In Your Bible Read This Out Loud: 1
Chronicles chapter 29
Memorise This Verse: 1 Chronicles
29:17 ‘I have seen with joy how willingly your people who are here
have given to you’
Afterwards Talk About This:
What this course has meant to you.
Something To Do Before Next Time:
Encourage others to do this course.
Written Diploma Work:
Briefly outline some of the leaders that God has used to release a large
corporate offering from the people of God.
Meditate Word By Word On This Verse:
Acts 20:35
The bible gives several examples of great
men of God who stood out as true leaders and one specific quality that
certain Christian leaders have shown in the bible is that they
encouraged and led the people of God into overflowing and generous
giving. Just as there are worship leaders who lead the people of God in
worship, and prayer leaders who lead the people of God in prayer there
are also those who are called to show leadership in giving and lead the
people of God into a wave of generous giving. As with all the gifts of
God when they are stirred up and utilised then both those who use the
gift and the beneficiaries of the gifts are blessed – when they are
neglected however, blessings are stolen away from the Body of Christ.
The first example of someone showing
leadership and leading the people of God in their giving is Moses who
led the offerings for the building of the tabernacle. Firstly in Exodus
25:1, Moses receives direct revelation from God concerning the building
of the temple and is instructed by God to lead the Israelites in their
giving of their money, resources and time. Moses then articulates this
vision to the people in Exodus 35:5 and the result is seen in Exodus
36:5 where the skilled craftsmen say, ‘The
people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the Lord
commanded to be done’. Have you ever seen an offering
being taken in church which was so large the people were told to stop
giving? – clearly, Moses showed incredible leadership in the
encouraging of people to give to the work of God.
The second example of leadership in
giving is King David who led the people of God in the giving for the
building of the temple as detailed in 1 Chronicles 28-29. Just as Moses
received plans from God to build the Tabernacle, David receives plans to
build the temple and in 1 Chronicles 28:2 he says, ‘I
had it on my heart to build a house as a place of rest for the ark’. In
1 Chronicles 29 David speaks to the Assembly of God’s people and
outlines the plans for the temple and what he has personally given so
the assembly is well informed. He challenges the people to give in verse
5 when he puts a searching and almost provocative question, ‘Now
who is willing to consecrate himself today to the Lord?’ As a
result a massive offering is given and in verse 20 the people fall to
the ground and praise God for the size of the offering when was the last
time you saw that happen in a church?
As we move onto the prophets at the back
of the Old Testament, we find three prophets that were raised up and
used of God to call the people of God back to generous giving :- Haggai,
Nehemiah and Malachi. After the Jews were allowed by Cyrus to go back to
Jerusalem and rebuild the temple, they spend more time and money on
their own houses and their own comfort. God speaks to the people through
the prophet Haggai and instructs them to prioritise his temple and give
themselves (and their money) into building it. The people receive God’
instruction through the prophet Haggai to prioritise and be systematic
in their giving and Haggai 1:14 shows that people threw themselves into
the building of the temple. The prophetic voice of Haggai turned the
people of God from being selfish into a wave of corporate giving.
Unfortunately, as time went on, people
slipped back into bad habits and selfishness crept up on the people of
God as a result God raises up another prophetic voice in the form of
Nehemiah who was allowed by the Persian King Artexerxes to also return
to Jerusalem and re-establish the community of God’s people. His
leadership and prophetic input eventually cause the Jews to take
seriously their responsibility to give and men are actually appointed to
be in charge of the storerooms for the contributions, first fruits and
offerings (Nehemiah 12:44). Nehemiah returns briefly to King Artaxerxes
and on his return he again finds that the people have neglected to tithe
– once again Nehemiah raises a loud prophetic voice and Nehemiah 13:12
says, ‘All Judah brought the tithes of grain,
new wine and oil into the store house’.
This seemingly perpetual cycle of God
sending a prophet to call the people back to systematic giving, the
people backsliding and then another prophet is sent is carried on yet
again in the last of the Old Testament prophets – namely Malachi, who
came at either the same time, or just after Nehemiah. Malachi was a bold
prophet who feared God and not the faces of men and through Malachi, God
was able to deliver some very strong rebukes to the people of God. In
particular, Malachi did something that almost nobody is prepared to do
today, namely, he issued a strong rebuke to the religious leaders for
their lack of generosity, their pathetic gifts and offerings and their
failure to teach the word of God.
It would appear that we need a thousand
Malachi’s today to combat the watered down preaching and financial
mis-management that is prevalent amongst church leaders. Malachi then
goes on to issue the strongest financial rebuke anywhere in the bible in
chapter 3:6-12 where he accuses the people of God of actually robbing
God by their refusal not to tithe. In conclusion God was so concerned
about the level of giving of his people after the Babylonian exile that
he anointed 3 separate prophets to lead the people in their giving and
their tithing.
The final example of leadership in giving
is Paul when in his second letter to the Corinthian church he exhorts
the church in Corinth to contribute to the collection for the
impoverished Saints in chapters 8-9. In the two most powerful chapters
in the bible on money and giving Paul goes into great detail about the
need to give to this particular offering and shows excellent leadership
and encouragement in exhorting the Corinthians to give. Whilst there are
many verses from these two chapters that we could quote to show Paul’s
leadership in this matter, he simply says in chapter 8 verse 7, ‘See
that you excel in this grace of giving’.
Just as Moses, David, Haggai, Nehemiah,
Malachi and Paul invited and exhorted the people of God to be generous
givers, I want to personally invite you to be a giver into the work of
the Kingdom of God and seeing the gospel taken to those people who have
never heard it. I invite you to turn away from selfishness and the
desires of this world, and I invite you to make sacrifices, sell your
possessions and do whatever it takes to be a generous giver into the
work of the Kingdom of God. I invite you to invest your money into the
precious souls of lost men and women and to see them saved from hell to
invest your money into the lives of orphans and widows and the poor and
bring the Kingdom to them. I invite you to give to dethrone the false
God of money out of your life, give to prove you have a true and living
faith and that the love of God is in your life, give to show that you
believe God is alive and can take care of your financial situation.
I invite you to give if for no other
reason than the fact that Jesus said in Acts 20:35 ‘It
is more blessed to give than receive’. James
1:22-25 says that if you hear the word of the Lord and do not do what it
says you deceive yourself in this book you have read hundreds of
scriptures and thousands of words about money and giving and if you
choose to ignore them and not be a giver then you have deceived
yourself.
Moreover, Galatians 6:7 says, ‘Do
not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows’,
this re-enforces James 1:22 which says that if we ignore what God says
about a certain matter (such as money) we fall into deception. Through
not giving, Galatians 6:7 shows that you are mocking God and you are
deceived – surely this is a position no Christian should be in. In the
name of Jesus, speaking from much personal experience, I invite you, I
urge, I plead with you to be a giver.
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