you is because we as a body sat down and reasoned together and said, we can give that much money. And we're not. And our expenses haven't actually gone up yet. There are expenses that are coming that are going to go up. But we're behind. And I'd rather tell you now, at six months,

before the end of the fiscal year that we're behind so that you have time to consider what you can do to fix it. Because you said yes to the budget. You know, if you took a job and they gave you a job description and you said, I can and I will do all that work, you couldn't decide to not do half of it and keep your job. The Israelites couldn't decide, we're going to bring half the tithe in and everything will be fine. No, the Levites were going without food. And so what I want is really for us to grow and to mature and to say, we live by faith as Christians. There's no other way to live. And six months ago, we decided on a budget. And it's incumbent on us now to make sure that we meet our budget. Now, I said some of you aren't tithing.

And that's true. Some of you don't give at all. Some of you are very generous and give regularly and faithfully and give a ton. And it's sacrificial, and I'm told it's obvious. And it's very encouraging. But that's not the case for all of us. And so the question to you is, will you trust God with your money? Will you trust God with your money? Say, I would if I had more money. That's my inclination. Say, well, I would when I, you know, I would love to give things away. I just don't feel like I have anything to give away. And that's not unique to me. I think that's a common thought. And so the question to me is, will you live by faith? Will you trust God? Will you have your priorities as they should be? You remember in our scripture lesson, it says that the firstborn, all was to be given to the Lord, whether it was their sons for circumcision or their animals. They were to give their best, their first to the Lord.

That's the challenge to you. Will you do that? Can you do that? The answer is yes, you can do that. The question is, will you do that? Do you trust that God will be faithful and do what he says he will do? If you don't trust that God will be faithful and that he will just abandon you, then you should come talk to me. Because you've got much bigger problems than your money. You know, one of the ways that Christians will try to work around this, and this will be the last stream of, reasoning with you, is that God loves a cheerful giver. You say, well, if I can't give cheerfully, I don't give. Okay. Well, how many of you want to be, forget giving, how many of you want to be cheerful? Okay, let's try this. How many of you don't want to be cheerful? Abram's like, put your hand down, honey. We want you to be cheerful. What does it take to be cheerful? To be a happy person, an enjoyable person? Is it just magic pixie dust come fall on you and all of a sudden you're a cheerful person?

It takes work, doesn't it? It takes day by day, living and processing as life's happening and struggles are coming. You have to process them with the end in mind. I'm not going to become miserable. I'm going to be cheerful because the Lord has been good to me. And so if you have to work at being cheerful in every other area of your life, will we agree that you have to be cheerful? You have to work at being a cheerful giver. It doesn't just magically happen. You don't just arrive and all of a sudden you're like, you know what? I love. It's easy. Another way of saying it is you have to give by faith. You can't give by sight. If you have to give by sight, you'll never give. Because you'll always be worried. There'll always be something that you need, something that you want, something you're worried that you won't be able to provide for. You'll always have those worries. And either at a very basic level, you'll believe that God is faithful and that he loves you and that he will provide for you in the moment in which you need it.

Or you won't. And so the challenge to you is live by faith. Be faithful to the budget that you approved. If you're a member of this church, you said, I do your part. And work at being a cheerful giver. Just like you would in any other area of your life. You say, I want to get better at something, I'm going to have to practice. Okay, well, practice. And see if the Lord doesn't bless you. See if he's not kind to you. And if he doesn't open up the window of heaven and bless you. Let's pray.