- So good morning. So as I was preparing this message, a lot of people were asking, "I haven't seen you up there before. "How long has it been since you've been, "have you ever preached on a Sunday?" Yes, the answer is yes, I have. It was a very, very long time ago, probably before most of you came to our church, so that's why you've probably never seen me here.

It's back many years ago, before we even had two services, so that's how long ago. Interestingly enough, this Bible that I have is very old and it's an NASB, so when our church transitioned to NASB, I pulled it out. And as I was preparing this pulpit today, this morning, so the date, 2019, or January 19, 2020, in my Bible, I found a program from 2001.

(audience laughing) So God gave me an illustration, at least in terms of our church was very different, probably just like this section right here, back then. So it's been a long time, and this pulpit has been faithfully preaching God's word for decades now, and I've been a beneficiary of that, so I come to this place with privilege, with a privilege and blessing that the word of God has been faithfully preached through men here, especially Pastor Peter.

He's been doing this a long time, and I've been fortunate to sit under probably a thousand sermons, thinking through that. So Pastor Peter Chung mentioned, as we were going through the covenants, the very practical nature of the covenant and the signing of that covenant by our members. And he mentioned, and he kind of reiterated that we want our church to adhere to what Paul encourages Timothy, to watch our life and doctrine well.

So I get the privilege of getting to the very, very practical, your money, right? So let's jump into this covenant. So it's, in covenant number eight says, "I commit to tithing and giving financially "in accordance with Christ's lordship over my life." Let me read that again. "I commit to tithing and giving financially "in accordance with Christ's lordship over my life." So when we think about finances in general, we need to think rightly, and with the proper perspective.

Finances permeates every day, most days of our life, how we spend our money. Maybe we eat out, maybe we're spending, paying bills. Obviously those things are permeating through our day to day. And how often are you self-reflecting or evaluating your thinking about finances and money and how you spend money, right?

So unfortunately, we have heard in the church many stories of bad things, right? If you've been in the church, you know that we've heard the news over the years of theft, of embezzlement, of fraud, all of these things in the church. So your initial reaction might be, as you give, where's my money going?

Where's my money going? Is it being used properly? And those are things that we should be intentional about and we should be thorough about. And as one of the elders, or the elder that handles our financials for our church, and for the most part, I'm very encouraged by our members that they adhere to this and give, and with intentionality.

Not just because you signed a covenant to say, hey, I'm gonna tithe and give financially, 'cause I signed it, but there's intentionality for the most part. So in terms of this topic, there shouldn't be anything new about the idea of giving for God's kingdom and for his church, right?

And this message is not trying to milk you for more money or anything like that, so that's not the goal. If it ends up happening, then that was the spirit convicting you to give more, right? It's not me trying to milk you for that, okay? So what does the Bible say about money, right?

As I was preparing this message, it came across, I was just overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with how much the Bible talks about finances and attitudes towards money. I can't do it in one message. There's no way. But I'm gonna try to touch upon some major points. So if you flip the next slide, just the Gospels, okay?

So as I was studying, as I was preparing, there's probably about 38 to 40 parables that Jesus gives in his ministry. One out of three are talking about finances and money. Let's go through this. The hidden treasure, parable of the pearl of great price, the lost coin. And you should kind of have an idea what these are about, right?

The talents, easy one, the prodigal son and money, right? He blows the money. The rich man and Lazarus. Caesar's taxes. The rich young ruler. The laborers in the vineyard. So there's many more, and that's just the Gospels, right? Money issues and money teaching is not ambiguous in Scripture. So as I was thinking through this, the idea of what are the most sensitive areas of discussion when you talk to people?

What are the things that people say don't talk about with other people? I Googled it, of course. The three things not to discuss in polite company. Number one, religion, right? You've heard of these, religion. Number two, politics. And number three, money. So I get two of three that I get to talk about.

I would argue number two touches religion. But we're not going to talk about politics, right? If you want to talk to me offline or away from the pulpit, I'll be happy to discuss those things with you. But I get to touch upon this sensitive issue of don't talk about this with other people.

Money, religion, politics, all of these things. So if you follow along with the outline, I'm going to give it up front as our pastors have been doing. Number one, offerings and ties. Number two, obligation versus free will, the idea of lordship. And then the practical, the rubber meets the road.

So as I was speaking to our pastors and Pastor Mark and I had a discussion, I think last week, about topical messages. Topical messages are difficult. We both agree that there's so much material out there to try to get a topic addressed. It's a lot easier sometimes to have a passage and dive into expository kind of exposition on that passage because you have a place to go.

You can look at the passage through all angles. Topical is very big. So what I said was, "Well, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to exposit the covenant." It gives us a platform, at least for me, to jump off of. So it's broken down into two sections.

I commit to tithing and giving financially in accordance with Christ's lordship over my life. Personal commitment, I commit. And built into that statement is the idea of motivation. In accordance with the lordship of Christ. So when we think about tithe, the Greek word is "masar," tenth. Literally tenth. So I looked up in the dictionary as well.

The dictionary definition of tithe is the tenth part of agricultural produce or personal income set apart as an offering to God or for works of mercy or the same amount regarded as an obligation or tax for the support of the church, priesthood or the like. So when we put this into the covenant, well aware that the New Testament doesn't necessarily address tithe as the word, right?

But the Old Testament required it. It was required in the law. So when we think as we go through the Old Testament, as we see that the tithe is ultimately a bare minimum of what the Old Testament believers were giving. So what I wanted to do is kind of a brief case study through the Old Testament sacrificial system.

For those of you who were here during Leviticus study, we're going to touch upon some of the things you probably already learned. But if you turn to Deuteronomy 12, 4 through 7, it's up there for your reading if you don't have your Bible or you can't get there fast enough.

And it says, "You shall not act like this." Okay, sorry, let me set this up. The first few verses of this passage, he's talking about the comparison between idol worshipers and other nations. So it picks up in verse 4, "You shall not act like this toward the Lord your God.

But you shall seek the Lord at the place which the Lord your God will choose from all your tribes to establish his name there for his dwelling. And there you shall come. There you shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the contribution of your hand, your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock.

There also you and your household shall eat before the Lord your God and rejoice in all your understandings in which the Lord your God has blessed you." So there was this requirement as they approached God, God required offerings. So when were these offerings taken? Pretty much every gathering of the people of God, right?

The festivals, the feasts, the announcements, they brought an offering before the Lord. What sort of offering was required? Something, you can't come empty-handed, right? So you bring an animal, some grain, a drink offering. The point is you don't come empty-handed before the Lord as you approach him in worship.

So what typical sacrifice dominated the Old Testament system? I found this chart or this graphic, the five offerings. It's kind of a lot of there, a lot of things to read, the highlighted circles, right? The burnt offerings, sin offering, guilt or trespass, peace offering, meal offering. But I want to kind of focus on the blood atoning offerings, the burnt offerings, the sin and guilt.

That was a gateway into appeasing God, right? That he's holy. Those had to be addressed first. And then we see the Thanksgiving and meal and picnic type of offerings, right? Where people would give out of Thanksgiving and appreciation, they would sit down with their families and have a meal together.

So how does this principle apply to us today? So the most important sacrifice has been done, accomplished for us, right? Hebrews 7.26 talks about that. "For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens. Who does not need daily like those high priests to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people?" Because this he did once for all when he offered up himself.

And for those of you who are going through the first John memory, and I'm so encouraged, side note, there's 100 people in our church going through this. That's awesome. But Chapter 2, he's atoning sacrifice for our sins, but not only for ours, but also for the whole world. And that's the NIV version.

I've chosen to memorize the NIV version. So we'll leave it at that. So we're not required to bring an offering of an animal to shed blood and all that, like the Old Testament believers, right? But we have the privilege of bringing offerings of appreciation and thanksgiving. We don't need the blood sacrifice anymore.

That's been atoned for. But we have the privilege to still come and bring offerings of appreciation and thanksgiving. So what is that offering? The New Testament's clear, right? That sacrifice and offering that we bring now is ourself. That's what this Scripture teaches, right, in Romans 12, 1 and 2.

In light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ that Paul expounds for 11 chapters, Chapter 12, "Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." So the question is, what kind of offering sacrifice do you bring?

What does presenting your bodies a living sacrifice mean when it comes to finances? So the obligation versus free will, the lordship side of this. The expectation is your whole life, right? Romans 12 talks about that. It's your whole life. Namely, as we think through the financial side of things, it's time and money, right?

Pastor Nate last week touched upon this idea of do not forsake the meeting together and looking out for one another as he went through the one another's, right? All these aspects of looking out for the interests of others in time, right? That's where we can rubber meet the road in terms of how to apply that covenant.

As well in this aspect, we need to think of the resources and the finances side of things. So let's kind of look through what we studied in Philippians chapter 4, verses 15 and 17. "You yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel after I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving but you alone.

For even in Thessalonica, you sent a gift more than once for my needs. Not that I seek the gift itself, but I seek for the profit which increases to your account." So giving allows us to profit an increase to our account. In other words, we are the beneficiaries as we participate in giving, in participation of gospel ministry and work.

Acts 20, our brother Peter read that, "In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work, we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said. It is more blessed to give than to receive." The NIV talks about partnership and partnering, participation in the gospel.

So another thought came to my mind, "Are you gospel-centered?" So when I say gospel-centered, maybe you're thinking of other things. Maybe gospel-centered isn't the normal kind of thought process of financial or resources. Maybe it brings some baggage because there's a lot of things that gospel-centeredness brought about in the church.

But let's break it down. God-centered. Is your aim in your life for gospel purposes? Does gospel-centeredness mean that the gospel is the goal? Of course it does. So we talk about vision number one, right, at our church. We want to give God-centered worship, not man-centered. So what is God-centered worship then?

Looking at everything through the prism of God, right? So when you think about God, what is God-centered about? Meaning God himself. He is gospel-centered. God-centeredness is gospel-centeredness. So everything needs to be applied. If we're going to use that term to identify ourselves with that we want to be gospel-centered, we want to be God-centered.

Everything has to go through that prism. Your time and your finances as well. Philippians chapter 1, 3 through 5 says, "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now." For context, Paul is using the Philippians as a model in Macedonia to encourage the Corinthians.

If you look at 2 Corinthians chapter 8, he's referencing the Philippians. "Now brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality.

For I testify that according to their ability and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, begging us with much urging for the favor of participation," again that word, "in the support of the saints. And this, not as we had expected, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and to us by the will of God." What does that mean?

So when we think about finances and resources, often we're thinking of investments, property investments, cash, credit cards, retirement planning, 401ks, mutual funds, index funds, Roth IRAs. But how does that relate to covenant number one, where Pastor Mark went through, "I confess Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior." So when we think through the idea of practical illustrations, I want to give you one.

God was gracious to give me one in practical life. So a few weeks back, as I was thinking through this, I was kind of living life, right? I left my house. I had two of my kids, CJ and Corbin, I think, with me. We were going to Costco to get some gas.

So I left the house, and unfortunately, I left my wallet at home. So as I'm driving, as I'm getting on the freeway, I'm like, "Oh no, I left my wallet at home." Not a big deal in my mind, because Costco, you could do everything through your phone. So I wasn't going to turn back to get my wallet.

My second son, whose name is Corbin, he says, in response to my comment, "I left my wallet at home," he's like, "Appa," which means "Daddy" in Korean, "money is very important." And I'm driving, and I heard that, and I was like, "Yeah, it is. It is important." I chuckled about it, but as I'm thinking about financials and what I'm going to address with the church, I was like, "That's so true.

Money is very important." The Bible talks so much about money and our attitudes towards it. Oh, and by the way, Corbin, if you don't know what Corbin means, it means "offering devoted to God." So interesting, and it didn't come from my first son, CJ, but Corbin. So God ordained illustration, I believe.

So that thought came to me, more and more, the importance of money in light of Scripture. And like I said, I can't do it justice. These verses and these parables, we can sit down and go through all of them. But what is the motivation to give? Is it an obligation?

Is it just out of our own accord? Is it the mindset of the definition of tithe, right? He talks about taxes to the church. I don't necessarily like that idea. Who likes the idea of taxes? Is that the mindset we should have in terms of church? That I have to give because they're going to go after me then.

Not the civil government, but the church government's going to go after me. Wrong attitude. Don't view giving to the church as a tax that you would pay your property taxes or income taxes. It's gospel enterprise. It's for the gospel to go forth and move forward. Don't think I got to pay the minimum, as less as possible, to not get into trouble.

Wrong attitude and perspective. 2 Corinthians 9, 6 says, "Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully." Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart. Not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

We've heard that. We've heard offering prayers about desiring to be, having an attitude of cheerfulness. What does that mean? It literally just means non-reluctant giver. When we think of generosity, what does that mean? Give liberally like it isn't yours. Because it isn't, right? How much do you spend time thinking about money?

Maybe you're in a career of finance. Probably you're thinking about money a lot. But for the most part, I think a lot of us do spend some time thinking about money. I don't have enough of it. I have debts. I have bills. I have this I want to save up for, or this college fund I got to think about my kids over.

How much of time do you spend thinking? Remember we talked about the rubber meets the road time and money? How much of that time is spent thinking about your finances? When you think about finances or investing or investments, do you think about eternity? I'm thinking about my 401(k). Is eternity coming to mind in the context of your thinking about how to handle your money?

And to be fair, this is an encouragement and challenge to me as well. To think in aspects of how I spend my money, how is that benefiting the gospel enterprise? How are you using that money for the furtherance of God's kingdom? One thing is we talk about, if you know anything about finances and financial planners and these people in finance, they will say, "Are you investing in your future?" You've heard that phrase, "Are you investing in your future?" What does that mean?

Are you thinking the long, I have it written down here, the long-term future? And what is that? Not retirement. It's eternity. The long aspects of our future. Jesus made it very clear in Matthew 6. He says in verse 19, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves 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 also be." So I found this quote from one of my favorite pastors, Pastor John Piper. If you could put that on, read this with me. He says it like it is. "My take on tithing in America is that it's a middle-class way of robbing God.

Tithing to the church and spending the rest on your family is not a Christian goal. It's a diversion. The real issue is how shall we use God's trust fund, namely, all we have for his glory? In a world with so much misery, what lifestyle should we call our people to live?

What example are we setting?" So I kind of stopped there and thought about what example am I setting? I thought of the phrase, "Put your money where your mouth is." I also thought, when the non-believers hear about you tithing, it's 10% of your income, right? It's a tenth. What is their reaction?

What is the reaction of the world when they say, "You give 10% of your money to the church?" What do they think? So what percentage is appropriate for a believer in Christ who has received everything? This idea of comfort in finance, this idea of comfort in general, we've heard it many times on this pulpit.

We like to say Orange County Christianity, right? We've heard that phrase. But what is that? It's the idea of this push for our whole culture to push for areas of our lives that make it easier, whether that be comfort of automation, self-driving cars, efficiencies. So in those aspects of comfort, how should we view our finances?

The phrase, "You should have enough to take care of you for the rest of your life." Is that how God views how to handle the money he's given to you and us as stewards? Is that what he's saying? "Oh, you should take care of yourself for the rest of your life." And then you could start thinking about others.

So many of us are frugal and track every cent of money that we have. Not a bad thing. So why are we so particular about every single cent? Because, as Corbin Jentz said, money is very important. Right? I titled this sermon, "Is He Worthy of Your Finances?" The question is, of course he is.

But do you really think it's your finances? This idea of how do we spend our finances for gospel ministry. I thought about Paul's example of he's using the Philippians as a prime example of their participating. And he thanks them for financials because it's moving the gospel forward. It just so happens, as I was thinking through that, what is going on now?

We have a team in India, and many of us in our church, I think it's 51. 51 India pastors are supported by our church. And that's awesome. That's awesome. What are we supporting? What are we supporting? We're supporting them so they can free themselves for gospel ministry. And what kind of ministry?

Think about what we hear from our brothers and sisters in India. They're literally on the front lines of gospel enterprise. They walk into villages where they don't know anything about Jesus. And what is the result of that? They get persecuted. They've been beaten. Almost killed. Guess what, folks? Brothers and sisters, we are participating in that.

We are giving our resources for the funding of gospel ministry. So when you view giving to the church, when you view giving to gospel enterprise, you're on the team. You're supporting that team. I thought about the idea of, you know, we pay money to go see sports. I remember Pastor Peter just talking about Kobe and his sports.

And I thought about this, that we participate in this team because we pay money to support it, right? In a much grander way. When we put our finances for gospel ministry, especially with these India pastors, it's kind of like an analogy of World War II. I don't know how much history you guys read or whatnot.

World War II is pretty far removed from us now. But when World War II was happening, America's attitude was we have to ration to support the effort of fighting this evil. I don't even want to think about it. Imagine if Germany won. A lot of us might not even be here.

I don't know. But the attitude should be when we're giving our finances, remember I talked about gospel-centeredness. The aim of our money to be given to the Lord's work is for that purpose. That we move and think through our finances when we oftentimes think only about, "Okay, what am I going to do with my money?" "Obviously I've got to pay bills." And I'm not saying here to not pay your bills and live out on the street.

That's not the point. The point is the self-evaluation and hard attitude of how you view this money that God has given to you as stewards. Given to us as stewards. So the goal of this topical message and this covenant is to commit to the idea of gospel enterprise. Gospel work.

So when we think about specific ways to participate in the gospel through the money. So I kind of laid out some. Number one, give finances for the church. Let me stop there. This idea, everything, all of these other things should be run and filtered through the church. God established the church.

We are his bride. We are the body of Christ in the description of the church. So the priority of finances should first and foremost go to the church for gospel enterprise. Missionaries, obviously. We have China, the India support. As I was thinking through this again, this idea of not to be prideful or confident or anything like that.

But there's a sense of immense gratefulness that we even have this relationship where we can participate and pray for and hear these crazy testimonies coming out of India for the furtherance and pushing of God's kingdom. Right. And if you don't know, there's a lot of fruit being born through that.

I don't think we get to disseminate as so much information, but people are coming to Christ by the work of these Indian pastors. And hopefully the continued support as our teams out there. Compassion kids. Pastor Peter Chung spent many years in compassion. It's the support of the local church that we're doing.

We're supporting the local church for the furtherance of taking care of these kids for gospel ministry. Adoption is the orphans. What more? What better way to bring them into your home and saturate them with the gospel? And other ministries. I am the beneficiary of when I was a younger Christian, I listened to a lot of radio sermons.

I spent a lot of time in a car like eight hours a day, and I filled my mind with these radio programs of sermons. And it was so refreshing. So in essence, can we support them as well? Yes. Are they gospel centered? Yes. So this idea of finances, it permeates every day of our life.

And the covenant says I commit to tithing and giving financially. But I want to encourage our church, that is in the Old Testament, that was the bare minimum. I want you and us to think about the percentages. If you want to think about percentages, what percentage is appropriate for gospel ministry?

If I left the idea of Romans chapter 12 verse 1, offer your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing, and left it at that and said, how are you going to handle the fleshing out of what God says when he says give everything you have? How does that apply to my finances for your offering before God?

We can think through time, how much time can I spend giving to God? But this is the tangible for us day to day. How much can I think about how much money I'm going to give? Again, I want to reiterate, this isn't a desire to milk our church. This is a desire for evaluating and self-examining how I view the spending of my money.

And we all agree and understand that it's not my money. How are we using that for gospel ministry and gospel purposes? And that's the encouragement that we sign, in accordance with the Lordship of Christ over our life. So, be encouraged. A lot of people were like, I have my checkbook today.

That wasn't the goal. Bring your checks and put it in the offering. That wasn't the goal. I mean, it really hit home for me as I was reflecting and thinking, I have that same attitude sometimes. Well, what am I going to spend my money on to benefit me or my family?

Should that be the number one thought process? No, it shouldn't. If we are gospel-centered people, we need to start integrating that rubber-meets-the-road kind of attitude about money into everything that we do. And it's not just about money, it's about our time, everything. So, I just got the privilege of dealing with this sensitive topic about money.

So with that, let's go ahead and pray.