 you know each church has campaigns of how they want to raise money and this one particular pastor he had this idea that he wanted to raise money and he wanted to encourage people to give money to this particular project but he he found this way he said it was an older congregation he says whoever will give a thousand dollars for next Sunday they will choose the hymn that will be sung in the church so this old grandma you know she had a lot of money in her retirement so she rose up and she says pastor I want to give three thousand dollars pastor says well great praise be to God what kind of a hymn do you want three hymns you want to choose she says easy I want him him and him you can choose hymns in our church if you come or if you give I want to speak today about offering and I want to speak today about tithing someone said a checkbook is a theological document it will tell you who and what you worship it's so true when it comes to tithing tithing is a principle in the bible it's not a rule it's not a law but it's a principle tithing was established 550 years before the law was given to tithing tithing was practiced by our father of faith Abraham it was it was practiced by the patriarchs Jacob and also Isaac and others and then it became a law but before it was a law it was just a principle Jesus said we should focus on the mercy but not ignore tithing either in Matthew chapter 23 verse 23 those people who say that Jesus said you know we shouldn't tithe and he removed the law well newsflash he showed the law and then he gave us always a higher standard than the law he says losses don't don't murder and grace says don't even hate the law says don't commit adultery grace says don't even lust he says the law says you know hit another person who hits you and the grace says you know turn your cheek and so somehow when it comes to tithing the law says tithe and the grace says be greedy that's not consistent with the teaching of the scriptures can somebody say amen and Jesus gave his whole life for us and so we believe as Christians in our church that tithing is not a law but it's a principle just like a principle of gravity you know that if you if you throw yourself from the building you're not going to suspend yourself in the air you're going to crush on the ground when you give it will be given back to you when you don't give well that's what's going to happen you're going to get stuck in Malachi it says that when we tithe that the curses will be broken and the devourer will be rebuked that means the demonic forces behind the financial problems will be stopped and that God will open the windows of heaven to bring a blessing on our finances can somebody say amen few practical things on tithing one is that tithing is to be brought to the house of God as it says in Malachi tithe cannot be brought to a televangelist or prophet T.P. Joshua or apostle John shee or Vladimir Montian or someone else that you watch to or listen to or Joyce Meyer as awesome as these ministries are you are not in the local church where there are you are in the good news church local church if you are here and you consider this your local church that is where your tithe goes into the bible says so there will be bread in the house bread speaks of both material things in the house means there will be a building that there will be a sea and that there will be a spiritual food prepared like worship that you can come home groups and all of this stuff will be operating so local church is the place you send your tithe I had few times when people brought their tithe and they say I just want to give you my tithe I am not a local church you can't give me your tithe I had one gentleman who uh purchased uh bought me a gift once for my house very expensive gift and so and then we were talking about in a home group and he mentioned he says oh yeah I tied he says I bought that gift for the pastor that's my tithe and I said hey sunshine that wasn't your tithe that was your gift and I'm not giving back to the church you are gonna give your tithe to the church your tithe goes to the church it does not go to paramilitries that's where you can give your offerings that's when you can give your sacrifices but your tithe goes to the local church can somebody say amen tithe is the another word for tithe so the reason why people ask sometimes why is it tithe well actually word tithe is tithe it means tithe so the tithe of our income it goes to God tithe the third principle is that it's a principle of the first one of the reasons people have problems or still do not see God's blessings even when they tithe is because they do not tithe first many people tithe at the end of the month when they see if they have extra money left that is not tithing the basis of tithing is the first it's your trusting God with the rest if you are paying your bills your phone your house payment your insurance your house you know your food budget your gas budget your internet your cable your netflix your hulu account your cable account and you pay for all of that and then at the end of the month you're saying if I'll have extra I will tithe you miss the whole point the whole idea of tithing is that you're giving to God first according to Matthew 6 33 seek first the kingdom of God and then you're trusting that the Lord will bless the rest when Israel went to the promised land God said the first city Jericho is going to be mine Jericho was the tithe of the promised land and there was one smarty his name was aching he had a very high intellectual and theological education he thought why am I going to give to God first it's mine that's most of our problem it's mine and he said it's mine and that mine led him to the fact that he lost his family and everything else because he brought a curse anytime you don't honor God first you are exposed to a demonic attacks which are already in the air they don't always come with you losing money with you wasting money on things you could have been protected for and the tithe is all about the test number 10 in the bible is always speaks of test 10 commandments which to test our heart 10 plagues which was to test the pharaoh we see 10 days of testing that daniel had when when he refused to eat Babylonian diet we see 10 days of testing in the book of revelation that was given to a particular congregation we see also number 10 as 10 virgins and they were tested and tithe was the only time God allowed us to test him tithe does to test it tests your obedience to God and it tests God's faithfulness to you that's the first aspect of it the second aspect of our giving is alms it's when we give to the poor it's when we give to those who are in need jesus told a leper when he cleansed him he says give an offering for your healing it's very interesting to find out that jesus expected a leper who just got healed to go and give an offering when we give to the poor it's because we demonstrate that we fully understood of how God has given to us giving to the poor is a reflection you understood when you were poor in your sin jesus christ gave salvation and he now expects you to model the same thing when we are forgiven we are expected to model forgiveness to others when we were given by God mercy we are model we are expected to model that for others many people especially in America have become very clever and have become over educated above the obedience and this is a common thread i don't want to give to the poor why because you don't want to give a fish to a poor man you want to teach him how to fish i'll never bless a poor person why because i worked very hard to earn the money that i made and i'm not just gonna give a handout i'm not a government you're also not a christian nowhere in the bible does god said we are excused from helping the poor under the umbrella we want them to learn on their own when we use this slang that we don't want to help the poor under the umbrella is that i worked very hard and they must as well everywhere in the bible god says when you plow your field leave some behind when you're removing graves leave some behind he says when you have forgotten something at the field don't go back he says leave it for the poor jesus says you will always have poor with you in the old testament god says that i will always leave poor to test you because this is where the greed comes in i worked hard i went to school and so they need to do the same as i did what if the lord would use the same principle on you and says i'm holy i'm just i'm holy and i am perfect and they are not they need to get perfect on their own when you help the poor you model the fact you benefit it from the grace of god when you don't help i'm not saying to help the poor by giving always money you can give things you can pay for someone's education you can help with somebody's bill i've been more burned by helping the poor and i could even explain of how many people i helped in before when i was younger who used that money for drugs and after that i came to that conclusion i'm not going to help poor again i'm not going to help somebody who's in need somebody who's going to ask but the lord kept bringing me to the scripture to remind me of lat just because you did not do it correctly it doesn't mean you should stop doing it completely you should improve on doing it you should do the background check you should do get better and as a church you see one thing that we do as a church we help the ministries that help the poor but as a church also we help the poor we help those who are in need we help those who maybe lack a car or those who lack a furniture we try to do that in me and as my wife we try not to sell things that we use that are still good and when we replace them but to give them to somebody in need even if people offer us money we say no this is for you the washer and the dryer great condition it's for you those couches it's for you why because we want to live a life we can always make an extra buck but if we don't have anywhere in our life where we give to someone who cannot repay us we don't have a proof we have benefited from the grace of God go to the needy help the needy be wise yes you can throw money to somebody who just gets off of the street but you can buy them a meal you can take them out to eat but you can pay for their utility bill because that's what God wants us to do with our finances can somebody say amen number three is a sacrifice it's when we give generously generosity begins with God selfishness begins with satan you say what I mean isn't giving to the poor already generosity yes but I'm talking about something else I'm talking about a sacrifice sacrifice is not every day maybe not every month maybe once a year once in two years twice a year when you give something that goes beyond your tithe and beyond your giving to the poor few things about sacrifice we see that David gave 21 billion dollars for a temple project adjusted to inflation and our time it was about 21 billion dollars David gave to a temple project that his son was about to build it wasn't for his house it wasn't for his son's house it was for God's house 21 billion of dollars that's a lot of money we see Solomon when he becomes a king a king was supposed to bring one bull to God as a request for God to bless the king a Solomon brought 1000 bulls no wonder why God gave Solomon a blank check in a dream and says whatever you want is yours when you bring a sacrifice something dies in your heart and God can trust you with a blank check a lot of people use that verse and they say God tells me like what do you want God says nothing from you if you don't offer that sacrifice that stretches your heart God is not going to trust a blank check to a greedy person we see that Mary gave her whole years of income at the feet of Jesus and Judas was very offended because he says it's better to give that money to the poor in reality he didn't care about the poor Judas spirit does two things Judas spirit always says you know we shouldn't give it to the church and then the Judas spirit says we shouldn't give it to the poor it works the both way but Mary gives all your incomes let's say you're working you know average job you know a normal pay and it's about 24 25 thousand dollars she had to save a lot of money to save that money to be able to give it at the feet of Jesus but we see a widow she gave two pennies it wasn't a lot but it was her sacrifice I want you to know one thing about sacrifice sacrifice is not how much you give it's how much you have left a rich person who makes a hundred thousand dollars can bring a thousand dollar sacrifice let's say I want to you know help with this project and we all can be impressed God isn't and the person who maybe makes you know twelve thousand dollars a year they can bring a hundred dollars you know but that means more because of how much they're left God looks not just how much you give it's how much you have left each single month or each single time that you offer sacrifice I found these few steps that I've taken or that I usually go through when it comes to sacrifice one is I have a prompting I have the prompting for example to give a car how did the whole car giving started it started with the prompting now I don't use voice of the Holy Spirit because I don't want to make it super spiritual it was prompting it was something in my heart I waited it I prayed about it and then I felt number two I got excited number three I got scared number four logic kicked in number five doubt kicked in then I decided to do it faith kicked in and the lastly usually miracle came in those are the steps that people go through all the time those of you who sacrifice you would agree amen you go through all of them sometimes in just one minute and you do it and then it's it's very important to believe that you know we have here guys who have been off drugs who have been who've been living a very very difficult and challenging lives and when they get set free when they come to Jesus I love those people the most why because I teach a teaching like this and after that Holy Spirit begins to use it and they come and they say you know I need a new car but I have some money saved up and I hear that you guys are raising money to get a car to bless a family here's a thousand dollars you're like but you need a car too hold off you've been giving these sacrifices every six months he said I know I can always wait I'm just so grateful God delivered me from drugs those who give much it's because they love much they have understood and they believed in that amen I believe as a church we're going to be able to give a hundred cars every single year because we're going to have more people who get saved who will be grateful to God for what he has done in their life and as a result God is going to be more generous with them he will give them businesses he will give them better opportunities and prosper them and for those of you who cling to your money like it's to your dear life cannot remind you with something that motivates me sometimes you're going to still lose it you're not going to go to heaven with your money you're going to go to heaven with your nice suit and that's it not to heaven but to the casket but into heaven you're going to go just with your soul and the deeds that you did will follow you be always motivated when you feel like you're losing money when you give you're actually losing when you don't give that's when you're really losing we don't lose my friends God blesses us here and God blesses our dead and the last thing is management just because we give and just because we give to the poor and just because we sacrifice it doesn't give us a green light to be completely foolish with how we spend our money one of the biggest challenges that people have is when they started to give or they started to type they think that automatically after that every foolish decision gets covered by God's insurance of provision it's people who think that because I type I can use my credit card and heaven is going to pay for it because I type that I can live above my means and I can it's good to be on a fourth dimension only in your head it is dangerous to have an image of an Audi on your iPad and to start going and buying an Audi until you have the money in your bank account to buy that Audi keep that image until you have the money not until you have the ability to borrow the money for that Audi otherwise you drop quickly from your dream into your nightmare a few simple tips and I know in the future we're going to talk more about this but budgeting is telling your money where to go number one how to manage money is that you have to have a budget you have to name every dollar every every single month you have to know how much money you spend on coffee how much money you spend on food how much money you spend on gas how much money do you spend on rent how much money do you spend on insurance each month you have to know and sometimes when you know it shocks you remember one time when I saw that you know we spent 280 dollars on coffee you don't feel it when you slice it until you see the number and your heart skips a few beats and next time you're craving for coffee you get delivered like this because I bought coffee for so many people I was standing in line and buy people's coffee we would go 20 15 people and I would slice and you don't feel that pain until at the end of the month you see where it went you're like man I mean I want to be generous with people but I sure do not want to go that route people say budgeting is not spiritual it's very spiritual Jesus teaches us stewardship and you have the Bible says you have to know the state of your flock means you have to know where everything is going how much is going where can somebody say amen live within your means it's understandable it's very hard to do live within your means that means if you're making this much money if you're not rich don't look rich don't eat rich don't dress rich don't talk rich live within your means that is not there's no shame in that the Bible TV Joshua always says cut your coat according to your size have you seen people who wear tighter things that they shouldn't be wearing some people on the stage I give you hints what do you think you're like yeah this is awesome no you're like this is crazy or you see people who wear three times their size you're like come can you get something your size that's exactly what happens when the young man who hasn't graduated yet and that drives a brand new car that his parents are making payments on you're not that's not your size you gotta feel comfortable with your size and wear your size and just because your brother your uncle or your auntie or someone else in the church drives that dresses that you are not them respect the season and the rhythm that God has you on if you're not insecure forget about being prosperous if you are not secure forget about being prosperous be secure in who you are and what God is blessing you what God is giving you right now and drive that eat that live that and be happy with that can somebody say amen otherwise you'll never be happy trying to keep keeping up with the Genesis avoid buying uncredited and last thing is safe is save money when we started to three years ago kind of our life was changed because like many people I just tied but giving anything about tiding I felt like especially to the poor people it was very difficult for me because I believe that I worked very hard to save that money and they're my money and if other people want to have it they need to save like me and I'll have theirs as well and when I couldn't get married I had trouble getting married and we were fasting in January and I just felt the prompting to give a certain amount of money away and I got excited I quickly did it and the fear came in and I felt like I'm losing my mind because not only I'm not getting married but I'm also losing my mind because I'm just giving money away I've never was never really like that but after that slowly but surely the process of working of working in my heart started to happen and three years ago is when things started to just really broke that materialism and that just that frugal team really broke and we became very very generous very generous with everything all of our savings we were giving away and what I did is that because we started to become generous I felt like it gave me a green light green light not to manage the rest of my money and so we just started to kind of for a few months going all out until I started to notice my credit cards started to go into the limit and I started to be on a thin ice and that's when the Lord started to even bring back this into our life that just because you give just because you sacrifice it doesn't give you a green light not to budget the rest otherwise you'll be broke giving and sacrificing not because God is not blessing you