MALACHI #6 - WILL MAN ROB GOD - PTR ALVIN GUTIERREZ - 10AM MORNING SERVICE

2. Title slide

3. MALACHI 3:6-18
6 “I the LORD do not change. So
you, the descendants of Jacob, are
not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time
of your ancestors you have turned
away from my decrees and have not
kept them. Return to me,

4. MALACHI 3:6-18
and I will return to you,”says
the LORD Almighty.
“But you ask, ‘How are we to
return?’ 8 “Will a mere mortal
rob God? Yet you rob me.

5. MALACHI 3:6-18
“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing
you?’ “In tithes and offerings.
9 You are under a curse—your whole
nation—because you are robbing
me.

6. MALACHI 3:6-18
10 Bring the whole tithe into the
storehouse, that there may be food
in my house. Test me in this,” says
the LORD Almighty, “and see if I
will not throw open the
floodgates of heaven and pour out

7. MALACHI 3:6-18
so much blessing that there will not
be room enough to store it. 11 I will
prevent pests from devouring your
crops, and the vines in your fields
will not drop their fruit before it is
ripe,” says the LORD Almighty.

8. MALACHI 3:6-18
12 “Then all the nations will call you
blessed, for yours will be a delightful
land,” says the LORD Almighty.
13 “You have spoken
arrogantly against me,” says
the LORD. “Yet you ask,

9. MALACHI 3:6-18
‘What have we said against you?’
14 “You have said, ‘It is futile to
serve God. What do we gain by
carrying out his requirements and
going about like mourners before
the LORD Almighty?

10. MALACHI 3:6-18
15 But now we call the
arrogant blessed. Certainly
evildoers prosper, and even when
they put God to the test, they get
away with it.’” 16 Then those who
feared the LORD talked

11. MALACHI 3:6-18
with each other, and
the LORD listened and heard. A
scroll of remembrance was written
in his presence concerning those
who feared the LORD and honored
his name.

12. MALACHI 3:6-18
17 “On the day when I act,” says
the LORD Almighty, “they will be
my treasured possession. I will
spare them, just as a father has
compassion and spares his son who
serves him.

13. MALACHI 3:6-18
18 And you will again see the
distinction between the
righteous and the wicked, between
those who serve God and those who
do not.

15. It’s real timely because we’re at that
time of year when people are giving
and receiving gifts, generosity tends
to increase.

16. This is the season where we start
anticipating and preparing for our
budget next year and how we will
steward what God has entrusted to
our oversight.

18. They fundamentally disagree with
God. God says do this; they don’t
want to. God says this is right; they
say it’s wrong. They’re in a position
of disagreeing with God.

19. Here’s what God says, “I don’t
change.” What that means is they
need to change, and we are no
different.

20. When we talk of God, we talk of his
attributes. Here we see a clear
declaration of his immutability,
which means that God is
unchanging.

21. And this is absolutely essential: God
does not change—we must change.
We cannot remain unchanged and
demand that God change.
God has no sin.

22. God makes no mistakes. God has
nothing to learn. God has no way to
mature. There’s nothing in God that
should change. There’s everything in
us that must change. And praise God
that he’s unchanging.

23. SPIRITUALITY says God is not a
person but more of a concept, and
God is not unchanging but is
changing. So God evolves and
morphs depending upon what
culture or period God is in.

24. Or God used to say that this is
wrong, but now that culture has gone
into a different understanding, God
needs to catch up with the times,
modify himself, edit the Scriptures,
and make some adjustments so that
God can be current.

25. God’s not current; God’s eternal.
God doesn’t need to change; we
need to change. God doesn’t change
with the times; God’s working on
change all the time.

26. There’s an analogy in Scripture that’s
frequently used: it’s of a potter and
clay.

30. God says something to one person
or one group of people, but it’s a
special circumstance, not everybody
gets that.

32. God does something that applies to
everywhere, everyone, all the time.
Jesus died on the cross in your place
for your sins. If you turn from sin
and trust in him, all your sin is
forgiven and you’ll be with him
forever.

33. That’s for everybody. That’s not just
for one person or one group of
people, that’s God dying on the cross
for the sin of the world. That’s a
miraculous thing for everyone,
everywhere, all the time.

35. Here’s the situation, there’s a
problem. The problem is they’re
robbing God. That’s what it says.
Now, they don’t feel like they’re
robbing God, but God feels like
they’re robbing God, so this is where
they have the disagreement.

37. God sees himself as part owner.

38. So the solution is, bring the ‘full
tithe,’ and I’ll pour down a blessing
from heaven.”

39. Now, the full tithe here is the full 10
percent. Make up on all your giving,
catch up. Give what you were
supposed to give, and what’ll happen
is, a blessing will come down from
heaven. He said that literally it would
flood down from heaven.

40. All the blessings come down from
heaven. See, they would have
thought that their blessings were
coming from their business, coming
from the earth, that their blessings
literally are coming from the ground
up, from the harvest of their soil.

41. God says, “blessings don’t come
from creation up. Blessings come
from Creator down.” Ultimately all
blessing comes down from God to
his people.

42. The problem is they’re stealing.
The answer is they need to stop
stealing and start giving.

44. We believe very clearly that this is
not an all-time promise.
It’s a one-time promise.

45. God promised something very
specific, and it’s not like this all the
time, otherwise the offering becomes
an ATM.

46. Our fear again is we give to get. We
shouldn’t feed greed. Jesus says,
“You can’t worship God and
money.”

47. And when it’s taught like this, my
fear is you’re not loving God, you’re
loving money and using God to get
more money. And then the heart is
wrong. The motive is wrong. The
intent is wrong.

48. God said, “Give and I’ll bless you,
but I will not tell you, give to get.”

49. So what does this section of
Scripture have for us? We think now
we’re in category three.
It’s a one-time promise with all-time
principles.

50. This was God’s interaction with his
people, and there’s a promise there
and for us, there are principles there.

51. A PROMISE is
“It will come to pass just like this.”
A PRINCIPLE is,
“This is usually how it works.”

53. Principles are about wise living,
cause and effect, how things tend to
work according to how God has
wired the world.

55. They don’t appreciate the generosity
of God. They’re looking at what they
don’t have, not what they do have.
They’re not looking at their business
income, they’re looking at how they
wish their business income was
higher, so there’s not an attitude of
gratitude.

56. But God is generous. He’s given
them life and love. He says he’s their
Father. He’s provided the land. He
has provided an income. Maybe it’s
not what they wanted, but it’s
certainly a lot better than they
deserve. God is generous.

57. God gave us the earth. God made us
in his image and likeness. God gave
us the Lord Jesus Christ. God gave
us the Holy Spirit. God gave us
forgiveness of sin. God gave us
righteousness. God gave us eternal
life.

58. God gave us gifts to serve
meaningfully and valuably and
purposefully. God’s a giver. God so
loved the world that he gave his only
Son. God’s generous. We start there.

60. What happens is people get more
excited about bringing God their
worst than their best.

61. God wants our worst and God wants
our best. And God gives Jesus, God
gives his best.

63. Who you are is most clearly seen in
how you spend. The difference
between a spoken value and an
actual value is the action around it.

64. If we look at your budget and a
percentage goes to the Lord, that
tells us something about your
relationship with the Lord.

66. Faith is a devotion to God in here
that results in a changed life out
there. So James says, “You can’t
have faith for God in here and not
change life out there.”

67. You can’t say you love God in here,
but it doesn’t affect how you spend
out there because out of the overflow
of the heart, the wallet spends.

69. Obey God, start loving, and serving
one another, doing what God says,
and see if that doesn’t start a process
of change in your heart toward one
another. Do the right thing and then
see if you don’t end up feeling the
right way.

70. Don’t assume that you must feel the
right way to do the right thing. So
God says, “Start giving and that will
be the process by which you start
changing.”

71. Once you start giving and living as a
generous person, a couple of things
happen: You start to become more
grateful. You realize all that you’ve
been given by God and others.
You’re more grateful, more thankful.

72. You stop just thinking about yourself
and you start thinking about others.
You stop thinking about what you
want, you start thinking about what
they need and giving starts to change
you. It starts to change you.

74. He’s looking for people who are
going to take the money that he gives
them and then to use them in a way
that is godly and good.

76. As a general principle, life tends to
just go better for people who are
more generous. It’s that reap-what-
you-sow kind of thinking. It’s hard.
It’s a frustrating season for them.

77. But part of it is that they’ve not been
a generous people, yet they’re
expecting God to be generous with
them.

79. They’re in an economic downturn,
and times are hard. The first thing
they did is cut their giving to God.
That was the first thing they cut out
of their budget. You will be tested. I
will be tested. We will be tested,
principally speaking, to rob God.

81. In the Old Covenant, it’s called the
“Law,” and there are specific rules,
and God’s referring to one here in
Malachi 3—tithing the 10 percent.

82. In addition, there’s the New
Testament new covenant because
Jesus comes, fulfills all the old
covenant, and then we live in the
new covenant under grace. So
Romans 6:14 says we’re no longer
under law, we’re now under grace.

83. Firstfruits off the top, gross not net,
unto the Lord. In addition, he talks
about contributions in Malachi 3. So
this would be above and beyond
feasts, festivals, the poor, seven-year
giving, all kinds of things.

84. If you amortize it out, it’s 25-27%
percent of your gross income that
goes to the Lord.

85. God doesn’t just give an amount
because if he gave an amount, the
poor would really strain to meet it
and the rich wouldn’t strain at all.
God wants our giving to be sacrificial
so that rich and poor are being
generous and sacrificial.

86. So it’s to be cheerful. It’s to be
sacrificial. It’s regular, and it’s also
proportional so that those who make
more give more, and that those who
make less give less, but all give
something.

88. So the younger you are, the less you
give, and what that means for the
future of Christianity is that it is very
concerning, because as the older
generation passes away, the younger
generation is not making up the
difference.

89. In addition, the people who are least
likely to tithe, to give at least 10%,
are those who make more money.
Proportional to their giving, the poor
give a higher percentage than the
rich.

90. And some of you are thinking, “I’m
not going to give, but one day when I
make more, I will.”
Statistically it’s not true.

91. It doesn’t work like that. “I will rob
God so that one day I can be faithful
with my finances toward God.”
It doesn’t work like that.

93. We would say, well, let’s be careful
because sometimes what was in the
Old Testament is not erased in the
New Testament.
It’s actually increased.

94. In Malachi it’s interesting because
they gave the money to the temple,
but ultimately God says, “You are
robbing me.”

95. What we would tell you is you need
to meet with the Lord. You need to
pray to the Lord. You need to
budget with the Lord.

96. You need to pledge to the Lord.
And whatever that is, if it’s cheerful,
regular, sacrificial, proportional, then
do that, and don’t rob God.

97. Our fear is, if we give you a percent,
you will make it a ceiling and not a
floor. We would say that a tithe is
not necessarily a ceiling, but it’s
better to see it as a floor.

98. This is a good place to start a life of
generosity, and by God’s grace,
aspire to increase our giving through
the course of our life as we mature in
everything. You want to grow in
Bible knowledge.

99. You want to grow in service. You
want to grow in prayer. You should
aspire to grow in giving. It’s part of
your spiritual development and part
of your spiritual growth.

100. Some of you are going to really
struggle for two reasons. Some of
you will struggle because you’ll feel
like God is taking what is yours.
Well, that’s the problem. It’s his,
and you should be grateful that he
shares some with you.

102. SORCERY is: trying to manipulate
God, trying to control God, saying, “I
think I know what God is doing. I
don’t like it. I want God to do
something else. I need to change
God. I need to manipulate God. I
need to redirect God.” That’s
sorcery. It’s spirituality. It’s paganism.

103. This is how non-Christian spirituality
thinks. “Through karma, you can
control your future.”

104. Word-faith teaching—“If you speak
it, it will come back to you, and God
will have to bring your words to pass
because you have authority like he
did in creation”—which is insane.

106. Principally we believe that God is
generous toward those who are
generous, but we will never make
you a promise that God is a means
by which to gain more wealth so that
you can feed your idolatry of money.

107. We may be talking about your
wallet, but ultimately, it’s directed by
your heart, and giving reveals your
heart.

108. Then those who feared the Lord
spoke with one another. The Lord
paid attention and heard them, and a
book of remembrance was written
before him of those who feared the
Lord and esteemed his name.

109. Consumerism is a religion, and it’s
not a new one. And a consumer
knows what they want, and they look
at a religion and ask if they get what
they want without giving very much.

111. Here’s what God says, “You’re my
treasured possession.” Hear me in
this: you are his treasured
possession. You belong to him.

112. All of you belongs to him, and he
treasures you. He values you. He
purchased you through the gift of his
own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that
you would be his children, his
people.

113. Well, this changes everything. If we
are his treasured possession, then he
is our treasured possession. Nothing
compares to the Lord. Nothing’s as
valuable as the Lord.

114. Nothing matters as much as the
Lord. And even if we lose our
treasured possessions, we’ll never
lose our treasured possession. The
world doesn’t understand this God.

115. We need you to love this God
because he has loved you, and if he’s
willing to make us his treasured
possession it is only fitting and right
that we would choose him as our
most treasured possession.