Today I wanna talk to you about tithing and the crowd goes wild. (congregation laughing) I do, I want to talk to you today about tithing and I wanna start with a statement that might sound strange coming from a pastor. Are you ready for it? Here’s a statement about tithing. You might not want to tithe, you might not want to.
Some of you’re saying, “This may be my favorite tithing message ever.” (congregation laughing) And what I wanna do is I’m gonna show you my cards up front, just be real transparent and I’m gonna tell you why very clearly that you may not want to tithe.
And then what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna tell you very, very clearly why I feel called by God through his word to tithe. And so without any kind of manipulation, I’m gonna tell you why you might not want to, and I’m gonna tell you why I do. But before we go there, let’s just make sure that we’re on the same page and let’s talk about what does it mean to tithe. And so we’re gonna define tithing.
On the wall is the Hebrew word for tithe is the word ma’aser. Everybody say ma’aser. – Ma’aser. – Ma’aser is the word that means the tithe, or literally it means one tenth. And I’m gonna show you three different verses in scripture that talks about the ma’aser or the tithe. The first one is from Genesis 28.
When Jacob said this, he said, “The Lord will be my God, I have a relationship with him. I declare that he is a king and the Lord of my life and all that I give to you will be a ma’aser.” I’m gonna give you because of who you are. I’m gonna give you a tenth is what he says. Next verse is from Leviticus 27 that says, “A ma’aser a tenth, or a tithe of everything the Bible teaches us. It actually belongs to the Lord.” A tithe tenth of what God gives to us, it belongs to him.
It is holy. It’s set apart for him. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 14″22, “Be sure to set aside a ma’aser. Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year.” So when we’re talking about tithing, lemme tell you what we’re not talking about.
