Do You require me to tithe to my church?

It’s great to see all of you here. Thank you for coming. Whether this is your first time or you’ve been here a long time, we’re so glad that you’re here with us.

Thank you for watching online, for Stolgenac as well, and just a little bit about me. My name is Jim Jensen. People around here call me JJ, and I’m the executive director at Shepherd’s Gate, which means I have the privilege of leading the staff and the ministry side of our organization, and so it’s my unusual privilege to give the talk today, but I’m humbled and happy to do it.

We’re in our Questioning God series, and it’s been a really great series so far. Just in case you’re still catching up on it, here’s where we’ve been. You can see them on the screen, and the messages have been great, and so if you’ve missed any of these, I really encourage you to go back, maybe when you’re commuting in your car or something like that, listen to or watch these messages if you miss them.

Great questions. You think, hey, I’d like to ask God this, or I wonder what the Bible says about, you know, whatever. You can see we’re answering some of those, and today we’re going to continue that, and as my dad would say, this one’s a doozy.

So here’s our question for the day. God, do you require me to tithe to my church? So yeah, I have the giving message. That’s what I got.

Yeah, but it’s okay. You know, just in case you don’t know, the word tithe, that means ten percent. So the question is asking, does God require me to give ten percent of my income to my church? Okay, so total honesty between us.

We know this is a little cringy. It’s, you know, especially in church, and so let’s just get it all out now. Why is it, why is it weird to talk about money in church? I’m looking for an answer, not rhetorical.

Examples, bad examples? Bad church examples. Like church is taking advantage of people. Yeah, what else? Oh, well, keeping the doors open, like you need, you need finances, so even though it’s cringy, you need to talk about it.

It’s a good point. Greed. Greed is a thing, even in churches.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I think that these are all good answers. Some might be, the church is just after my money.

Have any of you ever thought that? And maybe in some churches it’s true. You know, we’re just, we’re fallen people. We’re all just people.

So yeah, it can be a little uncomfortable. Despite that, I think it’s important to talk about generosity and giving today, and there are a few reasons why. One is, I don’t know if you knew this, but there are 2,350 verses in the Bible about financial matters.

That is 7.5% of all the verses in the Bible. And just in case you think 7.5% is low, I’ve got some other percentages. The Bible talks about prayer in 500 verses, that’s 1.6%. Prayer.

Faith and belief, again, 500 verses, 1.6%. Love, 2%. So just think about that. Seven and a half percent of the verses of the So it’s obviously important.

God thought it was important. It’s in the Bible. And you know, I think just let’s be honest.

Finances affect every part of our life, right? I mean, it’s in our family life. It’s in our work life. We work for a living.

We have needs that we need to have met that require finances. And so yes, this intersects all parts of our lives, and it affects our spiritual lives, and it affects how we do church. And so yeah, we’ll talk about it this morning.

The Bible is always our guide here at Shepherd’s Gate, and we just need to look at what the Bible says about giving. And actually, that’s been our theme verse for the Questioning God series, 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. So I just want to read it again for us.

All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. So we really believe that here. All scripture, even that seven and a half percent that talks about financial matters, it’s useful.

It’s useful. And if I could just bottom line the whole thing for us right now, I would go right to something Jesus said, one of those verses in Matthew. Jesus said, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

This whole thing about giving a portion of your income to the church is really not a head thing. It’s a heart thing. Look at the connection Jesus is making between our resources, our financial resources, and the condition of our hearts.

Therefore, that’s where I want to go today. I want to go straight to the scripture and see what the Bible says about giving. After that, I want to talk about how we’re doing as a church.

And then finally, I’m just going to ask a few questions that might just get us thinking about this whole topic and how it applies to us personally. Sound like a plan? I hope so, because this is the only message I got for it. So, let’s go.

Alright, so tithe. Tithe. It kind of feels like an Old Testament-y word, right? Yeah, it’s in the Old Testament, the word tithe.

And it’s in several places, but let’s look at one where it’s really clear. This is in the book of Leviticus. It says, a tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord.

It is holy to the Lord. So remember, a tithe means a tenth. And this passage and others like it describe a system of giving that the Israelites had in the Old Testament.

It was part of their laws and their customs. And the tithe would go to support the priests and the temple, right? And so they had it kind of baked in. However, here’s the catch.

Not everything in the Old Testament applies to believers today in the same way that it did back then. And there’s a reason for that. The reason is Jesus.

When Jesus came, he created a new way to have a relationship between God and mankind. Jesus died on the cross for our sins. When he did that, everything changed.

He was the perfect sacrifice once and for all. And when he rose from the dead, he defeated death and sin for all time. And so we receive that free gift of salvation.

And we have a relationship with God. And it says in the scriptures that he fulfilled the law. He fulfilled it.

He didn’t supersede it. He fulfilled it. And so some things have changed.

This is in the New Testament, by the way. Here’s one passage where it is. I’ll just read it here.

If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood, and indeed the law was given to the people establishing that priesthood, then why was there still need for another priest to come? And that other priest that the writer is talking about is Jesus. And then he says, for when the priesthood is changed, the law must be changed also. This passage goes on to talk about Jesus as our new priest, our high priest.

And he’s different than the priests that were in the Old Testament. He’s perfect and he’s permanent. And so some of these laws have been changed.

And I’ll just give you an example. So there are laws in the Old Testament about how your beard should be trimmed, guys. And there’s laws about how your hair should be worn, ladies.

And there are rules about how you touch animals and when you should touch them and what happens after you touch them. Do we do any of that now? I should talk to a couple of guys in the worship team who have beards. I mean I should talk to them about like trimming it up.

No, we don’t do that anymore. We don’t realize that because some of these are just, they’re cultural and they have changed. Fortunately, you know, fortunately the New Testament is really good about showing us where things have changed and how things are changed.

And so the Bible works together as a whole. Generally, the principles remain. So while Joel, you won’t have to trim your beard a certain way, you know, but we are commanded in the New Testament to be modest in our appearance, to take care of our bodies because they’re the temple of the Holy Spirit.

And so there are principles that are still applying. So now we need to see what’s changed for giving because in the Old Testament there is a tithe, a tithe of 10%. But did anything change in the New Testament? Well, it did.

Here’s a verse that summarizes a lot of what the early church is asked to do when it comes to being generous in giving. It says, remember this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each one of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

And God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. Now there’s there’s a lot here. So first of all, giving should be generous.

Not sparing, but generous. And then it should be something that you decide in your heart to give. And not reluctantly, not a got-to, but a get-to.

And our heart condition is important in this. God loves a cheerful giver. And there’s a blessing with it that our needs will be provided for.

And that we can do good in this world through our finances and through everything else. So you can see from this verse right here, we can already answer our question. Does God require me to give a tithe to my church? The answer according to the Bible is no.

I’m surprised. Okay, so look at it carefully. What you have decided in your heart to give.

Do you have to give 10%? No. You decide what is in your heart to give. Do you have to do it? No.

It’s not under compulsion. You actually, it’s not a rule anymore. You don’t have to do it.

And everyone can just breathe a real big sigh of relief. Because the rest of the message won’t be me haranguing you to give 10%. However, there’s stuff in here that we need to talk about.

There’s another verse that I want to add to this as we think about what it means to be a giver, a generous giver to the church today. It’s from 1st Corinthians 16. It says this, on the first day of every week each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, saving it up.

So this verse gets to some of the nitty-gritty of giving. So every week, it should be regular. It’s not something you do haphazardly, but it should be, you know, something that is reoccurring.

Each one of you should have set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income. So it’s proportionate. There’s no fixed amount that everyone should give.

It’s proportionate to how much you make. And then finally, saving it up. Saving it up means it should be intentional.

Not at the end after all the bills are paid, not the leftovers if there’s anything left over, but saving it up. Intentionally deciding to give an amount. So let’s just summarize these two verses because these two verses have the bulk of what the New Testament says about giving.

First of all, generous. It should be generous. It should be voluntary.

Does God require me to give a tithe? No. No, it’s a voluntary thing. It’s out of gratefulness for what God has done for us, for what Jesus has done for us.

We give it voluntarily. And these two words speak to the heart. It should be cheerful and heartfelt.

That can be hard sometimes when you’re parting with your finances. But God asks us to give cheerfully. And also it should be regular.

Not haphazard, not once in a while, but, you know, a set amount, a set time. Proportionate. So not everyone is expected to give the same amount because not everyone makes the same.

So there’s a fairness in there. And then intentional. Intentional.

Not at the end. We call it first fruits giving sometimes. You decide what you’re gonna do when you save it up at the beginning of when you get your paycheck, not after all the bills are paid.

Generous, voluntary, heartfelt, cheerful, regular, proportionate, intentional. And finally, one more verse that I think is worth mentioning. 2 Corinthians 8, 7. So we’re encouraged to excel in giving like we do in anything else.

Any high achievers in the room? You like to stay fit? You like to, you know, slay it at work? Are you a student? Do you like to get A’s? Also excel in the grace of giving. And so that’s what the Scripture teaches. Interesting, isn’t it? Well, now I want to talk about where we are as a church.

Because I think we should just have that discussion. If we know what the Bible says about giving, then we should know where we are as a community. So I want to talk about that.

I need to tell you a story about how I know what I’m going to share with you. So a few months ago, Tim asked me, our lead pastor Tim, asked me to do a deep dive into our giving patterns and our finances and the data surrounding that. With the intention of seeing where we are as a church and then, you know, what we could do to kindle generosity within our congregation to continue to do the work that we feel God has called us to do.

And, you know, I’ve been in ministry now, full-time ministry, 28 years. So my career has been to work in the church. And it was mostly in music stuff.

And so I really hadn’t done a deep dive into giving before. I’d heard things, of course. I mean, being on church staff, you hear, giving is up, giving is down, things of that nature.

And, you know, I’ve heard things from the pastors that I’ve served with over the years about giving. But it wasn’t like going into the data. That was a whole new level.

And I want to tell you that I approached it very humbly. And you should know that there are only four people that have access to that data at all. And, of course, it’s completely confidential.

But it was really an eye-opener for me to see our patterns of giving and how we’re doing as a community and as I did the research. And actually, now that I saw the data, I actually wanted to do this talk. When I saw that in the Questioning God series that there was going to be one on giving, I said, Tim, can I do that one? Because I’ve been doing the research.

I’ve been living in it. And I can share this part. I can share this with the church.

And, of course, he agreed and he went on vacation. So, you know, it all worked out, right? In fact, you might have even received a letter from me or a text from me because I’ve been looking at different groups of givers and how things are going with different segments of our congregation. I’ve been looking at members especially.

And so you may have received a letter or a text from me. And you may in the future as I’m looking through this data and looking through the different ways that people give. But here’s how I want to share with you.

The first thing is there are many generous givers at Shepherds Gate. And thank God for you. Thank you so much.

If you’re one that gives to Shepherds Gate financially, thank you for that gift. You know, we couldn’t do what we do without financial resources. This is the way the world works.

And we have a mission from the Lord to share Jesus with as many people as possible. And, of course, there are facilities and our Sunday mornings and our kids programming and everything that we do as a church is funded by the generous gifts that you give. And so thanks.

I was celebrating as I saw so much generosity. I also saw a few other things that I want to share with you. And I just want to share two stats.

So this is the total, the percent of total giving that comes from households 50 years of age or older. So those that are in our church, households that are 50 years of age or older, the percentage of our giving that comes from that age group. So that’s 74%.

Now I know some may be thinking, well wait though. I mean those people are way into their career and they’re probably making more money. I get that.

But don’t forget that people retire in this age group. And then the income is adjusted. We also have an average age at Shepherds Gate of 44.

And so we actually trend younger than this generation. And they say that the church is only one generation away from failure, which is true in a lot of different respects. And it’s true in our finances.

And so when I look at this number, I am concerned for our households that are 50 and younger. Do we understand generosity? Do we get it? Are we ready to apply it? Are we ready to carry this responsibility of the church so that the next generation of our church can do what God has asked us to do? And that just, that stat makes me a little concerned about that. Here’s another one.

The percent of households who are currently contributing less than $100 a month. So why $100? Though the average household income, not individual income, the average household income in Shelby Township is $120,000 a year. Now I know not everyone is making $120,000 a year.

I get that. And I don’t know what people are making. But if you just take the averages, then $100 a month is 1%.

1% of your income. And the amount of households who are contributing less than $100 a month at Shepherds Gate is 53%. So more than half of those that give to our church are giving at 1% or less statistically on average of their annual household income.

And of course, that’s concerning. And here’s what I don’t get about it, if I can just speak frankly. In every other area of our church, we’re killing it.

You can tell, right? Like attendance is still going up. The last three years, our average worship attendance has been either 18 to 22% higher than the year previous for three consecutive years. Membership is up.

We have a membership class of 40 on Wednesday. And people are still signing up for it. We’re having a hard time finding a room for it for Wednesday night.

Baptisms are up. We’re having trouble scheduling baptisms for the rest of the year and into January. Because there’s so many people that want to be baptized.

Our kids program is rocking. Our care program has awesome numbers. Like in every other area, we’re doing so good.

We’re sharing. We’re serving. We’re teaching.

We’re preaching. We’re reaching people for Christ. So it just, I just don’t get why in this area we’re lower.

And I can tell you, I’m not gonna put it on the screen, but in every bracket, if I look at every age group and every giving group, we are lower than the national average in every single category. And I just needed, I mean, I know this is uncomfortable, but I just feel like we all need to know. I mean, this is our community.

This is who we are as a church. Killing it in every other area. We have some work to do in generosity.

Okay. Well, that was the hard part. I want to just ask a few questions that might help us kind of zero in on what this means for us personally.

Because remember, there’s no rule about this. There’s no requirement to tithe to the church. It’s not a requirement.

However, we are commanded to be generous with our finances. And you saw the list. And so if that’s true, if each one should give what is in their heart to give, then this becomes a really personal question that I can’t answer for you.

But I want to ask a few questions that might help us get a handle on what this means for each person personally. So first of all, I just want to humbly ask what kind of organization we want to be. If Shepherd’s Gate is your home church, think about that.

What do we want to be as a church? The stakes are high. Not only for our own personal spiritual life, which I’ll talk about in a second, but more individuals and more families that are coming to our church, that are hearing the gospel. Kids that are learning about Jesus in our programs for kids and students.

God’s bringing, think of all of the people that God will bring into our community in the next five years. It’s going to be amazing. Together, if everyone will do something, we’ll be able to take advantage of every opportunity we have to share Jesus with others.

And I don’t, as a member of this church, I don’t want to miss that. I don’t want to miss a single opportunity to share the hope of the world with those that are coming to our doors and that we reach out to. Here’s another question to think about.

What does generous mean to you? If we’re supposed to be giving generously, then you just have to ask yourself, well, what is generous? Is it 1%? Is it 5%? I mean, I can’t answer this question for you. You have to answer it. I can tell you that when I looked, I’m like, well, what do other churches teach about this? What do Bible scholars over the centuries, what have they thought about it? And there’s really a big consensus that that 10% number from the Old Testament is a good starting place for generous.

And I know that sounds crazy for those that don’t give at that level right now. I get that it sounds crazy, but there are more than a few people that do that here in our church. I think, I don’t know their incomes, but just by the giving patterns, I think that that’s true.

And there are some that even are giving beyond that for Faith Forward, for our building campaign, which is amazing. I have two daughters, and when they were growing up, we had chores. And we didn’t have too many chores, but a few things just keep the house running, like cleaning up the dishes after a meal, or making sure the trash was taken out.

Making sure that our first floor, especially, was clean. And, you know, the second floor, okay, we’ll do what we can. The first floor, though, where people are going to be and visit us, yeah, let’s keep that cleaned up, you know.

And so we would do the chores. So what would it be like if both, and both my daughters were great with their chores, by the way. But let’s just suppose for a minute that both of them said, oh yeah, Dad, we can do that.

Like, we definitely need to do the chores. I see that we need to do it. I see that it needs to happen.

And then one of them does the chores, and then the other one doesn’t do the chores. So as a father, which daughter, am I thinking, gets the idea of doing chores? The one that actually did it, right? So I think that’s probably God’s perspective on this thing of giving. We can all maybe agree that that’s what the Bible says about it.

But whether we do it or not is the thing, right? That’s what God sees. So what is generous to you? Here’s another question. I think this is an important question to ask personally.

Are you a first fruits giver or not? Statistically, when you look at the data, those that, in the church surveys from the Barna group and others, that if you give after all your other bills are paid, like leftover giving, it’s almost impossible to be generous. The people that end up being generous in their giving are the ones that are first fruits givers. They decide the amount, whatever it is, that God is calling them to give in their heart.

And they say, that’s what I’m gonna give. And they set it aside before the bills are paid, before you go out to eat, or before you do whatever else you’re doing with that paycheck. And so I think it’s a good question to ask.

A lot of people are doing leftover giving. I don’t think it’s possible to be generous and do leftover giving. Most of us have tight finances and in these days, they’re even tighter.

And so if you’re gonna be generous, I would just ask the question, am I giving leftover giving or am I giving first fruits giving? And then finally, this question, what’s the downside of not doing this? Right? I mean, some of you have to be thinking about that, right? Like, what’s the downside? Like, no one’s coming after me, you know. And I don’t have to. It’s not a requirement.

It’s voluntary. What’s the downside? And I just want to share, so I’m gonna share very personally about this, because I can just share my story. So I will.

I’ll share it with you. So my wife Lisa and I, we grew up in households that taught us to be generous givers. So we have a big advantage there.

Like, from kids, we saw our parents giving and they taught us how to give. So I get it that we have an advantage in that, because many people don’t have that. And when you get as, you know, come to faith as an adult, or you get serious about your faith as an adult, and then you’re like, oh man, this is crazy, you know.

We didn’t necessarily have that. But when we got married, we made a commitment that we were gonna be generous givers, and we made a commitment that whenever it was possible, as much as it was possible, that we would honor that 10% number, because we felt like that was generous. And yeah, I mean, when the kids were born, we were on one income.

It was my income. I was the worship leader at a church. So how much do you think I was making? Not a lot.

And it was tough. It was hard. We really could have used that extra money.

I mean, frankly. But we kept at it. And I will admit that there are a couple of times that we reduced the amount a little bit when there was some sort of critical need.

As soon as that was over, we put it back up. And we just decided that we were gonna be faithful. And here’s what I can tell you.

God never let us down. He never let us go without what we needed. And even a lot of our wants were met.

It was incredible sometimes. My wife, who has the amazing memory, knows all the stories about how we wanted to put the kids in young fives, and we couldn’t do it. We could if we would stop giving to the church, but we couldn’t do it without it, because at that time you had to pay for it.

And how God miraculously brought resources to our lives that allowed us to do that for both of our children. There are many other stories like that. And here’s what you’re missing.

Here’s the downside. We’ve been giving like that for 25 years. And I just have to tell you that there is nothing that builds trust in the Lord and yourself more than trusting Him with your finances.

Because it is so hard, and it is so critical to what you need to survive, to give that to Him as a gift, and to trust Him with it. And when you do it for decades, and He comes through for you, I can tell you that we have so much confidence in God. We know.

He’s proved it to us. And it goes way beyond finances now. We can weather the storms, because we have decades of experience of making that trust between Jesus and us.

And I would want that for you. That’s the downside. If you’re not trusting God with generous giving, then you don’t understand what I’m talking about right now.

You don’t understand how valuable it is. You don’t understand how incredibly amazing it is to know that your God will come through in this area. So I just wanted to share that to tell you that it may be difficult, but for us it was worth it.

And we just enjoy that level of trust and love that we have between between God and us. And I would want that for you. I’d want that for our church, and I’d want that for all the people that are going to come to Shepherds Gate in the future, who are desperate to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Because I have to tell you, that’s where we need to end. Not on my story, but on God’s story. He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all.

How will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? The gospel changes everything. Jesus changes everything. Look at what He gave to us.

Look at the sacrifice that He made. He was so generous that He shared His only Son. He gave everything He had.

And so, in the end, that’s why it’s a heart matter. That’s why we can be cheerful in giving. Because He gave first.

He gave everything. So to give Him a few bucks, it’s not a big deal, really, in relation to what He gave us. Can I pray for you? God, thank you so much for this attentive community on a really hard issue, with saying hard things.

And God, I know that this issue can be rough, but thank you that your Word is clear. Thank you that you have called us to be generous. Thank you that there’s such an upside, that it teaches us to trust you, to love you, as we should, with everything in our lives, including our finances.

I pray for each person here, that you would allow them to walk away with your Word, with your truth, and that it would sink deep into their hearts, and that they have the conversations they need to have, as they consider this matter of giving. In Jesus’ name, amen.