Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Welcome to the Kerma Chaj podcast.
[00:00:07] Well, some of you. Well, I know some of you would have been here last Sunday when we had Chris Valentin. Did you enjoy it? Yeah, yeah. Was it fun having a prophet come in town? Yeah. Yeah. And I think he gave us an incredible prophetic invitation last week. And if you were in this service, he was talking about from pauper to princes and princesses, he was talking about an apostolic hub. He called us an Antioch church. He talked about a prophetic school, a place of worship where his presence dwells. And, you know, the prophetic is always an invitation.
[00:00:54] It is. And so when the prophetic word is released, it falls on soil, and the soil are our hearts.
[00:01:04] And by the response, I think it fell on good soil, and we need to let it fall and take root and grow in our lives. And, you know, to us personally, we had the privilege of, you know, you get to have some dinner and chat.
[00:01:24] And he said a number of things that were really helpful to us. One of the things he said was, take off your armor. He said, the battle is won. Now start to build. And that was very significant for us.
[00:01:42] And so if you're going to build, you need resources. You know, Noah built the ark before it ever rained. And, you know, we'd already talked about this season is a season of building big family. What does it mean to be a family, but a big family in a growing church? And so we're looking at building, and one of our struggles is this building that, you know, we're trying to buy it. We've got a number of repairs that need. Need doing on it. And isn't it typical that God would say build when you're struggling with a building?
[00:02:24] And what do you do when you don't have what it feels like, what you need?
[00:02:32] And one of the most useful stories in the Bible that's really helped me as a Christian, pretty much all of my Christian life is the feeding of the 5,000, where all these people come to Jesus and the disciples go, we don't have enough. We don't have what we need. And what Jesus says is, what do you have?
[00:02:53] Bring me what you have and I'll break it, bless it, you know, the loaves and the fish, and you will see a miracle. And they had all of the baskets that were left over. And you see, it's so important that. That when we receive a prophetic word, we understand that heaven has more than enough. Heaven is not short. Heaven is not broke. And the journey is the miracle where we see God do what he Said he's going to do. And often people ask me, where are we at with this building?
[00:03:30] A year ago, we took up an offering to buy the building, and we haven't bought the building yet. Did we not get enough money? And the truth is we do need some more money, but that's not the reason we haven't bought it. We've been in an interesting dialogue with the owners who said they would sell, and then they changed their mind. Then they wanted to evict us, and then they wanted to double the rent without doing any repairs.
[00:03:59] And it kind of fills it. The guy in the Bible who was a little bit like that was a guy called Pharaoh, and he gave Moses a run for his money. But the Lord came through.
[00:04:15] And so in my mind.
[00:04:21] Let me say something else first. You know, we've looked at other sites and we've gone to different places and looked. But the reason I think this building is the building is because we have worshiped in this building for 10 years.
[00:04:38] There is worship in this building every day of the week. Sometimes I walk in this building and when no one's in here, the Lord is, though there is a presence. And look, I know he's in us and I know he goes wherever we are, but where there is a place of worship and a people that love him, there is. It's as if his presence is always here so we don't have to wait for him to come. He's the first person here. There is a dwelling that happens. And I just. So I just love here now. I'm happy to go wherever he sends us. And if another building comes up, I'll go. But my favorite place is here. And so my request, and I believe he will give us this building. So until he says otherwise, we're going to continue to build here. And we've been making more space. And last week we proved we can get 700 in here in one go. Now we only have 630 chairs, so I don't know where the other 70 were, but probably hanging from the roof, sitting on the floor round the side. You know, there is still more room and we want to make more room. And, you know, we upgraded the stage just before Christmas, so hopefully you can hear at the back and you can see at the back. And if necessary, we'll just knock that back wall out and we'll just keep going. We'll just keep going back. It's a bit colder out there, but you'll be fine.
[00:06:11] You'll just get here earlier and get the front seats and we may even need another site, you know, smaller place where the youth can hang out, and even parking. And I know none of you would want parking spaces, but we will build. And the Lord said right at the start of this journey, if you seek my presence and you preach the gospel, I will sort the building. And he hasn't changed his word.
[00:06:40] So the three things he gave us to do was go after my presence, get your thinking about money right. And salvation. And so this morning, I'm going to talk a little bit about our thinking on money. In fact, for a few weeks, I'm going to. Why? Because Jesus says, wherever your treasure is, that's where your heart is. So the way we deal with money is the window to the heart. So we're gonna talk about our thinking about money. That's good, right? Yeah. Well, five people, my prayer is that we'll get to the place here. When we go, we're gonna talk about money. And everybody be on their chairs. Chair cheering because they know that when our money is right and our hearts are right, the presence of God is released. You see it all through the scriptures, and I want to show you. So open up at Matthew, chapter 6, verse 19.
[00:07:45] Where are we? Why don't you stand? This is the word of the Lord.
[00:07:50] This is Jesus speaking. Matthew 6:19. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourself treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
[00:08:11] The lamp of the body is the eye. If, therefore, your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. Now remember, he's talking about finances here. What your eye looks at, what your eye desires, okay? But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore, the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? He goes back to money. No one can serve two masters. For either he'll hate the one and love the other, or. Or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon or money. Why don't you take a seat?
[00:08:52] So what I want to do this morning is talk about the tithe, okay? And we often talk about that when we take up our offering. But I want to explain it a little bit and hopefully get you excited about it. The tithe is the foundation of getting our thinking about money right.
[00:09:15] Tithe means 10%. Okay, we're going to talk about 10, a lot. Leviticus 27:30 says, all the tithe of the land, whether the seed of the land or the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's. It is holy to the Lord.
[00:09:32] Holy to the Lord means it belongs to him.
[00:09:37] Okay, it's not yours, it's not mine.
[00:09:41] From everything he gives you, we return 10% in Thanksgiving, but also reverence to him, acknowledging, this is not ours, you know, this is what you've given us. And we return our tithe. It is an act of worship.
[00:10:05] You give it away, you don't get to say how it's spent.
[00:10:11] I believe it comes into the storehouse. The storehouse is where you are fed and it is used to build the church. And Malachi says, my house will be full of food. There will be food in my house. And he says, you must bring in the full tithe. And it's really interesting. This is the only place in the Bible where God says, test me. And he says, test me and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven. And now that is why, you know, when we talk about this, there should be an excitement. And hopefully in five years time when we talk about this, just as when we cheer when people give their lives to Jesus, people will be on their chairs because of the testimony of what God has done in their life. And they'll be cheering it and they'll be, preach it, preach it. Do an hour, do two hours. You see, you go, no, let's just do 20 minutes.
[00:11:10] But you wait in five years. Now, this tithe, what does it pay for? Well, it pays for the rent or the mortgage.
[00:11:19] It pays not prays. It pays to switch the lights on and the utilities. It pays for the staffing and feeds those that serve in the church. And it pays for programs like Youth, Children, Compassion, Students and family. So that's how we finance the running of all the things the church does. And what I want you to understand is ministry costs money.
[00:11:47] And I don't believe the church should ever be poor because the church is crammed with thankful, rescued people who give their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:11:59] So our focus is him and our hearts are with Him. And if our hearts are with him, so are our resources.
[00:12:08] Now some of you go, ah, but we're in grace. And the tithe is law. No, it's not. The tithe isn't law. The tithe is pre law.
[00:12:20] The tithe is a principle. I want to explain this.
[00:12:24] In Genesis 14, Lot, Abraham's nephew, is captured in war. Lot's the one who lives in Sodom. Okay, so he's captured. So Abraham hears about this and takes.
[00:12:40] I think he raises about 300 men. And they go and defeat the army that has taken Lot. And they bring back the people and the spoils of war. And then this really interesting thing happens right at the beginning of Genesis.
[00:12:57] This person called Melchizedek appears. And we read in Genesis 14:18, then Melchizedek, king of Salem, bought out bread and wine. He was the priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said, blessed be Abram. Remember, this is Abram, not Abraham. He hasn't changed his name yet. And he said, blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And then he gave him a tithe of it all. So Abraham gives a tithe of. Of the spoils. And who is this Melchizedek that suddenly appears? Because Abraham is the one with the promise, right? But Abraham gives a tithe to Melchizedek, who is called the King of Peace, who breaks bread and drinks wine.
[00:13:56] Does this sound like someone familiar? The writer to the Hebrews picks this up in Hebrews 7. He says, for this Melchizedek, King of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being translated king of righteousness, and then also king of peace, without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually.
[00:14:33] You see, Abraham, the father of faith, gives his tithe right in Genesis 14 to the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:14:49] And Jesus blesses him to be the father of nations.
[00:14:55] Because the next thing we're going to see is Abram becomes Abraham.
[00:15:00] You see, when I bring my tithe, it is in thankfulness for all he has given me, but it's also in reverence.
[00:15:10] You see, this is not mine. It's yours. This is my worship to the King of Peace.
[00:15:18] But when we do it, blessing starts to flow.
[00:15:25] And that's what we see in the life of Abram to Abraham.
[00:15:30] We bring our tithes to the Lord, and blessing starts to flow in our lives as individuals and as a people, because we are placing our trust in him.
[00:15:46] And our hearts are always where our treasure is. Now, many of you know this, and you've been doing this for years, so you have the testimony, but so many are just coming to faith. This is new to you. And so I want to teach these principles. Now, why 10%?
[00:16:08] You know, why not 9%? Why not 20%? The number 10 in the Bible. And one of the things I love about Tim is the depth of knowledge. And I've never paid that much attention to numbers, but he's tweaked my interest.
[00:16:24] Okay, so the number 10 means completeness.
[00:16:30] And God, when he creates the world, uses 10 utterances. He speaks 10 times to create the world.
[00:16:40] When he gives the commandments, he gives us ten commandments.
[00:16:46] And then when we bring our offerings and our tithes, we bring a tenth and we bring it back to him. You see, this isn't law. This is a principle.
[00:16:58] And it's a principle that if you bring a tenth back to the Lord, the blessing starts to flow. Just like it's a principle. It's not law. If you don't forgive, your sins aren't forgiven. It's not a law. It's a principle. Jesus said, if you can't forgive your brother, I can't forgive you. It's a principle for life. It's how we live our life. We forgive.
[00:17:23] We are forgiven, and we forgive. It is a principle to how to live. Well, this is another principle. It's as we bring our tithe, the goodness of God is released. But there's more. The word for 10 in Hebrew is very similar to another word. So in Hebrew, the word for 10 is esser. And it's almost identical in spelling to osha. I was doing my Bible thing. I can't write it out in Hebrew for you. I'm sure Tim can. But the osha means wealth. So the word for 10 is almost identical to the word in Hebrew for wealth.
[00:18:06] The implication is that tithe leads to wealth.
[00:18:11] Now hear me. Wealth and riches are two totally different things. You see, you accumulate wealth over time.
[00:18:22] When you tithe, you set your life on a trajectory of wealth. Why? Because the blessing of God is released in your life.
[00:18:32] You are already rich.
[00:18:37] That's what Chris was talking about last week. From pauper to prince. Let me explain.
[00:18:43] The gospel is for the poor. Yes. Yep. Jesus came to preach the gospel to the poor. Luke 4. The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.
[00:18:55] So what is good news to the poor?
[00:18:59] Well, the best news for the poor is they're not poor anymore.
[00:19:02] Okay? That's the good news. You're no longer poor. Because when you come to Christ, you become an heir.
[00:19:12] Let me explain. Look, girls, if you find a rich guy, I don't know why I'm looking over here, but take the blessing, okay? You find a rich, you know, people might tut at you and you're just after him for his money. So what?
[00:19:32] I mean, I mean, get a good looking one as well. But if he's got money, it can't hurt, right?
[00:19:38] When you come to Christ, you come to the King of kings and you become a son and daughter. So you are an heir.
[00:19:48] That's why Revelation 2, 9 says we are rich in Christ and why Paul writes to Ephesians 3 is you enter the unsearchable riches of Christ because you've married into money.
[00:20:05] It's a good deal. That's why it's good news for the poor. All right? They're no longer poor because now they're in Christ.
[00:20:12] Now everything changes. Where they used to be poor, there was no hope. But now Jesus has come into our life, everything changes. And all of the resource of heaven. So we are now rich because we're in heir.
[00:20:31] Some of you are convinced now some of this wealth simply happens in the natural, okay? So because of his power at work in your life and the Holy Spirit now comes and makes his home in your life, you naturally change.
[00:20:48] Okay? I mean, you go to work and you're no longer working for your boss, you're now working for Jesus because he's your boss. So you start to work harder, you start to do a better job. People notice that and you get promoted. It's not rocket science. It's just a natural outcome of having the Holy Spirit in your life. You may be a family and you come to faith in Christ, you start teaching your children and you start living in his way. So the blessing of God comes upon you.
[00:21:19] Families stay together.
[00:21:22] You know, divorce is the single easiest way of losing wealth.
[00:21:28] But when you walk with Christ, we make a covenant in marriage. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. No matter what happens, we're staying together and so we make that covenant. So there is a natural outcome of coming to faith that produces wealth. And sociologists call this redemption lift. And wherever the gospel is preached, we see this dynamic happening because people start looking to heaven and naturally it makes an effect on the surrounding area. And there is a social, economic lift that happens. Look around the world at the Christian countries.
[00:22:09] None of this is rocket science. This is what God does.
[00:22:17] I just, you know, let me just give you a little simple illustration. Just over Christmas, we needed to release some money and you know, I dabbled a little bit in shares and stuff like that. And I put Some money in Apple, and I've done very well, thank you.
[00:22:40] I did it quite a long while ago, and so I've done quite well. And I'm just praying, and I need the money out. And I'm just asking the Lord, you know, when do I get. When do I get the money out? Because we need it kind of like now. And so I was just playing with him, you know, over Christmas, and obviously, the banks were all closed, but America opens up. England's still closed for another month, but America was open. And I'm watching, and Apple almost hit $4 trillion.
[00:23:09] And I'm going now, and I'm like, lord, it might go down tomorrow. No, just one more day. And I got the peak of Apple, and I sold. And I said. And I said, you know, if. I said, should I just keep a couple in there just in case? And he said, nah, just get rid of it. And Apple, literally the next day, Warren Buffett sold his Apple shares. If he'd have done it the day I did it, he'd be much richer now. He is so rich, he doesn't care.
[00:23:37] All right? But he lost millions, okay? Because Apple went down, I think about 10%, okay? Because of worries in China.
[00:23:48] But why do I tell you that? Because with God, I'm praying. I'm praying, Lord, when we do this, he knows I have no idea what I'm doing. But he does because he knows the future. Now, why do I have confidence in him? Because he's good, and he wants me to prosper. Why wouldn't he want to, you know? So we pray over all our finances.
[00:24:15] Now, riches are about what you have. You were poor because you had no future, but now Jesus is in your life. You have his riches. People in the world trust in their riches. They think that makes them secure. And I want you to get this, all right? When you trust in riches, what you have, it's like holding sand in your hand and clenching and the sand just falling through your fingers. The harder you hold on, the more you lose. Do you remember the rich young ruler? Do you remember the story in Matthew 19? A young man comes to Jesus and says, you know, how can I inherit the kingdom of God? This is a good guy, okay? And it's interesting. Jesus refers him to the ten Commandments. Ten, okay? And the rich young ruler says, I've done all of these.
[00:25:11] And then Jesus says, one thing, you lack, go your way. Sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come and take up the cross and follow me. And my Bible says he goes away sad because he had many riches.
[00:25:33] Now, we could just read that story. And oh, what a shame the rich don't make it into heaven because it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than it is for the rich to inherit the kingdom. Therefore, money must be bad. But. But that young man. Now, we don't know this, but many theologians think that's Mark.
[00:26:00] That's Mark, who we've been reading about in Acts.
[00:26:05] Remember the flaky Mark who the church met in his house, who did indeed, with one encounter with Jesus, pick up his cross and follow him with Barnabas and with Paul. And that's the man who possibly wrote Mark's gospel.
[00:26:26] That's quite good, right?
[00:26:29] That's what God does. Now, he was already rich, but he transferred his riches into heaven.
[00:26:39] They're now in heaven. He has wealth.
[00:26:44] Look, Jesus wants us to change our thinking about money. We're not to trust in our riches, but his cross, his life, and his provision.
[00:26:56] Chris, who was here last week, has written a number of books, but actually my favorite one he's written is called Riches. I'm sorry, Poverty, Riches and Wealth. And this is a little excerpt from it because he highlights the difference between living in poverty and living in wealth.
[00:27:16] Okay, which one? How many of you want to live in poverty?
[00:27:20] How many of you like to live in wealth?
[00:27:23] Right. You're the only ones that get it.
[00:27:30] Take a drink.
[00:27:33] Someone gave me the conference cold. I don't know which one of you it was, but with all those people, they gave me a cold germ, Right? So this is what he says. He says, poverty lives for today, but wealth leaves legacy.
[00:27:51] Poverty finds a problem in every opportunity, while wealth finds an opportunity in every problem.
[00:28:04] Poverty feels entitled.
[00:28:07] While wealth feels empowered, poverty feels entitled.
[00:28:14] You need to sort me out. You need to provide for me. This isn't fair. You need to pay my bills. You need to pay my housing. You need to get me a job. Poverty feels entitled. Do this for me. I don't want to do anything. You just make it happen to me.
[00:28:32] Whereas wealth is empowered. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to live my life.
[00:28:43] Poverty fears the future, yet wealth makes history.
[00:28:48] Poverty blames others for its condition, but wealth takes responsibility for the things that are not its fault. You know, the reason I'm like this is my parents.
[00:28:59] If they'd have given me a good education, if they'd have sent me to a good school, I wouldn't be where I am. That's poverty.
[00:29:07] Wealth says, I might have had a bad start in school, I might not have the exams I need, but it's not going to matter because I now live in Jesus Christ and I'm going to live for him.
[00:29:19] It's a different way of thinking.
[00:29:22] Poverty fears the future. Oh, I've done that one. Poverty asks, what are you going to do for me? Ask. Wealth asks, who. Who is worthy of my investment?
[00:29:32] Poverty hangs around with other disgruntled sorts who validate its accusations. But wealth surrounds itself with other powerful influences.
[00:29:41] Poverty votes for candidates who increase its entitlements, while wealth elects officials who will sacrifice today's comfort for tomorrow's children.
[00:29:51] You see, what I want to say to you this morning is if you want to build, you need a foundation.
[00:29:59] If you want to build your life, you need a foundation to build your life on. And I know obviously we talk about we build on Jesus Christ, but what does that look like? And there are principles of the kingdom that we build on, and one of these principles is bringing the tithes and offerings, because it reminds us and it sets the foundation of the Lord's provision in our life.
[00:30:21] And it keeps thankfulness and reverence at the forefront of our life.
[00:30:27] You see, when we bring it, we are thankful, and so it always keeps that at the front of our life. You know, as a family, we have always had the joy of bringing our tithes and offerings to the Lord. And our testimony is the Lord has been faithful. We've been doing this for a long while now. Okay, so we're converted, you know, but when we were raising our kids and parents, you know, I mean, I don't. You know, there's a lot of people talk about abuse a lot these days. Maybe this is what we did to our children. But we used to have a tithe box for our children. We wanted to teach them that God provides. We wanted them to grow up knowing that whatever he called them to, he would provide for them. And so we had a tithe box so that we gave them. If they had pocket money or they did something, they would put it in the.
[00:31:16] In the tithe box. I remember really early on, you know, Jarl would have been about 12, and he wrote a song and it got recording and royalty started coming back. And he went, I'm going to put some more money in that box.
[00:31:31] I remember another one. He's not around, is he? I remember he said, you know, it's time to get a job. He was 14, 14, 15 maybe. I can't remember. Time to Get a job. I don't want to get a job.
[00:31:45] So him and a friend had the idea. He said, I know what we could do. We could go busking.
[00:31:51] So they went into Leicester City on Saturday and they just started singing songs. And people started pouring money into their guitar cases.
[00:32:01] I mean, lots of money.
[00:32:04] So much so that the bank across the road got to know them because they had one of these cash coin counters, and they would tip it all into the machine.
[00:32:16] God blesses, he loves us, and he takes us on a journey. A friend of mine, he's been here, he's told this story, but he got saved. He read about the tithe. And so he was really poor. His wife wasn't a Christian. They couldn't make ends meet. So what he did was he started tithing coupons. Now, I know most of you don't even know what a coupon is. In the olden days, you know, just after Noah, you could go places and they'd give you this little bit of paper, not on a phone. It was a bit like a voucher code. You know what? Yeah, let's bring it into the 21st century. And basically you got a voucher code to give you money off. So he started putting the coupons. I don't know if you can put voucher codes in the baskets. So he started putting the coupons in the basket when the offering went round, because that's all they had. And the Lord started multiplying his provision. And he was here probably in the summer, and he was telling the story how he sold his company for multiple millions.
[00:33:19] But there was a journey. You see, wealth accumulates as you take the journey and put your trust in the Lord. And so he looks back on 30 years of putting the coupons. And as God blessed bringing his offerings to the Lord and the Lord multiplying it.
[00:33:40] And so we set ourselves on that trajectory. You see, the tithe is the baseline that releases blessing and leads us out of poverty into a trajectory of wealth, not just for us, but for our children, our city, and for our nation.
[00:33:56] We have had, as a church, I think, a prophetic invitation to build and be a light, not just for now, but for generations to come.
[00:34:08] Laying the foundation of getting our thinking about money will be crucial to what the Lord wants to do in the coming weeks and months.
[00:34:18] This week, I'm talking about the tithe. Next week we'll do moving from Lack to Prosperity.
[00:34:26] Thanks for listening to the Coma Church podcast. If you enjoyed this message, you can like and subscribe. You can also join us in person or online every Sunday at Cromer Church. For more information about us, including our ministries, events, worship and how to donate, visit our website at Cromer Church.
