I want you to pull your chair
up there and listen carefully to me today as I bring you a
message that I think is very, very important. I think all of
the messages from God's Word are very important, but this
is one that is so needful in this day. So needful. And that's
the subject, the joy of giving. The joy of giving. I want you
to listen to me. It says, here's my text. 2 Corinthians
9, verse 7. And I'm going to go through these
verses, and I want you to follow with me, if you will. 2 Corinthians
9. It says in verse 7, Every man,
according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give, not
grudgingly, not of necessity. For God loveth a cheerful, a
joyful giver. Now, giving is a subject that
all believers understand, and they love, and they rejoice in
the subject of giving because they know everything they have,
everything I have physically, materially, spiritually, is God's
gift to me. I know that, you know that. Everything
I have is God's gift. Our Lord said that in John 3,
verse 27. He said, A man can receive nothing. except it be given him from heaven. And then in 1 Corinthians 4,
verse 7, Paul wrote, Who maketh thee to differ from another?
What do you have that you did not receive? Now, if you received
it, why do you boast as if you didn't receive it? Everything
we have is the gift of God. And then James said in James
1, verse 17, every good gift And every perfect gift is from
above. And it comes down from the Father.
So giving is a subject all believers understand. We have received
so much from our God. Blessings innumerable. And then
secondly, giving is a subject our Lord taught His disciples.
In Acts chapter 20, Paul said, do you remember the words of
the Lord Jesus? How He said it's more blessed
to give. than to receive. Giving is a
greater blessing than getting. It's more blessing to give than
to receive. That's what our Lord said. And then in Luke 6, 35,
He said to His disciples, Love your enemies. Do good and lend,
hoping for nothing in return. Forgive and you'll be forgiven.
Give and it shall be given to you. For with what measure you
meet with what measure you give to another, it shall be measured
to you." So now, if a person is really interested in the subject
of giving, and I am, and I'm sure you are, if we're interested
in what our Lord says about giving, if you'll study two chapters
in 2 Corinthians, chapter 8 and chapter 9 of 2 Corinthians, these
chapters teach all we need to know on the subject of giving. That's right, two chapters. It's
all about giving. Chapter 8, chapter 9 of 2 Corinthians. Now, OK, let's start in chapter
8. Paul begins chapter 8 of 2 Corinthians telling the people of Corinth
about the generosity of the churches in Macedonia. He tells the church
in Corinth about how generous those people are, how they give.
He says this, although they were all poor people themselves, all
of them were poor, talks about their poverty, They brought gifts
and money to the apostles to help other Christians, other
believers. They had little themselves, but
they still gave. All of them gave. They had little,
but they gave. You know, I've heard people say this, well,
that person's more able to give than I am. No, he's not. He may
be able to give more, but he's not more able to give. You see
what I'm saying? You say, well, he's more able
to give. No, he's not either. He's able
to give more, but he's not more able to give. Everybody has something
to give. It may be a sack of apples. It
may be a day's work. It may be a meal prepared. It
may be a smile. But everybody's got something
to give. That every one of you. Every man, according as he purposes
in his heart, so let him give. There's nobody excluded. And
these people down in Macedonia, they were poor, but they gave.
Listen to verse 3. Paul says they gave according
to their ability, according to their power. That's the word
ability. But some of them gave beyond their ability. Beyond
their ability. In other words, according to
what God had given them, they shared it. And even beyond their
ability, some of them sacrificed. And what's this? And they did
it willingly. They weren't commanded to give.
They weren't coerced to give. They weren't bribed. They weren't
promised rewards. They gave, what's this next,
these next two words, of themselves. It was motivated from their own
hearts. Out of love for others, they
chose to give. They gave. Every one of them,
though they were poor, they still gave. According to their ability,
beyond their ability, they were willing of themselves. Paul said, I didn't command it.
I didn't command it. They gave of themselves. It was
their idea to send this offering down to help these poor people.
You know, today, now listen to me. Listen carefully. Preachers
and churches today have robbed people of the joy of giving by
making giving an act of law. By coercing people and browbeating
people and always preaching on tithing and giving and forcing
them to give and and bribing them to give they they just made
giving an act of law an act of duty instead of an act of love.
Many preachers and churches insist that their members are under
law to pay 10% of their income to the church. That's right. It's widespread in this day that
the people are under law to pay 10% of their income to the church. They call it a tithe. Well, now
you listen to me, and you listen carefully. I'm not a novice. I've been in the Word of God
a lot of years and studied. I'm a pastor, and I want to teach
our people the joy of giving. the joy of giving. I want them
to give because they want to, because they like love to, because
they're motivated, willing of themselves to give. And tithing
is an Old Testament law. Now let me tell you this. It's
an Old Testament law given by God to a nation, the nation Israel,
to support the tribe of Levi. There were twelve tribes in Israel. 11 tribes had an inheritance,
had lot, had land, had ownership of these things. One tribe was
the Levi tribe, the tribe of Levi. They were the priests.
They took care of the tabernacle, they took care of the sacrifices,
they took care of all these things. And God gave Israel the tithe,
10% of everything, of their herbs and of their crops and of their
money and everything, 10% to support that tribe of Levi. That's
the reason he said, bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse,
into the temple, into the tabernacle, that there may be meat in my
house for the tribe of Levi, for these people who had no jobs,
had no land, had no inheritance, had nothing. But that's not a
New Testament teaching. Said, no tribe of Levi now. And
all of God's people work and have jobs and we support our
pastors and those who preach the gospel. That's their work.
That's their job. They call them God. We support
them. But neither, now listen, neither
our Lord nor his apostles taught the church to tithe, taught believers
to tithe. No, the word tithe, tithes and
tithing, is in the New Testament only four times. Only four times. Now listen, you write this down.
Don't end the New Testament before we're done. I'll give you each
time and you write it down or you follow me and listen to it.
In Matthew 23, our Lord is speaking to the Pharisees. He says, Woe
unto you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, for you pay your
tithe and you ignore the weightier matters of the law, which are
judgment and mercy and faith. Now these you ought to have done.
What ought to they have done? Paid their tithes. Why? They
were under the law. They were under the law of Moses.
Christ hadn't died on that cross. The church hadn't been founded.
It hadn't been begun. Christ hadn't died on the cross.
These men were under the law. They were supposed to tithe.
All the way through the Old Testament, they were ordered to. These you
ought to have done, he said. And the second time it's mentioned
in the New Testament is the same words. In Luke 11, 42, Christ
said the same thing. condemned the Pharisees because
they were so careful about their tithing and should have been,
but they neglected mercy and judgment and faith. Now the next
time it's in the Word of God is Luke 18, 11. The Pharisees
stood and prayed with himself. You remember two men went to
the temple to pray, a publican and a Pharisee. The publican
smote upon his breast and cried, God be merciful to me, a sinner.
What did the Pharisee, what did the religious man say? I thank
you, God. I'm not like other men. I fast
twice a week, and I pay my tithes of all I possess." That's the
third time tithing's mentioned. Every time there's a Pharisee
involved. Every time there's a hypocrite involved. Every time
there's a man under law laboring for acceptance with God. Every
time. Now look at Hebrews 7. Here's the next time and last
time. In Hebrews 7, verses 5 through 9, One other time, tithing is
mentioned, and it tells how the sons of Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek
in the lorns of their father Abraham, and how these same priests,
the tribe of Levi, how they had a commandment to take tithes
from Israel, to take them now, take them, and how that the people
of Israel paid tithes to these priests. Now listen to me. The
office of the priesthood, Hebrews 7, 5, have a commandment to take
tithes of the people. You don't take a gift. A gift
is given. But these people had their tithes
taken from them. Just like the government takes
your taxes. They take it out of your payroll. They take a
certain percentage for Social Security. They take a certain
percentage for payroll tax. They take it. And that's the
way these fellows took the tithe. They took it. The people didn't
give it willingly. They didn't bring it willingly,
they took it. And another thing he said in
verse 9, Levi paid tithes. He didn't give them, he paid
them. I get the idea of a tax. I know
we're willing to pay our tax to the government so we have
highways and police protection and firemen and school teachers
and all these things, but still the government takes your taxes.
They take it. It's not a volunteer thing. It's
not a cheerful thing. It's not a joyful thing. And
people pay their taxes. We pay them on time. And that's
the way the tithe was. And I tell pastors and preachers
today, if you insist on your church operating under that principle
that you take tithes from them, take it, that you bring them
to church and they pay tithes, there's no joy there. and no
joy. And if you go back to the Old
Testament law on tithing, now write this down. It's only in
the New Testament four times. And nowhere in all of the 21
epistles of the apostles to the church is the word tithing mentioned
at all for a New Testament believer, New Testament church. And I'll
tell you this, if you're going to go back to the Old Testament
law of tithing, you're going to have to go back to the Old
Testament law of circumcision. and the Old Testament law of
Sabbath keeping. No recreation, no work on Saturday. You have to go back to the laws
of the priesthood and the sacrifice, because if we go to one law,
we've got to go to the rest of them. If we put our people under
the law, that's what Christ said through Paul the Apostle in Galatians,
you are obligated to keep every law. But we're not under the
law of Moses. We are under grace, the grace
of Christ Jesus, who fulfilled the law. And here's what Paul
teaches about giving. Now listen. In 2 Corinthians
8, verse 7, he said to the church at Corinth, Therefore, as you
abound in everything. This church was a great church
at Corinth. And Paul said, as you abound in everything. First,
in faith. These people believed God. Ah,
they believed the gospel. They believed that that we have
a good hope for grace. They abounded in faith. They
grew in faith. He said, as you abound in utterance,
they had some good preachers. He talked about I'm of Paul and
I'm of Apollos and I'm of Cephas. They had some great preachers,
abounded in utterance. As you abound in knowledge, they
knew the Word of God. They knew that they'd love the
Word of God, preach the Word of God. You abound in diligence. They were faithful in service
and worship and prayer. You abound in love to Christ.
His apostles, His people see that you're bound in this grace
also, the grace of giving. You grow in faith, you grow in
love, you grow in knowledge, you grow in patience, you grow
in diligence, you grow in wisdom. Every grace grows. Tithing doesn't
grow. It's set at ten percent. You
don't grow in tithing. You pay your debts. You pay your
tax. They take it away from you. But
you grow in giving. You learn to give more graciously.
You learn to give more generously. You grow in giving like you grow
in faith. You grow in giving like you grow
in love. See that you grow in this grace
also. Now look at the next verse. I
speak not by commandment. I speak not by commandment. You
cannot command generosity. You can command a tithe. You
can make them pay it. You can scare them to death.
You can say, if you don't bring your tithe in, God will take
it out in a coffin. Don't do that. That's not so. Don't command people to be generous.
You can't legislate generosity. You can't legislate love. When
you do that, it ceases to be giving. It becomes a debt. I speak not by commandment. That's
what Paul said. I can't command you the amount
for you to give. That's for you to purpose in
your heart. That's not for anybody to command that. I speak not
by commandment, but listen, I speak by the example of others to prove
the sincerity of your love. The chief motive in giving is
love. That's the reason you give your
wife an anniversary present, your lover. Anybody tell you
how much to spend on it? Ten percent. 5%? You give your
children a graduation present, you love them. You give your
pastor a salary, you love him, you appreciate him. You give
to the people who are in need because you love them. That's
the only motive God Almighty will accept, is giving based
on love. Love. What is love? Love is a
principle in a person's heart put there by God which wishes
to bestow the best that it can on the object of its affection.
That's the basis for giving. That's the basis for worship.
That's the basis for giving. That's the basis for witnessing.
That's the basis for preaching. That's the basis for anything
you do in the name of God. Anything that's done out of a
duty, because a law commands you to do so, is unacceptable
to the living God. And tithing is unacceptable for
a believer. The chief example of love and
giving is Christ. Listen to this next verse. You
know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, for
your sake he became poor, that through your poverty, through
his poverty, you might be rich. God so loved, he gave. God so
loved, he gave. His love has no limit. His grace
has no measure. His power has no boundary known
unto men, for out of his infinite riches in Jesus he giveth and
giveth and giveth and giveth again. How can I be so loved
of God and not love others? How can I be the object of God's
mercy and not be merciful? How can I be blessed with so
much from God and not be generous to others? Must I be forced by
law to be gracious? Must I be forced and commanded
by law to be generous? Giving is a grace born in the
heart. Giving is an act of love, not
an act of law, not of necessity. Giving is a joy. Our Lord said
it's more blessed to give than to receive. Giving is a willing,
cheerful act. Now let me ask you to look at
verse 12. This is so important. He says, For if there be first
a willing mind, the gift is accepted according to what a man has,
not according to what he has not. For God loves a cheerful
giver. The Old Testament tithe was pressed
upon an unbelieving, unwilling people for the support of a religious
system in which they didn't even believe. Most of them died in
unbelief. The believer has no such love.
In the matter of worship and service and giving, God makes
him first willing. That's what there must be first,
a willing mind. Willing to believe, willing to
worship, willing to obey, and willing to give. And that's what
David wrote in Psalm 110. Thy people shall be willing.
They shall be willing in the day of thy power. And the beauty,
how are you going to get people to give if you don't give it
to them? They'll be made willing. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power, in the beauty of holiness, from the
womb of the morning thou hast to do of the youth. For it is
God that works in you, both to will and to do His good pleasure. God makes us willing to do His
good pleasure. Did you hear that? To be accepted
of God, there must be first a willing mind. Anything done or given
to God out of necessity is unacceptable. Given to God because it's a duty,
unacceptable. It must be willing to be accepted. Think upon this verse again.
Let me show you this. There must be first a willing
mind. It's accepted according to what
a person has not according to what he doesn't have. You see,
it's accepted according to what we have, not what we don't have. Our gifts are not measured by
the size of somebody else's gift, because with God, the size and
the value of the gift is not important. A gift given out of
love in the name of God is measured by the love which gives it, rather
than the value of the gift. The widow woman, brought two
pence, and our Lord said she gave more than all the rest of
them." More, he said. And this does away with pledges
and promises to give later. He says there must be a willing
mind. It's accepted according to what a man has, not what he
expects to have, what he's going to trust God to give him, what
he's going to count on in the future. It's accepted depending
on what a man has. That's right. Our children do
not have much money, but their little simple loving gifts at
Christmas, just a trinket, just a toy, is to the heart of a daddy
or mother of more value than the big gifts given by somebody
else. That's right. The value of the gift, the size
of the gift, is not what's important. Now listen to our text again.
Here's where we discover and restore to God's people the joy
of giving. I say this to you. Don't teach
your children to tithe. Teach them to give. I remember
when I was a boy, I was brought up in strict religion, and my
parents had a paper route, and my parents insisted that I tithe
ten cents out of every one of my dollars. I didn't like it.
I didn't appreciate it. I didn't want to do it, but I
had to do it because that was our religion. Don't teach your
children to tithe. Teach them to give. Give out
of love, give out of a heart. Every man, listen to this text,
every man, young and old, rich and poor, male and female, every
person, according as he purposes in his heart, that's where everything
is done. It's not a time, it's not a tax,
it's not a law, it's not a percentage, it's as he purposes in his heart.
This is what I want to give. This is what God has led me to
give. This is what God has laid upon my heart to give, and this
is what matters. It's in the heart. That's where
all the things pertaining to God are settled, in the heart. Every man, as he purposes in
his heart, so let him give, not of necessity. For God loveth
a cheerful giver. And verse 8 of chapter 9 tells
us that God will enable people to give who really want to. It
says, God is able to make his grace abound toward that man
that he will always have all sufficiency in all things that
he may continue his good work. We cannot out give God. If God
leaves it on our heart to give something, if God leaves us in
our heart to give, he'll supply sufficiency for us to give and
to keep giving. It must be a willing First, a
willing heart, a loving heart, a cheerful heart, a joyful heart. So here's my suggestions. Let's
stop begging. Preachers in churches and the
whole lot, it's insulting to God. These telethons to raise
money, this... David said, I'm old, I was young,
but I've never seen God's seed begging bread. God's seed don't... they don't beg. It's insulting
to their Father. So let's stop begging. Let's
stop putting God's people under law and taxation. We don't tax
God's people. They give willingly and lovingly,
the joy of giving. We're robbing them from the joy.
Stop bribing people in order to give. Now, if you give this,
God will give you this. You give in order to receive.
He said you lend hoping for nothing in return. You give because you
want to, hoping for nothing. Stop money-raising projects.
I tell you, if God's in a project, He'll supply the need. I've found
that to be true in all these years. God's supplied. I don't ever beg for money. We
don't ever have a telethon to raise money. If God Almighty
supplies the funds, we'll continue on the air. But we're not, God's
not begging. If God's in a project, He'll
supply the need. That's one way we know He's in
it. That's evidence that God is in it if He pays the bill. My father always, if he wanted
me to do something, he'd pay for it. But if he didn't pay
for it, I didn't do it. And I'm telling you now, churches,
stop borrowing money. Stop begging. Stop raising money. Start praying, asking God to
supply your needs. And he will, but he will. He
always has. He always will. This congregation
of 13 straight for 50 years, God supplied all we need. Now
I've got to close this message with this scripture. Thanks be
unto God for His unspeakable gift. He gave the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the greatest, sweetest,
most wonderful, eternal gift. The gift of God. And He gave
Him willingly because He loved us. And that better be the motive
for everything you and I give. Because we love. Because we love. Not because we have to. God loves
a cheerful giver. Do you have the joy of giving?
If you want this tape, I have election on one side and the
joy of giving on the other. Write to me, send two dollars,
I'll pay for sending it back to you. God bless you. Till we
meet again.