[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alfred, Georgia. It is our prayer that you'll be blessed by the preaching of God's Word. Thank you, Bibles, if you wouldn't turn to Genesis chapter 28, if you would, Genesis 28.
[0:12] I am so, I'll be honest with you, I'm very pleasantly surprised and blessed all you came tonight. On a Wednesday night, you know, if you change church nights on people, buddy, you can really mess them up.
[0:24] But y'all can take anything, and I appreciate that. I'm glad you're here tonight. I just pray for those poor souls that show up tomorrow night and think the rapture happened. They come for regular midweek service, they're sitting outside there, and they say, man, everybody's gone but me.
[0:38] That's really going to be a sad night for them. So I tried my best to send enough emails and everything to let everybody know. I'm glad you're here tonight and excited about what the Bible has for us tonight.
[0:49] We're in Genesis chapter 28. Genesis chapter 28. I don't usually give you notes, but I'm not going to get it all covered. That way you can go home and study it and do a better job with it than I could. So I just want to let me rush through some things that maybe I should take more time on.
[1:06] Genesis chapter 28. And I would ask you to pray for me. You know, I try to preach whatever the Bible says. I try to go through it verse by verse. And Sunday is Romans 9.
[1:17] And that's a pretty good chapter for me. Pretty tough. I have over 400 pages that I've already picked out and reading. I've got it down to 400 pages left of material.
[1:30] So I would really appreciate you praying that I would be able to say what I ought to say and know what I ought to know. And help you from Romans chapter 9 on Sunday also. Genesis 28. The real quick reading of it.
[1:41] Verse 1. Isaac calls Jacob and he blesses him. And he charges him and says, don't you marry one of the girls from around here. In verse 3. He says, and God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you.
[1:54] So you can be a blessing to a multitude of people. And God give you the blessing of Abraham to you and to your seed with you. Let you have the land that he promised to Abraham that you could have that also.
[2:08] Verse 6. Esau saw Isaac had blessed Jacob and he is very upset. Verse 7. Jacob has obeyed. And that makes Esau even madder.
[2:20] And verse 8. Esau seeing that the daughters of Canaan weren't what his daddy liked. He went and got him some more wives just to spite his dad. And he married them there in front of his daddy.
[2:33] In verse 11. Jacob is on his way. He gets down to Beersheba and went into Haran. And he lighted on a certain place. And so he goes to spend the night. And he got him not a sleep comfort bed but some stone pillows.
[2:47] I don't know that I understand that. But anyway. He got him some stones he used for pillows. And he laid them down in place. And he went to sleep. And he saw a ladder. And angels were coming up and down. And he realized that he was in the presence of God.
[3:00] And God said in verse 13. I am the Lord God of Abraham your father. I am the God of Isaac. In the land where you are lying. I will give it to you and to your children. In verse 14.
[3:11] And he said. And in your seed. And will all the families. Last part of the verse. Of all the families of the earth be blessed. Verse 15. I am with you. And I will keep you.
[3:21] In all the places where you go. I will not leave you until I have done. Until I finished what I spoke to you about doing in your life. Verse 17.
[3:32] He's waked up. And he says. How I'm scared. This is an awesome fearful place. This is none other. But the house of God. Gate of heaven. Which is dumb.
[3:43] It really wasn't. Just. He wasn't used to meeting with God like that. Yet. Verse 19. He named the place Bethel. The house of God. Verse 20. He takes a vow to God. And he says. God if you will be with me.
[3:54] I know you just said you would. But who knows if you're telling the truth. If you really will keep your word. And do what you said you will. And you'll take care of me. And where I go. And you'll be with me. And then you will be my God. In verse 21. You come through God.
[4:06] And then shall the Lord be my God. In verse 22. I will surely give you a tenth. I'll give you a tenth. Unto thee. Father I pray that you would help us tonight. To learn some truths from this chapter.
[4:18] And I pray that your name would be honored. And glorified. And magnified. And I thank you for your people. And I thank you for your word. And I pray God that you'd help it to touch our hearts. Draw us close to you. Strengthen us. Teach us.
[4:28] Grow us. Mature us. Perfect us. For the ministries that you've given all of us. And I'll give you praise for it. In Jesus name. Amen. Well I think you've got a sheet of paper there.
[4:39] And I've given you at least the broad strokes. The first thing that you see is Isaac blesses Jacob. Just like God had said he would do. He's getting all of that.
[4:50] And that's verses 1 through 5. Isaac gives Jacob the blessing. Just like God said he would. He charges him not to marry a woman from the Canaanites. He says to him. Don't you marry a woman from around here.
[5:02] And I know it's a Wednesday night crowd. But just let me throw in real quickly. In the New Testament. You're going to be told that you shouldn't marry a woman from around here either. You're going to be told that you should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.
[5:14] And we should marry someone who loves Jesus. The next thing I want you to see. Abraham blesses Jacob by asking God to work in his life. And he asks God to make him fruitful.
[5:26] And he asks God to transfer the blessings that he had given to Abraham. And he promises to inherit the land and be a blessing. And bless others. All the original things. I just stopped on that passage because I'm headed towards the end of this.
[5:39] I want to talk to you about giving from our blessing. But I would just like to say to us as parents. And I wish maybe someone had said this more to me. And I wish I had done a better job of this.
[5:49] But I really think there's a big lesson to be learned in the way daddies did their boys in the blessing. And it's something I didn't learn really until Peru.
[5:59] And I'm still not good at. But we ought to apply this. You should influence your children to marry the right person. Y'all remember, that'd be a good one. You remember this.
[6:10] You lose influence when you try to control, use manipulation or guilt. You lose influence the minute you try to control to use manipulation or guilt.
[6:21] Esau marries who he shouldn't marry in the story. On purpose. He's tired of the conniving and the scheming of his parents trying to control everything.
[6:31] Mama's trying to control. Daddy's trying to control. Influence by having the sweetest possible love relationship that you can have. Influence them by having the sweetest possible love relationship.
[6:42] Influence by allowing them to know and see in your life that you're God's servant. But I really believe our kids need to know that they live with a man and a woman of God. If you're going to ask God's blessings on them, they've got to believe that when you ask in prayer for God to bless them, that God actually hears you.
[7:02] If you recall, Lot goes out to get his daughters and son-in-laws and they mock him to his face. We know you don't know God. You can talk it up all you want to talk it up, but we know that you don't know God.
[7:15] Influence them by causing them to know that you only want what is best for them. And the last thing before I leave this, I really think that there's some beautiful stuff here. It's not commanded, but it sure is pictured.
[7:28] Bless you children. Wouldn't it be a nice thing instead of waiting until they're 77 years old, which these boys are, wouldn't it be a nice thing if somewhere along the way dad said, you're special and I love you and you've arrived and I believe in you and I'm there for you and I'm asking God to bless you.
[7:47] We only bless people at funerals. Truth is, our children most of the time don't really know what we think about them. We don't say it.
[7:59] I don't know how many of the younger guys would be like this, but any older guys, it's amazing. You let our kids die. I've been to too many funerals. Oh, he was the greatest son. She was the greatest daughter.
[8:10] But they never heard that. They never heard that. Brother Robert stood up a couple of weeks ago and said, my dad told me maybe three times that he loved me, but I knew he loved me.
[8:20] But oftentimes it would sure do them good. Can you imagine what happens in the service when he blesses Jacob? When he prays for Jacob and when he lets him know that he's praying for them and when he is publicly proud of and loving his children.
[8:34] It's a good lesson. By the way, God's like that with us. God's like that with us. If you read the scriptures, he is so constantly saying, and Ed does a good job of picking out songs that talk about how our God loved us through the cross.
[8:49] I would challenge you. That's a good lesson. Number two, from verse six down to verse nine, Esau wants to hurt his parents. The manipulation and deceit that Isaac and Rebecca had used bring its results.
[9:02] Esau feels no need to please them. He wants their attention, so he tries to do what they do, what they do not like, so he can get their attention and hurt them in return.
[9:15] If you read the scriptures, it's pretty obvious. It says this, he saw that his daddy didn't like it, so he went and did it. That's pretty clear. Okay, so dad, you've been a jerk. Mom, you've been a jerk.
[9:26] It's really mom for him. Dad, for Jacob. I know what you don't like, so let me go find how I can do what you don't like. He allowed the bitterness to hurt him and to destroy what was left of his family.
[9:39] And this is not, I'm really headed for a whole different section at the bottom of the chapter, but can I just stop and say, we so often nurse bitterness and a root of bitterness springing up defiles or contaminates and makes us dirty.
[9:52] And dad didn't do us right, and maybe you didn't get done right by your mother or your dad, or maybe it seems like God didn't do you right. Like, and Esau, this poor guy, mad at his daddy because he doesn't get a blessing, mad at his mama because she tried to steal a blessing, wants to kill his brother.
[10:10] Goes out and does what he ought not do. Now dad is madder, mama is madder. And he's not going to see his brother for 20 years. As parents, we need to be very careful.
[10:21] They are watching everything that we do. I think when we read these Old Testament stories, I really think all of us think, thank God we're not like that. I'm nowhere near like that guy.
[10:34] But did God put these stories in here because he thinks maybe we are a little more like that than we'd like to think? He said in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, I believe it is, that he put all of them in there for an example for us.
[10:45] He's teaching us lessons. And there's lessons to be learned. And our kids are watching everything we do. They're learning how to be by watching us.
[10:55] I remind the young mysteries all the time. You know that your daughter will learn how to be a wife by watching how you treat your husband. And she'll learn what to expect from a husband by watching how you treat your wife.
[11:07] Your son is learning how to be a husband. And he's learning what to expect from a wife. And he's learning how to treat her by watching his parents. Our kids are watching for signs of love and respect.
[11:21] They want to know that we care and we really love them. By the way, they know when we're using them. I wonder if Jacob and Esau didn't know that mom and dad were playing games.
[11:32] Do you really think that at the age of 77 by now, they haven't figured out mama is a tad on the crazy side. And daddy's a tad on the crazy side. Do you reckon?
[11:43] I don't know. You think about that one. They see through the games we play as parents. Before I move on, I would just like to say to you, I really think that's a bigger problem than we think.
[11:54] And I really think that if we read these stories and consider, what if God sliced a portion of the Gardner family and put it in a book and wrote the story from his perspective? And talked about the egotism and the pride and the wanting my kids to do right because of who I was.
[12:11] See, a big thing with me, I'm a preacher. My kids had to do right. They got spankies when I thought they might need spankings just because the preacher's kids. Everybody knows preacher's kids or PKs or punk kids.
[12:26] Missionary kids. MKs. So I was often way too hard on them. Often way too strict on them. Often way too much in their face. Often using them because they looked good and people saw them and they knew I was a good guy.
[12:42] And I know you've never been guilty. I'm sure nobody in this room has ever been guilty of any of that. Dad, hey, look at how my kid reflects on me. If my kid's a brat, it means I'm not a good dad. And I think if we just took a thought, what if God took a slice out of that Gardner family and he showed how Austin wasn't the loving dad he ought to be?
[13:03] Or how Austin was more concerned about what other people in the church thought about his kids than he was about his own kids sometimes? Or how sometimes I got twisted in my mind trying to worry about what everybody else thought?
[13:14] They see through the games. We play. As parents. Nobody plays those games but me. But I am guilty. That I have done that.
[13:25] Third thing we should look at. Go to verse 10. God gives a promise to Jacob. Abraham gave the promise to Jacob. Now God is letting Jacob know that exactly what daddy prayed for is going to come true in your life.
[13:42] Exactly what daddy prayed for. Exactly what I prophesied is going to come true in your life. And it says his dad had prayed for him and blessed him. But now God himself lets Jacob know that the blessing really is his.
[13:55] God will give him the land. God will bless the world through him and his family. God will go with him. God will not leave him until he's accomplished the things that he's promised.
[14:08] Can I get you to just look back through verse 13 with me? If I could get you to look there. In verse 13. The Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac.
[14:23] The land where on thou lies to thee will I give it. Right where you're laying, I'm giving it to you and I'm giving it to your seed, to your children. And your seed will be as the dust of the earth.
[14:33] You're going to have a bunch of young'uns. And they shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. And in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
[14:44] In thee and thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Verse 15. And I am with thee and will keep thee in all places where thou goest and will bring thee again into this land.
[14:56] I will not leave you. I will not leave you until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. God told him he wouldn't leave him until he was through.
[15:10] I hope you notice those verses because in just a minute, Jacob is going to be so much like Austin who can read the word of God and hear exactly what God says and then look at God and say, now God, I know this is the word of God and I know it's supposed to be true.
[15:23] And if it really is true, then I'll expect you to, then maybe I'll do what you say. God told him, God said it to him in verse 15. I will not leave thee until I've done that which I've spoken of to thee.
[15:37] That's a beautiful truth that I have appropriated for my life many, many times. Wasn't written to me. It's not a promise. I think it's a reality though. If we go to the New Testament, he will not leave us nor forsake us.
[15:50] He will not leave us nor forsake us. He told us that, right? And he told me he's the same yesterday and today and tomorrow. And in verse 15 has a fantastic truth. And can I just say some of us are too fearful.
[16:03] We're afraid of dying. We're afraid of flying. We're afraid of rainstorms. We're afraid of lightning. And we're afraid, I mean, everything scares us. But if you could get a hold of the truth which Jacob didn't get a hold of.
[16:17] Look at this truth. He said, I will not leave you until I have done what I said I would do. I get on an airplane.
[16:30] I've been doing it for years. And people are terrified, man, especially when you sit by a new flyer. You know, I was in Adikipa one time when we got on the plane.
[16:41] And this kid was sitting beside me. He had his rosary. Man, I'm telling you, them beads were flying. He was flipping one bead after another one. I mean, he was running through there. And you could hear him under his arm. And he was flipping them beads through there.
[16:52] And then he looked at me and he said, are you scared? I said, of what? He said, have you ever flown? I said, I have. He said, do you hear that noise? I said, yeah. He said, what is it?
[17:02] I said, I don't know. The motor doing stuff. He said, is that normal? I said, I guess. And I just told him, I said, you're all right. I'm on the plane. The plane's okay.
[17:13] Until he gets through with me. You just better pray he don't get through with me while we're on this flight. Amen. Look at the verse. He told Jacob. Now, Jacob in a second is going to come back at him, almost accusing him.
[17:24] Could you apply that to you in any way? It's not mandatory, not normative. But how about this? He is with you. And he will be with you till you get to heaven. And he'll take you all the way to heaven.
[17:36] And when the rich man died in hell, he looked up his eyes being in torment. But when Lazarus died, angels were there waiting on him to get him home. And you're going to be there absolutely the body's presence of the Lord. And you'll never see death.
[17:49] There's all kind of fantastic truths. And here's a wild one for you. I'm not too worried about the storm tonight. I'm just going to tell you. I'm not too worried about it. Man, my phone, I did not sign up for it.
[18:00] But I'm constantly getting these things that tell me, be careful. There's a storm in your area. I don't know who put that on my phone. Maybe the NSA did it. I'm not sure. But I mean, it's constantly warning me.
[18:12] I'm not scared. I know this. He's with me. And he will take care of me. You can get on a boat. You can get in an airplane. You can go home with your family.
[18:24] And you can trust that as long as you're serving God, he's going to take care of you. God told Jacob he would be with him until he was finished with him. God has a plan for your life as well.
[18:36] And he's at work in you. You can trust God to protect you and care for you until he finishes his plan in your life. Much of these promises are yours in the New Testament.
[18:47] Let me name a couple of them. He promised to be with you, never leave you, to bless the world through you, and to bless you so you'd be a blessing. And I could get you those verses, but we don't have time tonight. Now go with me, if you would, to verse 16.
[19:02] Jacob promises to recognize God with his money. This is a beautiful, this is really what I'd like to preach to you about, just a little bit from the Scripture. If you would, in verse 16, Jacob wakes up and he says, Man, I know God's here, and he's scared, and he's, how dreadful, how what an awesome, fearful place, that word dreadful right there is fear, actually.
[19:24] What a fearful place this is, what a scary place this is. There's no place else like this. It's the gate of heaven. And he rose up and he took the stone and he put the pillow, put there, and he named it Bethel.
[19:35] And he said, in verse 20, and I really wish you'd put a big circle around this. He says, If God be, if God will be with me. Would you put a big circle around the word if?
[19:45] And if you're the kind that marks your Bible, go right back up there and find the verse. Go right back up there and find the verse in verse 15 where he said, I am with thee. And draw a line from I am with thee to, well, if you're really telling the truth.
[20:01] That's an amazing picture of Austin and you, I think. I think we know a bunch of truth.
[20:13] I think we know. I think everybody in this room knows enough Bible. We know what God says. The problem is we respond a lot like old Jacob did.
[20:26] If you will be with me. If you will be with me, then I will do some things. Jacob realizes in verse 16 that God has met with him.
[20:38] He realizes that God has met with him. Verse 17 hits a place that caused him to be afraid. And this may blow your mind, but all the gospel songs that act like we're going to put our hand in the hand of the man and we're going to be close friends with Jesus.
[20:52] And it's like we're almost buddy-buddy and pow-pow and equal-equal with him. That's not ever found in the Bible. Here in Genesis, Jacob said, dreadful place.
[21:03] And in the revelation, the apostle John faints and falls as dead at his feet. This is God. We're talking about God.
[21:14] We're talking about somebody so big and so powerful and so wise that none of us stand in his presence like it's nothing. But we tend to think of him as our buddy and show little to no reverence.
[21:27] Jacob realized that he was in the presence of the almighty God. He realized that this was no game. He was afraid. And if we ever get a real picture of God, it will be one of reverence and all.
[21:42] If we had any idea that this super humongous God who has no beginning and no end, who speaks words and creates entire universes, who brings all this to pass and who holds it all together, if we had any idea how big he was, we would probably have a different picture.
[22:05] Verse 18, Jacob responds in the best way possible. He pours oil on the pillar. In verse 18, Jacob rose up early in the morning, took the stone he had put for his pillar, and he set up a pillar and poured oil on the top of it.
[22:22] In the Bible, pouring out of water or oil was a symbol of pouring out our lives. It was worship. It was, God, you are worthy of all that I have and all that I am and all I ever will have and all I ever will be.
[22:39] I will hold back nothing. There will be no reserve, even though he's fixing to show some. We ought to pour out our lives. And if we had any concept of heaven and hell, if we had any concept of God in human flesh, it might change our whole attitude.
[22:57] Hold nothing back. Verse 19, he names the place Bethel, which means house of God. What parts of Bible and worshiping God play in your life and in your schedule?
[23:12] We'll get to the real crux of what I want to talk to you about in just a second. But could I ask you this? How much time do you spend with God in prayer? Every time we get an altar built here, I'm going to ask you the same question.
[23:23] Do you have a time every day when you separate and say, I'm just going to talk to God a minute, and I'm just going to let God talk to me a minute? And could I just say that some of you are very guilty of praying too much? When you're in the presence of Almighty God, sometimes you ought to just be quiet.
[23:39] And that's where you read the Bible and let God talk to you. Over the years I've been in the ministry, I have known more people who pray a lot and read a little.
[23:51] But if you're in the presence of somebody, you know, when you're in the presence of somebody who's older than you, well, back in the old days when I was a kid, children were to be seen and not heard. Hush.
[24:01] When you're around adults, you be quiet. Well, when you're around God, be quiet. Be still and know that He is God. And I would ask you how often we build an altar and say, God, I'm going to read your Bible, and I'm going to find out what you've got to say, and I'm going to take some time to be quiet and allow you to work in my life.
[24:21] Go with me now to verse 13 again. Jacob now is going to vow to honor God with his money. But there's the if factor.
[24:33] God has just said He's going to be with Jacob, and He's made big promises. In verse 13, He said, The land where you're laying down is yours, buddy. In verse 14, In thee and in your seed will all the families of the earth be blessed.
[24:46] In verse 15, I am with you. I mean, you can't get it any clearer than that. He's either a liar or He's telling the truth. He said, I am with you, and I will keep you wherever you go, and I will bring you again to this land.
[25:00] I will not leave you until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. The if expresses doubt in God and what He promised. The if focuses everything on Jacob and what he has to get out of the relationship.
[25:15] What he has to get out of the relationship. The if sounds like a puny man trying to make a bargain with a big God. I don't know if you see that if as offensive as I see it.
[25:34] But I can tell you that if I called Ed, and I said, Ed, if you'll do this for me, I'll give you a hundred bucks. And I was, no game going on or nothing. And Ed looked at me and said, well, if you'd really give me the hundred dollars, I would do it.
[25:50] So let me see if you're going to give me, I'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you little punk. I said, I'd give you the hundred dollars. I said, I'd pay you to do this. That's good pay. But Ed looks at me and says, well, I mean, I don't, I'm talking to you.
[26:02] I don't know if you'll really do it or not. That's basically what this guy does. And I stop and I think about Austin. And I think about the number of times I know what the Bible says. And the number of times I know what truth is.
[26:14] None of the times I look at God and I say, are you really going to take care of me? Are you really going to work in my life? Do you really have a plan for me? Are you really going to do something? If. Though he has a bad attitude, he says that he will give God a tithe.
[26:32] Though he has a bad attitude, he says he will give God a tithe a tenth. Would you look in your Bible at verse 22, 28, 22. He said, In this stone which I have set for a pillar, which shall be God's house, of all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give thee the tenth unto thee.
[26:53] I'd just like to talk to you just a few minutes about giving now. And that's where you've got some notes. I want to talk to you about money just a few minutes. I want to talk to you about money. Fifteen minutes or less. I want to talk to you about money.
[27:05] First time tithing is mentioned in your Bible is Genesis chapter 14 and verse 20. And you went over that. We went over that when we came through that chapter fourteen chapters ago. And the Bible says, And blessed be the most high God which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand and he gave him tithes of all.
[27:24] It's a story or a history of the first tithe and you're not commanded to tithe there. The story is given. It would appear that you could learn from the picture. Abraham realized that God had given him the victory and the blessings so he gives the tithe as a recognition that God did a work in his life.
[27:43] The next time the word tithe will be mentioned in your Bible is Leviticus chapter 27 and verse 30. And it'll be a part of the Jewish nation and the Jewish law and their worship of God.
[27:54] And the Bible will say in all the tithe of the land whether of the seed of the land or the fruit of the tree is the Lord's. It's holy unto the Lord. Verse 32 it says the tithe of the herd the last part the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord.
[28:08] This time it was for Israel it's commanded it's holy to the Lord and it was a tenth or a tithe. Verse 32 if anybody ever questions you what's it mean what's the word tithe mean?
[28:20] Verse 32 defines the word tithe for you. You should see it behind my head I think 30 could you get me 27, 32 up there is that it? and the tithe of the herd and then it says the tenth shall be holy same word same idea.
[28:36] Verse 20 go back to Genesis chapter 28 and verse 20 Jacob says he will give God a tenth as he sees God's blessings on him. Look at verse 20 what he said Jacob vowed about says if God will be with me if God will be with me and if God will keep me in the way that I go and if God will give me bread to eat and if God will give me clothes to put on so that I can come back to my father's house in peace then shall he be my God and the stone which I've set for a pillar shall be God's house and of all that you will give me God I will give you surely I promise a tenth unto thee it would appear that they had a custom of giving a tenth or a tithe second time it's mentioned in the first 28 chapters of the Bible both Abraham and Jacob have done it I can't prove that it just seems there they gave this both times because they were recognizing what God was doing you know what the offering's been done twice here for the tithe and the tenth both times because it was like I recognize you're doing it and I will honor you with a part of my giving
[29:39] I will honor you with a part of the money that you've given me it was like a tribute a worship from seeing God's hand in their life I'd like to go with you now if you got your Bibles you keep up or they keep up with me back in the back the word tithe is only used eight times in the New Testament it's used in Matthew 23 23 where it says woe unto the scribes and the Pharisees and the hypocrites you pay tithe of mint and all these little bitty spices you pay mint of these little spices but you leave out the heavier weightier matters of the law mercy and faith these ought you to have done and not to leave the other undone you should have kept giving the tithe but you should have taken care of the weightier matters he says the same thing again basically in Luke 11 42 the next time it gets mentioned will be a Pharisee bragging about what he does and he says hey I tithe not like this guy who doesn't give anything the next time it will be mentioned is Hebrews chapter 7
[30:41] Hebrews chapter 7 where they gave a tithe in Israel I'd like to give you some just clear New Testament teaching about giving I'd like you to take home with you the number one thing in Acts chapter 4 verse 34 they gave when they saw a need they gave when they saw a need there were people that had needs in the church and they sold what they had and they laid the money at the apostles feet that's Acts 4 34 and 35 and you and I ought to be givers somebody asked me just this past week and on Monday night they said what about tithing I said well I'll talk to you about it on Wednesday night but if you see a need you ought to be willing to give in 2 Corinthians chapter 16 and verse 2 we give systematically he said every Sunday the first day of the week that every one of you lay by himself in store in 2 Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 7 he said we ought to give cheerfully if I'm going to give to God I don't give to God begrudgingly or with a bad attitude I give because I'm in love with him I give from a heart that's in love with him and I give as I purpose in my heart and that was a special offering in Galatians chapter 6 and verse 6 we're to give to those that teach us so you're going to take care of your pastoral staff and other people that God puts in leadership especially those that teach the word or teach the word study the word labor in the word and doctrine the Bible says in Galatians chapter 6 and verse 6 let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things so let the guy who's taught give to the guy that teaches him
[32:10] Romans chapter 15 and verse 27 it please them verily and their debtors they are for if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things their duty is also to minister them in carnal things we're to be givers in the New Testament in just a second I'm actually going to say something negative about tithing which you may not like but I'm going to say something negative about tithing but we are to be givers there's Bible teaching about being givers in the New Testament there's a clear teaching about our attitude towards money let me give you a few of those real quickly number one it teaches us that loving money is the root of all evil look at 1 Timothy chapter 6 and verse 10 the Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil not money but the love of money is the root of all evil in verse 9 it says if you chase money you're going to get hurt in verse 9 Paul told Timothy you teach them this if they chase money they'll get hurt in verse 9 it says they that will be rich they that will be you should circle will be if you will be if you're hungry to be rich you're going to mess up by the way you're hungry to be rich you might not have enough time to love your wife you're hungry to be rich you may not have enough time to spend with your family sometimes we build houses bigger than we need stuff stuffing them the stuff we never wear we got big rooms and closets we live our lives and we're all too busy building big houses buying a bunch of junk and we're falling into temptation snare and foolish and hurtful lust verse Timothy 6-17 we are not to trust in money we are not to trust in money charge them command them tell them that are rich in this world that they don't be high minded don't get to thinking that money makes you somebody but here's what
[33:55] I want you to focus on nor trust in uncertain riches don't trust in uncertain riches don't think man I got money and money will protect me so far the United States has been fairly well protected but I'm kind of like a world traveler for lack of a better word can I just tell you that money can disappear overnight it did in the Maddof thing and so many people we chase money and we hunger for money and almost that's what you get out of Jacob saying God if you will give me money I'll tithe off of it if I win the lottery I'll give you ten percent of it when I arrived in Peru in 1985 the dollar was one hundred to one it was eighty five to one actually but the first time I really changed money it was changing so quickly it was one hundred to one by the time
[34:56] I left it was three million five hundred thousand to one so when you carried money you had humongous numbers of zeros on the end of it I mean I carried millions on me all the time our first house I think cost us thirty two thousand a month by the end of the year that thirty two thousand was worth less than a hundred dollars when I started it was worth about four hundred they when I got there they had just dropped the last money and lopped off six zeros and changed the name of the money and then down the road they lopped off six more and changed the name of the money again my daddy told me one time son that's nothing we have inflation in the states he said we've got inflation of 10% before I said daddy you don't even understand what inflation is I was with a Mexican guy in Mexico and he was talking to me about a loan he had gotten and how they were ripping him off and
[35:59] I said what do they charge he said 8% can you believe they would charge 8% I said it's a lot more than that if you get money in America he said you guys pay more than 8% a month I said oh a month he said yeah I got to pay 8% payment in Argentina they woke up one morning they just told them all your money is gone this stuff is happening in Egypt those people suffer don't trust in uncertain riches don't trust in uncertain riches the Bible says verse Matthew 6 24 we have to choose between God and money I think this is so aggravating to the average Christian I don't think we like this verse but did you know you have to choose money or Jesus material goods or Jesus you have to make a choice we don't serve money we don't chase after money we don't trust money we don't find our security in money that goes against everything in us we're
[37:14] Americans bless God and we're capitalists but your Bible says no man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or hold the one and despise the other you can't serve God and mammon you either love God and hate money or love money and hate God but you can't do both I didn't say that the Bible said it I'd like to skip the last here real quickly you got the notes you can look up those other verses I'd like to tell you I want you to be careful with the idea of giving a tithe that's what I want to show you right here New Testament number one we are never to give out of obligation but love it ought not be it has been said so many times as I grew up in church if you don't give you don't give it the church you give it the junkyard if you don't give it the church you give it the hospital that is completely not a biblical teaching number two nowhere is there the idea that we give
[38:26] God 10% and we get to do what we want with the rest of it somewhere along the way we independent baptists and baptists in general in southeastern american culture christian christians came up with this you better tithe or god will break your legs god walks around with a 45 or a sword and he said you tithe this week i'm going to slap off about 10% of meat off you buddy i'm going to wear your tires out quicker i'm going to tear your car up i'm going to burn you real good not really a biblical teaching god's not a mafia boss threatening you and god's not happy with a 10% payoff what's happened one side was a threat and that's a good thing because i like to make money and i make money off your tithes and so the new thing is a prosperity gospel we were talking torn up and i said well look if you give me a hundred bucks god will give you a new car i mean you need to sow some seed of faith and give me a hundred a thousand you can get a nicer car amen i mean or i'll get one somebody's getting one but can i just say somewhere along the way we came up with the idea 10% is where we're supposed to stop i love my dad but my dad was so funny he was a tithing man and as he got older he became a giving man above that but i can remember when i was a kid and my dad would say my tithe this week was 1250 but i love god and i rounded up to 13 dollars and he didn't mean that sacrilegiously at all he felt like hey man i ain't going an extra mile i don't know him that you remember you got a tithe on the gross and not the net look at the places we have played these dumb games excuse me but we have you know what god owns it all he owns the breath i breathe the life i have the heart that beats in my body he owns my future he owns my past he owns everything where did i get the idea as long as i gave god 10% i could spend the rest of it on anything i wanted not true two other things and three things are written there for you all new testament giving to god is to be voluntary from the heart because we love god and the things of god i tell people all the time tithing ought to be like teething you cut your teeth and keep on growing some teeth i mean start giving start at 10% but move on don't settle for that find out that your god is good and blesses there ought to be no guilt no threat and no manipulation no guilt no threat and no manipulation i was preaching in a missions conference one time and the leader of the mission was there and he didn't tell me he was fixing to try to take a thirty thousand dollar offering at that building he didn't tell me that and i mean they knew who i was they knew i was the guy that said go to mission field and he brought me up to preach and he gave me like six or seven minutes and i got up and i said god is not interested in your money your america's been throwing five dollar band-aids till you feel good about it don't the mission field on the way back bypassed him he said you sure ruined that offering but the truth is there'll be no guilt i was preaching somebody's missions conference i said if you let me say what i'd like to say what i would say at vision i would tell them our rules in our church about giving are there are no rules and rule number two is if anybody you can almost see that preacher like bible giving no threat no manipulation no guilt we give because we want to respond to the one that has given us so much let me say this if you don't give a tithe god's going to love you as much as if you give 90 percent you can't buy his love
[42:27] he loved you when you didn't love him he loved you first god's not for sale he is not saying if you can get to 15 percent I am going to love you and those that can get to 30 I am really going to love you that's not the story in the Bible at all we love him because he first loved us God committed his love showed his love proved his love to us and while we were yet sinners Christ died for us but you would be hard pressed to study your New Testament and find out that God's people were fanatical givers fanatical givers and you are but I thought this is a time where Jacob makes a deal with God and it's time for us to look at money and think about what God would have us to do Father I love you and I praise you and I thank you for the opportunity to open your word thank you for these wonderful people and their faithfulness to you to be here tonight and open their Bibles and study from your word and I pray God that you bless them and magnify yourself and I pray that your name would be honored and glorified and I give praise for it all in Jesus precious name amen this message was recorded at vision baptist church in alfred georgia for more information log on to www.visionbaptist.com where you can find our service times location contact information and more audio and video recordings