Thursday, September 6

To download an audio version of this, click here.

Malachi 3:6-10

“I the Lord do not change. So you, O descendant of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.

“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’

“Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.

“But you ask,” ‘How do we rob you?’

“In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse – the whole nation of you – because you are robbing me. 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 so much blessing that you will not have enough room for it. 

(v.12) “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty.

When most of us think of a “robber” we think of a man in a ski mask walking into a convenience store with a gun and a note that says, “This is a stick-up.” We think of robbery as the act of taking that which belongs to someone else.

Here God confronts his people with a different form of robbery; robbery as withholding that which belongs to him.

“I the Lord do not change. So you, O descendant of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.

“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’

“Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.

“But you ask,” ‘How do we rob you?’

“In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse – the whole nation of you – because you are robbing me.

How many of us have thought to ourselves: “Money’s just a little tight right now, I’ll be able to give more when we catch up”? I know I have!

Or maybe we think, “The economy is just so ‘iffy’, I’d love to be more generous but I really should wait until the market rebounds.”

There are lots of reasons to withhold our resources from God. But all of them come down to one issue: trust.

Do we trust God enough to honor and worship him with our obedient generosity? 

I have come to believe that generosity is one of the marks of a heart surrendered to the goodness and love of God. 

Can someone be generous without knowing and loving God? Sure.

But you cannot know and love God without becoming more and more generous!

There are two things that strike me about this passage in Malachi. First; it is striking to me that God says that by withholding their “tithes and offerings” the people were “robbing” him. Now, we know that God is not “cash poor.” He doesn’t have any need for money or wealth or property, because everything belongs to him. So what does he mean by “you are robbing me”?

He is talking about worship. The tithes and offerings were the way God’s people were to express their worship, praise and trust. When they withheld those offerings, they withheld their worship. What God wants most is our hearts. Jesus said,

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21

So when I withhold or reduce my offering to God – out of fear or greed – I am actually withholding my heart. And in that way I rob God of the pleasure of giving me the joy for which he created me.

Second: notice God’s promised response to our generosity and worship:

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 so much blessing that you will not have enough room for it. 

I can’t tell you how many people have confirmed to me the power and truth of this promise! The truth is this: God always honors generosity, and generosity always begets blessing. That blessing may or may not come in the form of material blessing; that blessing may be spiritual and relational; but the blessing always comes.

Finally, notice that God says “Test me in this!” I heard a speaker some time ago say (and I believe this is true) that this is the only place in the Bible where God says, “Test me.” In every other case the Bible warns us NOT to test God. But here he challenges us to trust his promise.

Have you tested God in your generosity? What does your current generosity say about the condition of your heart, the passion of your worship, and the depth of your trust? Is there any way in which God might say, “You are robbing me?”

Pastor Brian Coffey