The Lord of Your Stuff (Malachi 3:6-12)

Introduction

George Gilder is a writer whose insights on economics heavily influenced Ronald Reagan during his first term. I recently watched an interview with him where he spoke on his views of economics. He said what made capitalism successful is that it requires people to love their neighbor as they love themselves. Patrick sees his neighbor struggling to keep his lawn cut so he starts a lawn-care business. Dr. Jay sees that people’s teeth need care, so he studies to be a dentist and starts a practice. To the degree our economy runs on sacrificial love, honest work, and biblical responsibility our economy will flourish. But if it degrades into greed, laziness, and envy, then we will see collapse. God created the world to run on sacrificial love.

The Passage

“For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. “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 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. Malachi 3:6–12

Explanation of the Passage

God is faithful to His promises He made to Israel (Mal 3:6-7) because He is unchanging. God doesn’t change His mind halfway through a project. Despite God’s faithfulness (Lam 3:22-23), Israel has repeatedly lost faith in God. One way to summarize all the Old Testament is God loves, His people leave, God calls them to return, some of them do. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Malachi’s Israel is just another instance of lost faith. God calls them to repent.

The people respond asking how they can repent (Mal 3:7). God says they can repent when they begin tithing. A tithe is when you give ten percent of your income back to God. Why? Because He makes corn grow. He keeps the computers that you work with running. A tithe is the humble recognition that all you have comes from God. He gives you breath, water, food, and makes possible the money you have. In Israel’s day they tithed from their produce from the land (Deut 12:6, 11, 17). Today, we tithe from our income from our work and services. The tithe was given for the Levites (the town pastors) to live from. The Levites then gave a tenth of their income to the priests in Jerusalem for the provision of the sanctuary (Num 18:26).

God has cursed Israel because they do not acknowledge Him (Mal 3:9). They are robbing him (Mal 3:8). But if they begin tithing again, God will bless them (Mal 3:10). He will stop the locusts from eating their food (Mal 3:11). Other nations will see their prosperity and call them blessed if they repent (Mal 3:12).  

Get by Giving

            God is eager to give. No angel in heaven has to butter-up God in order for Him to be nice. He desires to give. He wants to bless. When He blesses people who resemble Him and desire to give, the blessing spreads, multiplies, amplifies. However, when He blesses people who take and hold, then the blessing rots and turns into a curse. Remember, God gave Adam and entire garden of trees to eat from. He only said one tree was off limits. But Adam took what He shouldn’t have taken and missed a greater blessing. Jesus, the second Adam, models how we should live.

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5–11

In God’s economy you get by giving. Abraham could only receive his only son Isaac by faith after he gave his son Isaac on the altar by faith. You get eternal life from God only after giving your life to God.

God is also eager to forgive. None of us live like we should. None of us give like God wants us to. Instead of living like God’s son, we live like the prodigal son. We take what our father would graciously give. But it’s only when the money runs out that we realize how gracious our God and Father really is. When we come to our senses and turn home, we see our father is already running toward us (Luke 15:20). It is with that same eager forgiveness that we should forgive others. Why? Because God gives us grace. He expects us to give grace to others (Matthew 18:21-25). A selfish heart holds on to a paycheck and doesn’t give God the 10%. A selfish heart also holds on to grace and doesn’t give it to others. Selfishness kills a soul.

Remember, God is true to His promises. He promises to give to those who give (Luke 6:38; 2 Cor 9:6-11). Even when God gives us trials, He does not give them to us to break us, but to build us (James 1:3; Heb 11:17). As a blacksmith’s hammer expands metal on the anvil, so does God’s trials expand us through adversity. God’s trials make us bigger and stronger so we can carry more blessings because blessings are heavy.

Conclusion

            We do all of this by faith. We receive God’s blessing in our work by faith. We give our tithes in faith. We receive God’s forgiveness by faith, and we give that same forgiveness to others by faith. The heart of faith is what’s important. That’s why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9:7 that God loves a cheerful giver. Where do you think the jolly attitude comes from when you willingly give up some of your income? It doesn’t come from obligation, drudgery, or guilt. It comes from a faith that sees every good gift coming down from our father (James 1:17).