Gospel Giving (w/ QandA)
Transcript
My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here, excited to be in our third week of our money series. And so you knew it was coming. We're talking about money, so today we're going to be talking about tithing. I mean, you had to have been getting yourself prepared for this. And the funny thing is, I know our church family, so I know that some of you are like, yeah.
And some of you are like, I didn't know that was coming. I don't even know what the word tithe means. So we're just going to spend some time this morning, really. We're in our third week of this money series, and we're going to take some time to kind of ask some questions when it comes to tithing. And what we realized with money in general is that as a church, we're very much, we're going to talk about Jesus. We're going to talk about the gospel.
We're going to make much of Jesus every time we get together. We're a band that plays one song, kind of like Rush. But we're a band with one song. That's all we're going to talk about is Jesus. And as we're getting started, there were a lot of things we wanted to talk about, wanted to coach ourselves up on and understand. And then we just realized that we hadn't ever spent any time talking about money specifically, and that the Bible treats it very much as a gospel issue, as a heart-level gospel issue.
And so that we needed to spend some time talking about it as we talk about Jesus, as we grow together as Christians. And so today we're just going to be asking, what is tithing? Really, the word tithe just means a tenth. So it's an Old Testament concept, but tithing just means a tenth. So tithing is giving a tenth.
And most of the time when someone in a church setting talks about tithing, what they mean is giving a tenth of your income right when it comes in to the local church. And so really we're going to ask a bunch of questions like, is that a Christian concept? Is that for the New Testament? Is that just an Old Testament thing? Is it a flat 10% for everybody? Does it matter how much money you make?
Like, are you supposed to... Like, we just... There's a bunch of questions when it comes to this topic. And so we're just going to try to spend some time looking at those questions this morning and really trying to kind of dive into that. And here's the thing. We have a...
In our culture, we have a saying, put your money where your mouth is. And what we mean by that is, if you believe so strongly in something, if you're going to talk big game, we'll back it up. If you really think that you're telling the truth, back it up. And a lot of times that we mean money specifically, a lot of times we just mean like, you know, live that way. Or like if you're talking smack, you're about to fight somebody and they're telling you they'll beat you up. And you say, well, put your money where your mouth is.
You don't actually mean give me money. You mean let's fight. Let's do this. But I actually, I like betting. Confession time. If that's bad.
I don't do it a whole lot, but I do like betting because I feel like it makes trivial things more interesting. And so recently I lost a bet to Matt Freeman about... I lost a lunch. We bet lunch on it. We bet whether or not Cracker Barrel has omelets. And that was the bet.
And I know and love Cracker Barrel and basically have their menu memorized except for the low-carb stuff because why would you go to Cracker Barrel to eat anything low-carb? But we got into a discussion about whether or not they had omelets and Matt said they did and I said they didn't. And so we bet Egg Roll Station on it, which would be $6.26 because you have to pay cash and that's what you're going to spend when you go to Egg Roll. But anyway, we'll talk about that later. So we bet Egg Roll Station on it.
We went to Cracker Barrel and Matt said, can I get an omelet? And our waitress said, yes. And she was wrong. There are no omelets on the menu, which was really what I was trying to bet. But Matt got by on a technicality because our waitress said yes because she understands that if you have all of the ingredients, you can just fold it over and it's an omelet.
But I have had waitresses say no before because it's not on the menu. But anyway, I'm still bitter about it. I just need to get that off my chest. But we have this idea. We have this idea of put your money where your mouth is. And here's what the Bible is going to say.
It's actually going to say that you put your money where your heart is. That your money, that your treasure follows your heart and vice versa. So that if you move your treasure, your heart will follow. And if your heart moves, your treasure will follow. And so the Bible is going to say that to the extent that something gets your money in your budget is to the extent that you value it and really that you love it. And so some of you are thinking, okay, so I love carowinds 1%.
And it's like, well, not really that specifically. More, how much when you add up, how much you're willing to spend on vacations, how much you're willing to spend on cable or satellite, how much you're willing to spend on comfortable things in your house, like a really nice couch. Eventually, you begin to see that if you look at your budget, okay, I value comfort this much. Or you can look and, okay, I value control this much. Or my family, the way I think about my family, takes up this much of my heart. That's what the Bible is really saying when it comes to our money.
It shows us our heart. So any amount of discussions on the topic of money immediately get intense. You ever notice that? Like when you get into an actual discussion on money, you feel tense, the conversation feels tense, and it's because we're talking about heart-level things. So when you question your roommate's spending habits, and suddenly the conversation gets really like, whoa, I didn't mean for this to be this dramatic.
Or husbands, wives, when you say something really smart like, why on earth would you spend that much money on this? Are you crazy? And suddenly you've entered into a minefield, and you didn't realize how intense this was about to get. It's because it's all heart-level stuff. And so that's why, if you're hanging out with a church on Sunday, and it's like, we're going to talk about money immediately, you go, ugh. Because it's a heart-level issue.
So, with all of the questions that we have about tithing, what is it? How do we do it? What are the rules? How should we approach it? Where does this come from? Honestly, to really answer it, and to really have it take hold, we have to have a heart-level answer.
There has to be a heart, it's a heart-level issue, so it has to have a heart-level solution. Otherwise, we'll just have some information, but it won't actually change us. It won't actually move us, because when our heart moves, our wallet follows. And if we move our wallet, our heart will follow. And so really, for us to answer this question, we have to have a heart-level solution. We have to have a heart-level answer.
So I'm going to pray, and then we're going to hop into 2 Corinthians. Well, we'll be in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 today. That's on page 628. It's going to take us a minute to get there, because we've got to do a little bit of background work, but that's where we're going to land. So let me pray real quick for us.
God, we ask that you would lead us, that you would give us your wisdom, that as we study your word, you would help us to grow in what it looks like to follow and to submit to you. And God, we praise you, and we thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. So 2 Corinthians chapter 8, page 628, if your Bible looks like this, towards the back, if your Bible doesn't. And what we're going to be doing today is we're going to be talking through how are we to, as Christians, view tithing. And tithing, when we say that, what we really mean is how are we to view giving to the local church and giving towards mission kind of on a regular basis.
And the truth is, what we're going to see is that our giving should be based off of the cross, not a calculator. Then when it comes to the answer that is given in the text is that our giving is based off of the cross, not a calculator. And that's really, that it should be based off of the gospel. So where does tithing come from? Let's answer that question first.
Where does this idea come from? It begins in Genesis when Abraham meets a guy named Melchizedek. And Melchizedek is the priest of Salem, which ends up being Jerusalem. And he gives him 10% of everything he has. And so that's where the idea just kind of originates is that there would be 10% given to a priest, kind of a religious, someone in between you and God kind of thing. And then in Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers, it's taught as a part of the law.
So Numbers 18 and Leviticus 20 are basically going to say that you give 10% of your increase. So 10% of whatever comes in, and this would for them would have been goats, sheep, grapes, like whatever came in, you would give 10% to the Levites, to the priestly class because those are the ones that were running the sacrificial system. Those are the ones. And so they didn't get land. They were one of the tribes, but they didn't have any inheritance. And so you were to give it to them.
Actually, you were giving it back to God. And then God said, I'm giving it to them. And that's what Numbers 18 and Leviticus 27 says. Deuteronomy 12, 14, and 26 says that the tithe serves three purposes, still 10% off of increase. And what it said was, it's to go to the Levites, the priestly class, for them to do what they do in the temple. A portion of it is for you to celebrate.
So they were supposed to take the tithe and eat it in celebration in front of God to celebrate His provision. And if the temple was too far away, you were supposed to sell the stuff, take the gold, go to the temple, go to Jerusalem, buy whatever you wanted. It says buy meat, buy wine, wine, strong drink, and drink it and eat it in the presence of the Lord as a celebration. That it was a reminder of God's good things. And so for those who even didn't have a whole lot and were just getting by, they were still supposed to take a portion of their money just to celebrate with. And the other reason it exists was for taking care of the widow and the poor.
So that was the three reasons for the tithe in Deuteronomy 12, 26, and 14. 12, 14, 26, if you want to do that in the way Numbers go. Then we see a few examples. Second Chronicles, Nehemiah and Malachi are all going to talk about the tithe and how it works. Malachi, God's actually going to show up and tell him, you haven't been tithing and you've been stealing from me. You haven't been giving and you've been stealing from me.
And then he's going to do something that he doesn't usually do. He's going to say, test me. Test me and see. Apparently they weren't giving because they didn't think they could afford it. And what he says is, test me and I will provide for you and I will open the floodgates of heaven and I will take care of you if you'll trust me. Now, Old Testament's pretty clear on it.
It's 10% of increase. Most of the time when tithing is taught in the church, every time I've heard it, someone goes to the Old Testament and says, here's the rule. And so even as we were praying about it and talking about it, we knew we were going to need to address this issue and as we started working on it, we just opened the Bible and started reading everywhere they talked about the tithe. And the New Testament doesn't really talk about it. Doesn't come up. There's no verse in the New Testament that's like, it's not like in second opinions where it's like, hey guys, keep tithing like we used to.
Just pretend like the church is the temple now. You're welcome. Like the New Testament doesn't say that. Paul never writes it. Jesus doesn't really address it. Jesus talks about it twice while he's fussing at Pharisees.
So he's in the middle of yelling at people, which I don't know if y'all know, Jesus does that. He yells at people. So he's in the middle of yelling at people and what he says is, you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, which are spices. So he's saying, you tithe, you're so legalistic, you tithe out of your spice rack. So when they went and got spices, they would have said, okay, let me measure out 10%.
So if y'all have a spice rack, go home, measure out 10% and then you gotta bring it in little bags. But if a cop finds you with a bunch of little bags of spices, good luck. But just be careful on the trip. Don't drive too fast. But no, he says you tithe out of your spice rack and what he says is, this you should have done without forgetting the way to your things of the law.
And that's the only time Jesus addresses it. Paul never talks about in any of his letters. And so the New Testament doesn't really talk about it. And so for us, we have to look at the Old Testament and say, how are we to understand this as Christians? Because the law was given in the Old Testament and then Jesus tells us, Romans 7 tells us that he fulfilled the law on our behalf so that we're no longer bound by the law but we've been set free. We died to the law when Christ died for us and that we're now bound by the law of Christ.
And Jesus says he didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. And so there are certain aspects of the law that have been fulfilled and there are certain things that the New Testament clarifies when it comes to the law. And so the Old Testament law kind of breaks down into three things if you're trying to just do this really quickly and kind of look at it. They had civil law which was because they were a nation. Because the nation of Israel existed they had civil law which was like if my bull breaks out and kills your bull I've got to give you my bull. That's the rule.
And we have civil laws like you can't drive too fast. Look at the sign. Do what it says. And so the civil laws for Jerusalem don't really apply even though when we've crafted laws we look to see kind of what God thought was fair and we took some of those out but they don't really apply to us anymore because we don't live in Jerusalem. We live in the United States. So the civil laws aren't really for us as much and the tithing does kind of fall into that category some.
They had ceremonial laws which was how they related to God through the temple system. Through sacrifices through clean and unclean laws through some dietary laws and basically what that was teaching them was this. God is holy and you are not. He is clean and you are unclean and there are things that make you unclean and it was a consistent reminder of that and even when you were clean when you had done everything you had to do to be clean when you showed up at the temple you still needed a sacrifice. So God's teaching us in the Old Testament that the best of us still need Jesus.
Still need a sacrifice on our behalf. But the ceremonial laws don't really apply to us anymore because Jesus fulfilled that in his sacrifice on our behalf when he died on the cross when he rose again. So we're not bound to that anymore. And then there's moral law which is like the Ten Commandments. So moral law is just here's how humans ought to interact with each other.
Don't lie. Don't commit adultery. Don't covet your neighbor's stuff. Don't steal. And those still apply. Those are still things that we would look and say this is how God thinks we ought to interact with each other so we should still follow these.
And really when it comes to looking at the Old Testament you have to look at the context and you have to look at what the New Testament says about it. That's why people will say stuff like oh yeah? Well the Old Testament says not to cut the corners of your hair. Nice flat top, hypocrite. Or oh yeah? Well you're not supposed to eat shellfish.
Let's go burn red lobster to the ground. Like people accuse you of these things but they don't really apply anymore because Jesus has paid for and taken care of those aspects of the law. And there are certain New Testament passages that just say things like you can eat whatever you want. God declares it all clean. And that's why if you ever eat bacon praise Jesus. So there are certain things that when we're looking at how do we apply this and then the Old Testament speaks on it and teaches on it and then the New Testament is silent.
It begins to you begin to ask the question why? Like why doesn't the New Testament address this? Hebrews talks about it a little bit but all it's talking about is the story of Abraham meeting the priest of Salem. So why doesn't the New Testament address it? Why doesn't the New Testament talk about it? Why doesn't the New Testament say how we ought to handle it?
Because we've got a lot of questions, right? And nowhere in the New Testament which the New Testament is pretty straightforward on most things does it address it. And here's what I think as we began to read it and began to look at it here's why I believe that the New Testament when you see how the New Testament starts treating money the way the New Testament is going to talk about money post-cross it actually begins to make sense why tithing isn't mentioned. Why there isn't a rule given why 10% isn't there and here's a way to think about it. My wife and I just had a son his name's Archer he is two and a half months old I don't know if you know many two and a half month olds he's the best.
So just take the greatest two and a half month old you know just go a level up and that's kind of what Archer's like you'll get to kind of be able to imagine him now. Just kidding. Anyway no I'm serious but we have a two and a half month old and right around the time that Anna got pregnant Matt and Katie realized they were going to be having a baby as well and so everybody we were kind of wanting to see if it was going to be two boys or if we knew we were having a son if they were going to have a boy or a girl and once they found out they were having a girl Emerson Lane Freeman who when I wrote all of this that we're about to talk about I just assumed Matt and Katie wouldn't be here so some of this is going to get a little awkward for them because I felt like I had the freedom to say whatever I wanted to but they apparently don't have their baby when they're supposed to.
[QA NOTE — 2026-05-10] The remainder of this sermon is missing from the cleaned transcript because Whisper produced a single unpunctuated mega-sentence at the tail of the audio. The raw text in transcription_work/ contains the rest. Recommend re-running the cleanup with timestamp-based punctuation restoration, or capturing the missing portion manually from the audio.