Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Deuteronomy 14:22-29

Sermon text for today is Deuteronomy 14:22-29. This sermon will deal with tithing. We’re still really working off of Hebrews 13:5-6 to not be covetous, but rather content with the things that God has provided. And this sermon ties into that. So, please stand for the reading of Deuteronomy 14:22-29.

You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. And you shall eat before the Lord your God in the place where he chooses to make his name abide, the tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil, of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

But if the journey is too long for you so that you are not able to carry the tithe or if the place where the Lord your God chooses to put his name is too far from you when the Lord your God has blessed you, then you shall exchange it for money, take the money in your hand and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses, and you shall spend that money on whatever your heart desires, for oxen or sheep, for wine or similar drink, for whatever your heart desires.

You shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household. You shall not forsake the Levite who is within your gates, for he has no part nor inheritance with you. At the end of every third year, you shall bring out the tithe of your produce of that year, and store it up within your gates. And the Levite, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow who are within your gates, may come and eat and be satisfied that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for commanding us to rejoice. And we pray, Lord God, that we would be transformed by the power of your spirit as we look to this scripture and many others that had to do with the tithe. Bless us, Lord God, with an understanding of it. More than that, make our hearts desire us to understand it so we may obey it more fully and the spirit of it as well.

Transform us Lord God by instruction from your word through your spirit today in Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated.

So as I was looking through my notes from past years on tithing and related aspects to it about six years ago, some of you will remember this, but there was an email sent out about new names for old hymns and you know taking old names of hymns and kind of reworking them. For instance, instead of “Take My Life and Let It Be,” which we sing regularly in this church, the new name is “Take My Life and Let Me Be,” or “What an Acquaintance We Have in Jesus,” where he leads I will consider following—kind of our minion hymns. “Be Thou My Hobby.” “Blessed Be the Tie That Doesn’t Cramp My Style.” “He’s Quite a Bit to Me.” And then finally, “I Surrender Some.”

Well, it’s funny, isn’t it? And part of the reason it’s funny is because there’s a lot of truth to it—that so often we sing these songs of total commitment to Christ and he is our life. And we know, you know, that’s true. And yet in our particular, in our present culture, there are so many things that compete for our allegiance and who we are and the commitments that are called for. You know, one of the reasons we had this covenant signing is, you know, to remind people what being a Christian is. You know, it sounds like a big deal to sign a covenant to keep the Lord’s day. Well, hey, that’s part of the ten commandments and it’s not a big deal really in terms of being some kind of new special deal.

But we have nominal commitments these days and certainly that’s true of the giving of the church as well. Tithing.

Now in Haggai he says that you know your problem is that if you don’t obey me you’re going to make money and you’re going to put it in pockets and there going to be holes in the pockets and I’ll send blight and mildew and your crops won’t grow. So you know we’ve been considering covetousness and then we talked about debt because a lot of debt results from covetousness—liking the things that represent God more than God himself.

Cutting this tether between the created reality that gives true those symbolic expression to attributes of God and instead just seeing the sun as a nuclear furnace and all that sort of stuff. And so debt frequently is related to the sin of covetousness. Not always but sometimes. So we spent a couple weeks doing an overview of what debt is in the scripture. You know, it’s interesting thing to ponder what these scriptures say about debt.

And it’s in a way it’s a little bit of our test about what is the names of the hymns we really sing because our culture is completely given over to the exact opposite of what the scriptures say in terms of debt. Our culture thinks debt is a good thing or greed is a good thing. It drives productivity and all this stuff. And there’s a sense in which we’ve never had more material prosperity than we have now except maybe pre-flood.

But at the same time if you look at what’s happening this morning I heard of the news this zombie party and six kids killed at it and you know if you look at the sort of world I told I told you—when we were kids you never heard of anything like half the stuff you hear about on the news today. Now part of it is we have more access you know the news is all connected you hear what’s going on all over the world but a lot of it is the culture has certainly slid and if you look back to the way this country was founded as we’re starting to in the men’s discussion group we had some of that talk this morning in the Sunday school class.

I mean, things are radically different and much worse in terms of social sin—public schools, abortion, homosexuality, now transexuality is the next wave that’s coming at us. You know, I’m not saying that you can make a one-to-one connection here, but I do think that there’s some connection that needs to be at least thought through about possibly being a connection between the kind of movement away from God’s word in terms of debt and money and all that stuff and toward what we have now. And I’ve talked about that for two weeks.

I don’t want to belabor the point, but I did want to mention that in terms of exile, I mentioned last week that, you know, the prophets say that one of the big reasons why God is sending the people into captivity, maybe the most significant second tablet reason, you know, dealing with people is enslavement and failure to let the Hebrew debtor is free in the seventh year. And this provokes some thought on John’s part and he pointed out that if you look at the period of the exile—490 years—that’s 70 times 7.

And we know explicit scriptures that tie that to giving the Sabbath land, the land rather at Sabbath rest, which they didn’t do. They keep farming non-stop, not stopping the seventh year. God says the land’s going to rest. But in the Bible, you are the land. There’s a connection between land and people, right? You’re dirt. You’re made from the land. You are the land, you’re the holy land, you know. So there’s this connection and you know, we see that in terms of the social problems that they didn’t release people in the sabbatical years.

And so the 70 times 70 probably is connected to that failure of release as debt slaves too. Debt servitude. And then that’s connected to Jesus talking about 70 times 7 men repent of their sins. Connection between debt and sin. All interconnected. And if we knew our Bibles a little better when we read that 70 times 7 is how many times you should forgive somebody, we would have make these connections you see and that’s between debt and sin.

So debt based on covetousness for the most part in our culture. You know the Babylonians did pyramid debt added house to house and that’s the way that America teaches you should make money too. Pyramid debt of housing. See this is—we’re Babylonian in our perspectives I think in terms of economics and these scriptures are calling us to a different way of looking at things and you know unless we think we’re smarter than God, it seems like we need to understand his truths and principles about how to work with money and you know not just say well we were for a time when debt didn’t work and now debt does work.

Now I’m not saying that they would speak against everything we do today but I’m saying that we don’t think about it enough if we’re going to be able to attain toward a life of not covetousness. God gives us a very practical you know, ritual that we go through called tithing where we consecrate all of our money to his purposes in his kingdom to put it straight in our heads.

Right? So, that’s what we want to talk about today is tithing. And I’m going to do the same basic approach as with debt. We’re going to give a little overview of what tithing is. I don’t have every reference, but the big references in the Bible in terms of tithing.

Now, when we looked at debt, we saw that the first debt secured by a pledge was tied to a sexual sin. And that was interesting. And if we look at tithing, we also have a couple of examples of it in Genesis.

And the first is in Genesis 14. And this is a very well-known text, and particularly we’ve been reminded of it in terms of the Melchizedek discussion in the book of Hebrews. But the first instance, and so you know, in the scriptures, the first instance is kind of significant typically, not always, but it’s it’s a big deal typically. And I think it is here. The first instance of tithing is Abraham to Melchizedek.

Genesis 14:18-22. Then Melchizedek, king of Salem. So how do we get peace? By honoring the king of peace, brought out bread and wine. He was the priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth. Blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” And he, that is Abram, gave him a tithe of all. And then the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the persons and take the goods for yourself.” But Abram said to the King of Sodom, I have raised my hand to the Lord, God Most High, the possessor of heaven and earth.

I won’t be enriched by you, he says. So Abram, two choices. Melchizedek, priest of God Most High. Sodom, we know where that’s headed. And he gives a tithe to Melchizedek. So this is important and significant because it underlays the case law references we’ll look at in terms of Levitical tithe. You know, is the tithe still relevant to the New Testament? Well, the sons and daughters of Abraham. And if you are, then you’ll do what Abraham, father Abraham did.

So before Moses comes on the scene with case laws regulating tithe, it is an assumed fact that tithe predates Mosaic regulations. You see the importance of that? And we could say based on what Hebrews tells us that the Melchizedekian tithe—Abraham’s tithe to Melchizedek—underlays the tithes given to the Levites. Because the Levites, Hebrews says, were in the loins of Abraham. They would come forth from him and they’re tithing to Melchizedek.

So tithing to Jesus, of which Melchizedek is a type, undergirds all the other references to tithing in the Bible. And that argues strongly in favor of the abiding nature of tithing. See, so it predates Mosaic law. Therefore, you know, it is binding upon those post Mosaic law as well. The transformation of all these things will change when they go into the promised land, the Mosaic covenant. But here the basic principle that we’re to give a tithe to the priest of God Most High a type of Jesus but also a priest just like they later have to give tithes to the Levites.

This undergirds this is a law. This is what we’re supposed to do. So the Melchizedekian tithe undergirds is the foundation for Mosaic or Levitical tithes and is and is I think clearly indicates the tithing remains the obligation of the Christian church today.

Now the next reference in the patriarchal period in Genesis is the reference to Jacob. And in Genesis 28:16-22, this is, you know, where Jacob is fleeing from Esau. He’s on his way to find a wife and establish his own life apart from where he came from. He stops. He has a dream. This is he names the place Bethel, the house of God. And so then this is Jacob awakening from this dream when he saw the ladder, Christ’s ladder, and the angels ascending and descending on it.

Verse 16: Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I didn’t know it.” And he was afraid and said, “Now, how awesome is this place? This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. This is the true gate of heaven. You see, the tower that would be built in Babel was an attempt to reach God. Well, this is the true gate to heaven. And we know in the Gospels, this is Jesus is this ladder.

Then Jacob rose early in the morning and took the stone that he had put at his head—excuse me—set it up as a pillar, poured oil on top of it. He called the name of that place Bethel, but the name of that city had been Luz previously. And Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and keep me in this way that I am going, and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, so that I come back to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone which I have set as a pillar shall be God’s house. And of all that you give me, I will surely give a tenth to you.”

Now, we read that and our alien presuppositions about who Jacob are tend to start to inform our reading of the text, the scripture. But the text of scripture has already told us in the beginning of the Jacob narrative that he is a perfect man. This word is used in reference to him of perfection. You know it translated differently in your translations for the most part. But Jacob is identified as a perfect guy. He is a role model to us. As much as that may make you squirm would be a little uncomfortable. He’s not making a deal here with God.

If we read it in light of who he is and what he has found out about God, then really in a sense what he’s saying is since God will do all these things for me. Oh, if you’re going to be that for me, then I’ll certainly give you a tithe. You see, it’s not “if now will you keep your promise, God?” No. “Oh, if you’re going to be my God or you’re going to provide for me, you are the one to whom tithes belong.”

Okay? Like Abraham tithed to Melchizedek. So again, the Jacob tithe predates Levitical tithe. And again, it ties the tithe in these two initial references in the patriarchal period to God’s provision for us, right? Bread and wine and time and here God’s going to take care of him and he’s going to give a tenth to God.

So we have a couple of you know patriarchal references here predating Moses and then in Leviticus 27 we have the redemption of the tithe. In Leviticus 27:31 and following—actually that whole chapter is given over to redemption of things vowed to God. So if you vow something to God and then you want to—in fact, you got to add value to it. You can’t just swap one for one. And Leviticus 27 instructs us in terms of during that particular period of time how the tithe worked.

And every tenth animal that came out, you know, would be tithed. Every new tenth animal that comes out of the herd at the end of the year would be tithed. Every tenth one. Well, now maybe one of those, you know, sheep or horse or whatever it is you really kind of like, you know, and you think this is really a productive animal. I want to keep that one instead of giving it to God. You could do that. But to do that, you had to add 20% to the value of the animal.

Now, what does this tell us? It tells us that the tithe is something very important to God. You can’t just swap out another animal, even if it’s of the same value. You see, it’s something really set apart in a special category of things. That’s a vow. It’s an oath to God. When you were baptized, whether you knew it or not, you entered into the obligations of the covenant, and you have this vow placed upon on you just like you know the people read here earlier to tithe to God. Well, you know that doesn’t start when they read that here in Reformation Covenant Church.

That starts with your baptism being brought into the faith. It’s one of the things that’s an obligation put upon you. And Leviticus 27 says this is an obligation that you better take very seriously. Very seriously. So it helps us. It’s kind of, you know, a little arcane. It was handling a particular set of circumstances during a particular time that are no longer directly applicable to us. It was dealing with tabernacle and temple and all that stuff.

But the truth of that verse and the importance of it is to say how high and important this obligation is seen from God’s perspective.

So Leviticus is the beginning of the case laws. Numbers 18 speaks of the use of the tithe. Why don’t you turn there to Numbers 18. And this has to do with Aaron and his sons. And it’s a long chapter dealing with how they’re to be supported. But in verse 21 and following, we have important information regarding the use of the tithe.

Verse 21: Behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tithes in Israel as an inheritance in return for the work which they perform the work of the tabernacle of meeting. Okay. So now we’re talking about the tithe in a particular setting. We’ve moved from the Abrahamic covenant and now we’re in Mosaic covenant and things are changed and made somewhat different. Instead of decentralized patriarchal worship, patriarchal worship, now we have a transformation of maturation to Levitical worship.

Okay? And to support those guys in this system in the Mosaic economy, this is what the tithe is. The tithe is given wholesale over to Levites for their support. That’s what verse 21 says.

Verse 24: For the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer up as a heave offering—a contribution offering is what that means—I have given to the Levites as an inheritance.

So again, the statement: the Levites. And then in verse 25 in my Bible, you got a little section that are not inspired, but it’s accurate: “The tithe of the Levites.” The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak thus unto the Levites, say to them, when you take from the children of Israel the tithes which I have given you from them as your inheritance, then you shall offer up a contribution offering of it to the Lord, a tenth of the tithe, and your contribution offering shall be reckoned to you as though it were the grain of the threshing floor and as the fullness of the wine press.

Thus you shall also offer a contribution offering to the Lord from all your tithes which are received from the children of Israel. You shall give the Lord contribution offering from it to Aaron the priest.”

Okay, so Levites are decentralized throughout the promised land in Israel and the Aaronic priesthood, a subset of the Levites, right? They’re actually ministering at the central sanctuary in the tabernacle and the wilderness and then the temple later on.

And so the Levites get a tithe from all the people. That’s where the tithe goes is to them primarily. And they then turn around and tithe to the Aaronic priesthood who are performing the service, the centralized worship going on. And based on this model, many ministers tithe not back to their local church but to other people, national Levites. This is probably the origins of contributions from churches to denominations for instance, is this kind of passing it up.

And whether that’s a good or bad application, I’m not saying, but I’m saying that understand how this works. The ministers of the word throughout the nation are tithed to and then they give a tithe to national sort of guys or maybe liturgical specialists. You know we could say well what is that? How do we apply that today? But the tithe goes into that next layer of Aaronic priests.

So from that case law we see that the tithes that are given to God demanded by God in terms of Melchizedek and Abram go to again the priests of God who now are the specialized Levitical and Aaronic priests that God has established.

Now in Deuteronomy 12, there’s a change in administration of the tithe. I looked at Deuteronomy 12:17.

So you know what we’re doing is it was used this way in the patriarchal period. Now it’s going to be used in Mosaic period in a particular way. And now when they go into the promised land, that’s the next thing, right? When they go into the promised land, now things are going to be different again. We’re going to go from tabernacle and its attendance to the temple.

Okay? A centralized sanctuary. And Deuteronomy 12 and verse 17 says:

You may not eat within your gates, the tithe of your grain or your new wine or your oil or the firstborn or your herd or flock or any of your offerings which you vow or your freewill offerings or the heave offering of your hand. But you must eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God chooses. You and your sons and your daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levite is within your gates. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all to which you put your hands to.

So now he says that there’s this a relationship of the giving of the tithe to central sanctuary which is the place your God will put his name—that means Jerusalem ultimately where the temple is. Okay. So when we get centralized everything set up in the promised land now the tithe somehow is connected and to be used in relationship to Jerusalem and this change of administration we get more detail in terms of what’s going on in Deuteronomy 14, the text which we read to begin today’s sermon.

And in Deuteronomy 14, it gives more specific instructions in terms of how the tithe is to be used. Now, you understand why we’re doing this. This isn’t just arcane old stuff. This helps us to understand what the tithe was, its various purpose and aspects. We’re going to make an immediate application to our family camp and our agape here in a couple of minutes because we think that’s a good application.

You may or may not agree, but we think it is.

So, here’s what we’ve got. Deuteronomy 14:22, as we read earlier: You tithe all the increase of your grain that’s in your field year by year. Now, understand this. First of all, in terms of methodology, you’ve got a grain field and the grain produces crop and you take that crop and you take 10% of that crop and you tithe it to God. You don’t take the crop and then eat and do various things with it and put them in savings and then tithe after that.

The indication of this agrarian description of tithing seems to be that private businessmen would tithe on the increase of the business, not just the salary they take out of it. Okay? Both with increase, you know, not your whole flock is tithed every year, but the ones that are born, your increase to your flock is what’s tithed. Every tenth new sheep is tithed to God, you know, before you eat it, right. So it indicates that the business so methodology is it can be seen here but that’s not what we’re going for mostly here.

You shall eat before the Lord your God in the place where he chooses to make his name abide—that’s Jerusalem the temple. The tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

But if the journey’s too long for you so that you are not able to carry the tithe or if the place where the Lord your God chooses to put his name is too far from you, then you can exchange it for money. Take the money in your hand and go to the place where the Lord your God chooses.

Now, what happened was three times a year, the men had to go up to Jerusalem at different feast times. And when they were to go up to that feast time, this was describing their use of probably the last feast, the feast of tabernacles, the end of the year, and that everything’s been brought in and now the tithe can be distributed.

So, these guys go up to Jerusalem for the feast of tabernacles. And he’s saying that there’s you’re going to use your tithe in part to do something there. When you give it to God, you’re also going to be able to exchange it for things that you can consume when you come to my place. So God says, you know, three times a year and most emphatically the third time is a big party, a big, you know, righteous, you know, joyful celebration of God’s blessing to them.

And when you bring your tithe up to me, you can take some of that tithe and convert it into, you know, mutton or beef or, you know, shark meat if you like it. Whatever it is you really like, green cheesecake, you can buy what you want to with a part of that tithe to finance your rejoicing there in my presence. And he says you can drink what you really like to drink, too. And he says there that you can whatever your heart desires, oxen, sheep, your wine or similar drink whatever your heart desires.

Strong drink is what’s talked about there. It means beer. So we have an explicit biblical reference here where God says it’s not just okay. He actually says during this period of time at least how we apply it to ourselves is you know we can talk about that but at least in this time of covenant history you are required to buy stuff that made you happy and rejoice. And you were required to do that not with your money You were required to do that with God’s money.

It’d be as if the state of Oregon says, “Well, you know, your tax rate is 15%.” But you know what? An awful lot of that stuff you want to. Every April 15th, you can have a party with it. And we It’s a one for one credit against your taxes to the state of Oregon. That’s what it would be like.

Now, this is a probably if we did that and we knew how much they were taking, April 15th would probably be the day of revolutionary parties or fasting or morning. Anyway, but isn’t this a wonderful thing? You know, you think about tithing as some kind of, you know, requirement. You got to pay 10% to God. Sounds like the state. And here God says a part of that tithe, he commands you to rejoice in his presence. Not it’s not just whatever you want to do, what you want to eat and drink, that’s okay. But what you’re doing is you’re coming together and convocating with the rest of Israel at a centralized sanctuary and you’re going to hear the word of God taught, you know, and you’re going to have a good time for a week.

You’re going to, you know, it’s not it’s not like going on a cruise ship by yourself. It’s like going on a cruise ship with a bunch of other reformed reconstructionist dominion Christians. That’s kind of the idea, that kind of party. And you know, it seems that this is perfectly analogous to what we do at family camp. You know, most churches sometime during the summer get off for a couple of days or a week or whatever it is and they have Bible teaching and they have a good time together and relax outside and that’s like feast of tabernacles.

And so we have this family camp and we’ve kind of modeled it more self-consciously after what we read in Deuteronomy 14 and this is why somebody sent me an email—I won’t mention his name—couple months ago: “What’s the view of this tithe being able to use for family camp here?”

It is: what we do at family camp is very much analogous we think to what Deuteronomy 14 is saying where coming away from our normal area. We’re getting together for a week. We’re going to have Bible instruction. We’re going to rejoice. And we think it’s a good thing if you let your kids say, “Could I please have X peanut butter cups or bars root beer or whatever it is, what makes their heart delight, you should buy them that, I mean, within reason and have it at camp. And you can use, we believe, you know, a portion of your tithe properly to pay for your registration fees at camp because that’s we recognize as elders at this church that the whole thing the whole not isn’t ours that God says an important part of it and we could do this differently.

We could say tithe it all to the church and we’ll make camp free something like that—who knows there’s different ways to do it. But what we’re trying to do is annually preserve this notion that you understand that the Lord God calls you to tithe you got to understand that you got I’d be obligated to do that. But you know, God is so gracious and good that he commands you to rejoice in his presence and he commands you to use some amount of your money to finance that rejoicing.

We also think that there’s application of this in terms of the agape because again we have a rejoicing time of festival together of eating together after the service and we think it’s proper to use some amount of you know as the text says is don’t forget your Levites. If you use it all, you’re not going to have Levites. Well, look at what happens when that happens in a couple of minutes.

So, you can’t use it all, but use a portion of your tithe to finance your food together as we get together in the Lord’s day. And so, you know, some women do that to buy Costco food, and some women do that and men oversee it to buy really neat ingredients for stuff that’s really good and tasty that they like to make themselves. Either one’s fine with me.

You know, to some of our kids, corn dogs are the best thing they see down there. And you know there’s a consistency to it. When you’re young, you’re not sure what’s in this dish or that dish, but you know this is coming from that box and it’s safe and it’s good and tasty. So that’s okay. See, we don’t want to get too much interpreting what brings joy to people’s hearts based on what we think.

We want to have freedom and liberty here. But what we do want to say is that the freedom and liberty is to the end that you rejoice at this meeting—at this agape at this love feast. And to that end, you know, you need to use some of your tithe money to buy those ingredients or whatever it is. You do that. You see, you do that. We’ll be happy. It’ll be good for you. It’ll be good for us. We think that’s a proper application of Deuteronomy 14.

Remember the Levites. So, Deuteronomy 14 says, well, you know, it isn’t all to be used that way. You got to remember the primary purpose of the tithe is to support Levitical ministers. We’re talking about an aspect of the tithe. That is what I’ve referred to as the joy aspect of the tithe. Some portion of it is used for those purposes. And he says in there, remember the Levites.

Then it says something kind of odd that throws us off. It says in verse 28:

At the end of every third year, you shall bring up the tithe of your produce of that year and store it up within your gates. Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your gates may come and eat and be satisfied.

So what’s this? Well, some people have taught R.J. Rushdoony that what this is a third tithe. Rushdoony has taught in his book Tithing and Dominion, a great book, but there’s some things we don’t agree with on it. And one of the things he taught was this idea of three tithes: that you had to use 10% of your increase to have your parties. 10% goes to the church and then another 10% every third year. So 3 and 1/3% of a year would go for the poor people.

But I don’t think that’s what God says. Now, he gets that from an intertestamental book that’s not inspired. And they might have been doing that between the testamental periods. I don’t know. But that’s not the correct interpretation, I don’t think, of this text. This text is saying that in a particular setting, here’s how you’re going to use the tithes.

First and second year, most of it’s still going to go to the Levites, but you have to come up to Jerusalem and rejoice there in my presence. Third year, you’re going to stay within your own gates for distribution of it. And the gates can be referred to here as the local Levites who are controlling it, or within the gates of your city. And in that third year, the element that might have gone to help you rejoice—there’s some element of that at least—that’s going to go to widows, fatherless, and the stranger.

Now, it doesn’t say the poor. And why? He could have said the poor, and we would have understood that the poor includes the widows, the fatherless, and the strangers. But he doesn’t say that. And I’ve got some references there for you on the outline that if you look them up, you’ll see that what it is we were you know we’re to be kind to the stranger because you were strangers in the land of Egypt and you know there were a lot of widows but only the prophet went to one widow a gentile widow so the gentile widow is a picture of the church we’re widows we’re strangers.

And in Ezekiel he says that God says he came across a baby and the baby was fatherless the baby was all abandoned and God raised the child up and eventually marries this child. It’s a picture of Israel or the church.

So the Bible says that we were strangers but God has brought us into a land. We were widowed but Jesus is the bridegroom of the church now. And we were the fatherless but God is a father to the fatherless. He’s a father to us. And so he’s done these things graciously. Given us the land, given us a husband, given us a father. You see these are gracious things to define our relationship to God.

He’s our sovereign. He’s our king, yes, but he’s our father. He’s the bridegroom of the church. And he’s the one who has graciously given us a place to be when we were strangers before.

So, so this is grace and it reminds us of what God has done graciously for us. And if we use and whether the church does it collectively or you do it individually, if we use a portion of our tithe and this would be a small portion and the rejoicing portion because of the third year thing. But if we use a some element of our tithe to give to these specific groups, not to the poor generally, no, to these specific kinds of people, strangers who are outside of their native environment here, immigrants, the fatherless, orphans, that would include, I think, the fatherless who are being abandoned in the abortion clinics.

I think the PRC is a great example of being gracious to the fatherless and to widows, you know, women whose husbands have died. If we do that, it’s a regular reminder to ourselves of the grace of our loving father in heaven, our bridegroom, and the one who has given us a land and made us a people. You see, and it’s an evidence that we understand that if we’re not gracious, then God says ritualistically grace is through a portion of your tithe to the fatherless, to the widow, and to the stranger. Then God says, “You probably don’t—you’re not in the same grace relationship to me.

If you don’t extend grace to others, then I’ve not extended grace to you. If you don’t forgive the debts of others, I’m not going to forgive your debts.” And so, this is this is a specific application of the way the tithe works. And what it tells us is pretty important. It still says, you know, the bulk of the tithe is to be used for Levitical ministries, but it says a part of your tithe is supposed to be used for rejoicing—not in isolation from community but with community. And we think two ways to do that is the agape—not the only ways, the agape—and our family camp. Rejoice in community and I know, listen, I know that some of you know have jobs you don’t have a lot of vacation time and you want to have family vacation I understand that nobody’s going to look down on you if you don’t go to family camp but I’m just saying that is one application for those of you that can do it to apply the truth of these verses.

And it’s so important for us to put tithing in that context—a reminder of the grace of God to us in bringing us into this relationship. And beyond that, God doesn’t just sustain us. He wants our hearts to be joyous and satisfied in his presence because that’s the way the text ends here: That they may eat and be satisfied.

Remember, we said that the problem with covetousness is it doesn’t yield contentment. Sexual sin, monetary sin, both of these things, you can’t—you’re like the rolling stones. You can’t get no satisfaction. But God says that his tithe produces satisfaction. That the poor widow, the poor fatherless person, the poor stranger is brought to satisfaction in God.

The end result of a proper administration of God’s tithe is satisfaction. And how could it be anything other than that? You know, when you when you complete this cycle of tithing and do all these things with it I mean yeah this not only properly orients us in terms of our money and you know the blessings of financial resources be content with things aren’t bad. God says be content with those things. It it kind of regulates that for us by giving God the whole through the part in terms of the tithe.

But you know, so much more than that, the tithe when observed properly in the way that we’ve discussed here, its whole end goal, its end result is satisfaction to his people. And when we’re a satisfied people, you see, when we’re satisfied with these wonderful things that God has given to us, then we’re not going to be so tempted to run off after, you know, what the world offers that will not satisfy. Then we are truly those who understand our relationship to God and are blessed with the joyous relationship to him in it.

Let’s stop there. Let’s just, you know, take that in. We’re going to move on and talk about some implications of not tithing. We’ve mentioned that briefly already, but I want us to stop today and just understand, you know, the big picture message of what tithing is all about.

Jacob wasn’t some kind of weird dealmaker. We joined his confession. Since the Lord God is so good to us, since he’s promising to put us in a land, make us a people—since he promises to be our the husband of the church, providing all of our needs and beyond that the father who owns the world and is ready to give it to us by way of inheritance. And because God is such a great God who not only will do these things, but will actually do them in a context of joy and causing us to joy with his joy, even in the payment of our dues, our obligatory taxes, as we could say, to our great King of Kings—that this is set in the context of joy.

This is what I want us to leave this week with. And this is what I want those of you who may not be tithing yet to meditate on this next week. What are you missing out on? The grace and joy of God. And those of you who are tithing, remind yourself this isn’t just some duty you do every week, every week or every month and you write out the check and well that’s a lot of money going to what those guys are going to do. Who knows what?

No. You know, remember grace joy, satisfaction. This is what Deuteronomy 14 says is at the heart of and culminates in the purpose of the tithing laws that God places upon us.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for today. We thank you, Father, for your grace and mercy and joy. And we do pray that as we go to our agape today, we do so with our eyes, our glasses maybe cleaned off a little bit to remember what the purpose of it is. Help us, Father, as we go to camp this year, many of us. Help just have our glasses cleaned a little bit by these scriptures from Deuteronomy 14 so we can understand what RCC is trying to accomplish there and what you’re doing through us.

And help us, Lord God, now as we come forward with tithes and offerings to clean our glasses a bit and to see what your scriptures say should be involved in this and what’s at the heart of it, your grace to us and your calling us to rejoice in you. Thank you, Lord God, for these wonderful truths for the gospel of Jesus Christ that we have a relationship with an eternal father who has called us to grace and joy.

In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.